gastropoda

And speaking of rice rationing, call me cynical, but I’m starting to wonder if all the food shortages are not being pumped up by Big Food just to make genetically modified crops more inevitable. None of this happened overnight, but it’s being covered like a hurricane. And so that ridiculousness of People for the Harassment of Carnivores’ offering a reward for the development of in vitro beef got way more press than it warranted. I remember the international media ejaculation over the first test tube baby and suspect that if they manage to replicate the “miracle” with meat they’ll give it a name. Which of course will bring everything full circle, judging by the cute-animal brochure a vegan handed me at the Greenmarket. One quote: “If I knew you, I wouldn’t eat you.” I guess that’s why cannibals have no friends. And MoDo is bitter.

In other fast food “news,” KFC is wallowing in tons of press for switching to grilling from frying. A Philadelphia friend said the headline in his tab was “What the cluck?” And that would apply as well to the group suing the company for allegedly raising a cancer risk (apparently we now know what wiped out the dinosaur grillers: charcoal). Another friend sent me a release on it, noting that the benevolent “concerned physicians” name is really just a front for animal rights crazies. To which I have to say: If your cause is so noble, come out and fight like real doctors. You might actually win. The WSJournal just ran a good story on the pork crisis unfolding in Britain as hog farmers’ expenses have gone up while income has dropped. Although the key graf was buried on the jump, it’s clear that the trouble began when the government started banning cruelty on factory farms. Raising bacon humanely does cost more. But then hell is forever, and pork should never be cheaper than rice. Let alone chicken.

Consider yourself lucky Joe Nocera is merely wanking rather than flipping omelets at brunchtime in some super-busy restaurant. His take on the downer cows that were ground up and distributed to who-knows-which school lunch or Hot Pocket: One mad cow won’t spoil the whole batch. I am no admirer of animal rights activists who muck around with the food chain, but only someone who has eaten way too many “tacos, Mexican style” in a company cafeteria could seriously think an expose of an undeniable health threat was a simple publicity stunt. Long after Americans are going down with BSE, Nocera and his ilk will be quoting the inevitable Bushism: “No one could have anticipated. . . .” If you think an animal waterboarded to stand upright to pass inspection is going to make good eating, I have a Paula Deen ham to sell you.

Years ago there was a spittle-flecked crazy broad who would stand in front of Zabar’s with blowups of really gross porn and rail about women being exploited. I guess Ms. Introspective went off and cloned herself, because Fairway is now plagued by nutcases all wrought up and frothing about foie gras. At least they spare us the shots of splayed webs, but I always wonder why they give the store next door a pass. And now I know whose welfare they are truly worried about: On a 23-degree Sunday with winds whipping, not one of the livertarians was anywhere to be seen. Why do I have visions of Cheetos gavage in a warm living room?

Talk about a confederacy of dunces — the great WSJ story on how horses are suffering as the economy goes to hell is a telling example of what happens when the Chimp’s incompetence meets the cretinism of bleeding-heart airheads. Letting high-maintenance animals starve because the slaughterhouses have been shut down is not exactly enforcing their rights. There are worse things than butchering Trigger for dinner.

If there could be verbal gavage, every soft-headed opponent of foie gras would be forced to read the WSJ’s amazing piece on piglet castration. I still feel guilty about the gap between my Siamese’s back legs, and he at least was knocked out before we dealt with the feline version of “boar taint.” Now I know about 50 million “mostly unanesthetized” piglets are de-nutted in this country alone every year, primarily to keep the meat from tasting funky. And to me that makes overfeeding look like Thanksgiving. The story said animal rights activists have forced Norway to ban the procedure by 2009, and of course producers there are bitching and producers elsewhere are nervous. And consumers should be queasy as well — the solution being pushed is, naturally, a vaccine that would do the castrating. But hey, what’s one more hormone in the food supply when ducks are gorging?

One more reason I’m going to miss the WSJournal: Its story on “faux gras” was a typical just-the-facts masterwork in covering the general silliness that ensues when the government gets all up in your food. I learned that there are now foie speakeasies in Chicago (and we all know how well banning booze worked) and that there are more and more substitutions (run, chickens, run — but who will save the soybeans?) My one wingnut friend wants to blame those goldurn lib’rls for this insane turn of fatty events. But even I cannot believe duck livers could ever wind up with the sacred status of human embryos. And it could get worse, if Rupert succeeds according to pattern in whipping up the base. You can forget about eating an unborn chicken for breakfast over those enlightening pages ever again.