gastropoda

I’ve written too often about how fascinated I am by the slingers in the weekend papers with those coupons for the most bizarre processed crap. But lately they seem to be glaring evidence of what’s always left out of the unceasing hectoring over fast food versus home cooking: All the junk in the supermarket. Someone’s gotta be buying the boundless frozen Macaroni Grill “lasagnas” and instant potato gratins and “pizza stuffers” and egg-and-sausage biscuits. And it’s really no better than McDeath, which always gets the blame for the great American bloat. Technically, popping open a tube of crescent rolls and wrapping them around hot dogs and processed cheese “food” is home cooking, or at least fixing food. But junk is still junk. And the ads in the food magazines definitely promote it (although even that is better than 92 pages of lawyer listings). How is anyone supposed to get in and out of the supermarket with only canned beans and a bag of rice without being tempted by three days’ worth of calories in a single freezer box? Are you supposed to avoid the near occasion of sin and shop only in farmers’ markets? And I really would like to see a study showing just how the Wall-Eization of America correlates with the introduction of the microwave. Once upon a time you had to wait 45 minutes for instant gratification of the pizza or enchilada variety. Now you can gorge in seconds. And take comfort in knowing obesity is the last taboo. Only your doctor can call you fat.

Which leads me to the most ridiculous brouhaha since, well, the last time food idjits got taken. What fascinated me less than the fact that a bunch of dolts were duped with processed lasagne was how the story progressed, from blogs to the hometown paper and back to blogs again. You’d think no one knew how to get out and report these days. And everyone who jumped up to attack the flacks who did the duping seems to forget that old story, possibly apocryphal, about Winston Churchill asking a woman if she would sleep with him for a million dollars. When she said yes, he asked about doing so for five. She indignantly responded: “What do you think I am?” And he said: “Ma’am, we’ve already established what you are. Now we’re just negotiating the price.” Cynic that I am, I did a little noodling on the Google and turned up no end of bloghos who happily touted that garbage for nothing more than a free sample. The outraged should be glad they got a couple of drinks and a reason to put on their “rig” and get out and mingle. Besides, didn’t Panchito just say this kind of chemicals-and-additive carping is all about class? I’m sure ConAgra just wants to make sure the poors have fud.

Before Al Gore gave us access to all information all the time online, I used to keep a file of clippings on shootings in fast-food joints. I had editors who wanted features on the dangers of that processed crap, and I liked having documentation that some nut with genitalia issues can always do a lot more immediate damage by exercising his Second Amendment right to blast away with an imported Glock simply because his sauce wasn’t special enough. And so I’ll just reTweet myself from the latest slaughter and say the biggest reason for eating well is very basic: You do not want your last meal to be in an IHOP.

Chipotle’s Willie Nelson video is “Our Daily Bread” condensed to mere minutes. But it’s funny how one short is worth a thousand Egopedist textings.

And I guess I have to wade into the melted butter even though my biggest fan (not in the Loudon sense) has defended himself well, and one of the best food bloggers out there crafted a verbal-Astaire response as well. I’ll just say what I did all those years ago when a guy whose strongest credential was having eaten at the McDonald’s near the Spanish Steps was first anointed to pass judgment on an art form that probably means more to the city’s bottom line than even theater: WTF were the bosses thinking? Eric Alterman had a good warning that the worst Chimp enabler ever should “stay the heck away from politics,” but letting him back anywhere near food has just been proven equally embarrassing. What the AA is selling is not cuisine for the noble heartlanders. It’s processed crap, tarted up. (Whored down?) I got an email within hours from a friend in Philadelphia who is not even in the food world saying he spotted at least four egregious overstatements, and of course anyone sentient is still waiting for the correction on whether Les Halles is a very busy bestselling writer/television star’s restaurant 10 years on. Mostly, though, the drivel illustrated how far removed your average op-ed writer is from the red states they all claim to celebrate. The rubes aren’t rubes eating from Applebee’s salad bars. They must understand Liberace is not Fannie Farmer.

