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Whatcha eatin’?

February 10th, 2004 · No Comments

Some articles about food in recent Seattle Times:
From Monday’s paper –
County restaurant inspector on front lines of food safety
:

“You’re lucky. Today’s Tuesday. We don’t take prisoners on Tuesday.”

That’s one of the hokey lines French uses to put food-service workers at ease. He calls his routine visits “walk-throughs” rather than “inspections” because that sounds less intimidating.

Microbiologist me could see myself enjoying a job like that one a little, sticking thermometers into pieces of meat and tubs of water. Makes me remember too my burger-flipping (actually milkshake-mixing) days. The inspector’s visit was always dreaded and unannounced, although I think we had some idea when the official might come.

Sunday’s paper had an article: Food Glorious Food the more you know the worse it gets

Once upon a time, eating was a simple and grateful thing, not a political act, moral statement or calculation of risk. Canned meant convenient. Imported meant upscale. And meat was merely part of a meal, not a mortal question.

But in Pugetopia, an abundance of choice, disposable income, information — and of course, our culture of gravitas (“We love the rain! It makes us read more books!”) — combine to form the natural habitat of the Earnest Eater.

A sober citizen who wants to be kind to animals; to family farmers; to Third World countries; who yearns to be gentle with our dewy glade of a planet — and avoid E. coli, antibiotics and all the rest.

[…]

The Coast Salish tribes created one of the most complex societies known in aboriginal times in part because their primary food, salmon, swam right to their door.

When the white guys showed up and tried to make them farm, interest was scant.

Tags: food