Food in the News

There have been some interesting food-related tidbits of news in the papers in the last couple of weeks. Here are some of my favorite stories...

Truro, England - A gentleman named Jonathan Jones, descendent of the famous Earl Grey, produces the first commercial crop of tea ever grown on English soil.

The Brits have always loved their tea - in fact, they colonized much of the world for a cuppa. The average Brit still drinks at least two cups of tea each day - a total of 165 million cups of tea per diem. In Ireland, the average is closer to three cups, which proves I'm a little more Irish than English.

This is great agricultural news. Even though this smallish crop of Camellia sinensis won't make much of a dent in the global tea market, at least some Brits will have the opportunity to drink tea that's grown locally. I only hope Mr. Jones doesn't mess it all up by exporting his crop.

Coamilpa, Mexico - Japanese instant Ramen noodles invade Mexican pantries.

Mexicans now have the dubious distinction of having become Latin America's largest per capita consumers of instant ramen. 1 billion servings consumed just last year. The convenience stores are stocking it, the government is distributing it through its food assistance program. Ramen is taking over the culinary niche once filled by traditional beans and rice.

This is, they say, an economically driven development. Approximately 60% of the workforce earns less than $13 dollars a day and ramen can fill a person up for less than $.40 a serving. In fact, ramen noodles were originally invented as a solution to the problem of post-WW2 hunger in Japan. But, I must say, it makes me wonder what a serving of rice and beans would cost. Can't be much more than $.40 a serving.

I think this is fairly awful news, as food news goes. As Marla Dickerson wrote in her article for the Los Angeles Times, making and eating ramen is "a profane act for some Mexicans whose relationship with food is so sacred that their ancestors believed humankind was descended from corn." Touche.

I'm with those - and there are many, apparently, thank the corn god! - who worry about what globalization does to our relationship with food and culture. And what the "new foods" do to our health. I used to eat a lot of ramen in my college days. I tried to make it a little healthier and more substantial (and interesting) by sauteeing some onions and carrots to add to the noodles.

On its own, ramen is not a nutritional winner. Fat. Bad carbohydrates. Tons of sodium. Which equals more obesity, more diabetes, more heart disease, and as Dickerson notes, that's particularly the case among the poor. Which means that whatever money the government is saving now by distributing ramen will eventually be spent multi-fold directly or indirectly paying for the consequences of ill-health. So, who's really the winner here?

Boston, Massachusetts - The "Gluttony Games" come to town.

Speaking of ill-health, the International Federation of Competitive Eating came to Beantown this weekend to sponsor a chicken drumstick and wing contest. All the binge bigshots were there, including Sonya "Black Widow" Thomas, ranked #2 in the world, and Joey (no nickname yet?) Chestnut, ranked #3 and the Federation's rookie of the year. Thirteen contestants in all; 150 lbs. of chicken; $3,500 prize.

What more can I say? People train for this, folks. The Black Widow, who holds records for sausage, fried asparagus, and baked beans, came in 4th. Chestnut, who is the title holder in the pork rib and waffle categories, devoured 4.2 lbs. of chicken in 10 minutes to take home the $3,500. I bet he washed those wings down with a lot of beer and still had more than enough to pay for his flight back to California.

Chicago, Illinois - Proposed ban on foie gras divides the culinary world.

Chicago, city of carnivores with a history rich in slaughter and meatpacking, finds itself in the middle of a big debate about goose liver pate, as Alderman Joseph Moore, put forth a proposal to ban the sale of foie gras in Chicago's restaurants. A vote of the full city council will likely happen later this month.

For those of you who aren't up to speed on the controversy, foie gras is made from the livers of geese and ducks who've had tubes stuck down their throats two times each day and been forcefed a diet of partially cooked corn to fatten 'em up. There are currently only three foie gras farms in the United States, thank the waterfowl gods! In this debate, I side with the geese and the ducks over long-standing French culinary tradition - or poor American imitation thereof.

Burlington, Vermont - October ice storms damage maples, threaten sugar making.

This one's short and sad, not at all sweet. The headline almost says it all. Many trees have fallen, branches have been snapped, vast networks of plastic tubing, which carry sap from the trees to the collection tanks, have been ripped down, and sugarers worry that they won't be able to get all their sap taps in before spring. Keep your fingers crossed for sugaring season in Vermont!

Huire, France - This year's Beaujolais Nouveau will be released on Thursday, November 17!

Stay tuned for more news on this...

And finally, some news on fruit flies...

"Brain circuit in fruit flies acts as sexual-orientation switch"

Researchers announced earlier in the year that they could induce a female fruit fly to court another female fruit fly, simply by tinkering with a single gene.

They caution, however, that human sexuality is much more complicated.

And that's almost all the food news that's fit to print! Stay tuned for future editions of "Food in the News..."