Continuing the flour/food theme:

The great gluten-free scam 

Once, pasta and bread were store cupboard staples. Now, many of us are replacing them with ‘healthier’ gluten-free foods. But are they really better for us?

... [Nutritionist Ian] Marber predicts that these voices will only grow louder. “Our attention will turn to other diet trends, but the gluten-free craze will grow and grow.” Following a gluten-free diet isn’t actively harmful, he adds. “If it makes you happy, do it!” he laughs. “By buying that expensive stuff, you’ll certainly be making someone else very happy.”

I always laugh when I see something like a box of rice or a package of deli meat labeled "gluten-free"; it's an obvious marketing appeal to idiots. The article points out that really only about 1/100 have a true gluten disease, the rest are just wishfully thinking that gluten-free will make them thinner and give them more energy.

And the idea of labeling such obviously gluten-free foods such as rice and meat is just laughable. I swear our kids already know that gluten comes from wheat, while apparently much of the buying public is clueless--despite jumping on the gluten-free bandwagon.

Marketers are just surfing the tide of the latest craze.

We eat a lot of Indian food at home, and often look up recipes online. Common ingredients include semolina and farina. Indian words for farina include sooji and rava, and it is also commonly referred to as Cream of Wheat, though this is a brand name and not exactly the same thing. Strange then that many expert Indian cooks don't seem to recognize the difference between these ingredients! I see the ingredients referred to incorrectly everywhere on the web.

 What most American cooks call semolina is not sooji. Semolina is yellow, is made from hard durum wheat, and is the primary ingredient of Italian pasta. The American word for sooji is farina. Farina is white, is made from soft wheat, and is the primary ingredient of Cream of Wheat. If you make a semolina cake with farina, the result will be mushy. And what you want for upma is not semolina, it's farina, i.e. sooji or rava. It is a difference that matters. Indian stores tend to sell both products. That's another reason why it is strange that so many experts don't seem to know the difference!

We often get vegetables from neighbors. They have gardens and can't eat all of the tomatoes, peppers, etc. themselves. This year though, a neighbor has planted a specific variety of pepper just for us. The Bhut Jolokia, one of the world's very hottest.

In 2000, India's Defence Research Laboratory (DRL) reported a rating of 855,000 heat units (SHU) on the Scoville scale,[8] and in 2004 a rating of 1,041,427 units was made using HPLC analysis.[22] For comparison, Tabasco red pepper sauce rates at 2,500–5,000,

The first one, pictured here, was picked a bit green:



Kind of fun! I'm interested in seeing just how hot these things are. But really, what is one supposed to do with them? Can we cook with them? I'm afraid just one would overpower a pot of just about anything.

It’s Time To Kick Farmers Off The Federal Dole - Doug Bandow - The Politics of Plunder - Forbes

In a new paper for the American Enterprise Institute, Dr. Barry K. Goodwin at North Carolina State University observed: ”a large share of agricultural subsidies goes to a small segment of society that tends to be wealthier, less financially leveraged, and of higher income than the nonagricultural sectors of the aggregate economy. Moreover, farmers do not generally face more risk than business owners in other sectors, nor do farms fail more often than other forms of business. In fact, farm businesses rarely fail.”

In short, Uncle Sam is playing reverse Robin Hood.

I've long held that first-world agricultural subsidies (which make up the biggest chunk of the EU budget, for example) are not just economically stupid, but immoral. The best way for the poor of the world to make a little money is through farming, but they can't compete with government subsidized and protected farms of the first world. At $60 billion a year, this would be an easy cut from the budget.

Lower Saxony's agriculture minister says initial tests have confirmed that locally grown beansprouts are the likely cause for Germany's E. coli outbreak that has killed 22 people and sickened hundreds.

Time to irradiate! Seems like a no-brainer to me, but it has that scary "rad" word in it.

Who knew? Arthur Treacher's is still around. It seems it has been absorbed by Nathan's.
You can see one in NYC on google maps.

Coming soon to a neighborhood near you... it's community organizers advocating on behalf of people living in "food deserts." These are urban regions where the nearest grocery store is a mile or more away, or rural regions ten miles from a grocer.

The idea here is that obesity, which strangely correlates with lower income, is due to the lack of healthy food choices in certain neighborhoods. Advocates call for zoning laws that will keep out fast food restaurants from such places. It seems rather paternalistic to me. It's hard for me to believe that people eat at McDonalds because no Whole Foods is nearby.

The USDA has an interactive map showing "food deserts" across our nation. It's pretty interesting. Vast swaths of Nashville are included.

I was particularly struck though by one large neighborhood in Milwaukee. It's centered along Capitol Drive between the Milwaukee River and I-43. It runs south to Keefe and up to Hampton.



Ummm... ok. So I guess Piggly Wiggly and Aldi don't count as grocery stores? Not wholesome enough perhaps?




Ok, but what is the explanation that accounts for Outpost Natural Foods not counting? It's a giant natural food store smack dab in the middle of this "food desert." This doesn't inspire confidence in the USDA's assessment of the problem.



(h/t wmbriggs.com)

If you are interested in learning about Indian cooking, I recommend watching the videos at Manjula's Kitchen on YouTube. They are nothing flashy (pardon the pun), but quite enjoyable and informative, I think. Manjula clearly has a lot of experience and knowledge on the subject.

We bought a pizza stone yesterday. We used it for pizza, which turned out great. Now perhaps I will try to make naan, an Indian bread. Here's Manjula making it:



Looks so easy!

I've tasted enough mango pickles to have a favorite. It's Mother's Mango Pickle Mild.



They have a hot one too, but it's really too hot to be delicious.

Foie Gras Jelly Donut?

This trend is obviously a backlash, a thumbing of collective noses against years of picky eaters, sauce-on-siders, vegans and other dietary malcontents so frequently bemoaned by fine-dining chefs, as well as a celebration of that delightful category of ingredients that will likely send you — both literally and figuratively — to heaven. Moderation and good common dietary sense have no place here. Foie gras jelly donuts, on the other hand…

To tell you the truth, I welcome this change.

I don't really see this as a backlash, I see it as a chef trying to show that he's got "attitude." Jelly donuts are delicious, so is foie gras. My reaction to the thought of Foie Gras Jelly Donut is "yuck," as it would be to sardine pizza with chocolate sauce.

Sounds like a selection for Bizarre Foods. Good show, by the way!

Ann says: I remember watching an episode of Jamie Oliver, where he talked about a chef-friend of his who prepared a very strange dessert for him: chocolate eggplant. Though Oliver thought that it was going to be disgusting, he actually liked it enough to present it on his show. I've been looking for the recipe online ever since. I can't imaging it being anything other than gross.