I didn’t read it, but I did see a widely disseminated link to a piece on “what not to eat at chain restaurants.” And I’ll admit I’m a total food snob, but I just had to wonder how cretinous Americans have become. Or how out of touch journalists are. People don’t go to the Cheesecake Factory because they want to eat well. They’re thoroughly programmed Americans: They wanna shovel. The whole silly story could be summed up with another budget line, cutting expenses for whichever section assigned the piece: Don’t eat at chain restaurants. Just say no to shit.

And in other nonsense, I wonder if the link-baiters who compile lists of kid-friendly restaurants understand the unintended consequences. I see something like that and make a mental note in ALL CAPS to stay the hell away.

This has to be the most ridiculous product even in a supermarket world that still sells Hamburger Helper when beef is shit-cheap: Tortilla Stuffers. Aren’t those burritos?

And speaking of earth off its axis, I was appalled to come across an ad in a Working Mother that accidentally landed on our doormat. While the Very Serious People are ranting about the risk to future generations from the deficit, the nextest generation is being targeted with Lunchables, easily the most wastefully packaged processed crap in the history of plastic fud. Now, the copywriters boast, they contain “fresh fruit,” in the form of pineapple chunks in sugar water. I’m so old I remember peanut butter sandwiches wrapped in wax paper in a brown bag refolded and used over and over. Now kids generate a 1950s family of nine’s trash in a single “lunch.” But I understand cooking is just so much more difficult these days . . .

Over at my Dr. Jekyll outlet, I’ve already commented on the idiocy of a cake mix company trying to re-target its crap to Food Network followers it thinks might be willing to put in two and a half hours on a dessert from a box. But in retrospect Ms. Hyde started dwelling more on the apparent naiveté of the reporter who brought the marketing campaign into the Timeslight. His last graf noted that Duncan Hines “began attaching his name to food products.” Licensing/franchising, you mean? I believe that’s called selling out.

A Waikiki resort is now offering “GMO-free cuisine.” Which will make the birthers go even nuttier — could there be better proof Hawaii is really not America?

I killed the lunchtime mood on Saturday by mentioning the death of the 575-pound spokesmodel for the Heart Attack Grill just after a heap of French toast, barbecued short ribs, bacon, poached egg, Cheddar and onion rings arrived on one plate, with a huge side of fries. Which was dumb, because the friend who ordered that irresistibly bizarre combination is such a careful eater he can indulge in overkill on any occasion. But you do have to wonder about a country so confused that a restaurant could make international news by proudly promoting killer food while Mrs. O continues to be attacked for suggesting maybe we could all eat better and move around more. As I noted over on the Epi Log, though, lard is the last four-letter villain in the piece. The offending restaurant may have boasted that its fries were cooked in the white stuff, but that’s the least of the problems. Consumption has dropped as asses have ballooned over the decades. Which is just one more reason I wish the Egopedist had been required to do a little more reading before being allowed to step onto the soapbox. A lot happened between the Depression and the Great Backside Inflation. Just Wiki Earl Butz, and not for loose shoes and warm places.

The onetime home of the Human Scratch N Match also ran a silly story, on produce prices rising, that actually quoted a woman stupidly musing that it might be “the economy” to blame. Not bad weather and diminishing water, of course. As I noted over on the Twitter, anyone complaining about the price of tomatoes in March is cooking it wrong — this is the season of “better dead than red” in the produce aisle, at least if you want flavor and fair prices. But then there was the way a protest at the newish Upscale Aldi’s was covered elsewhere. Most shoppers interviewed thought it was all about those softballs next to the flown-in blueberries, not the fact that so much processed crap is cheap because tomato pickers in Florida are paid slave wages. Really, if a chain can’t Shetland-pony up a penny a pound more, you really have to wonder how exploited its grape harvesters are. Two bucks might be more than a price.

National Nutrition Month turns out to also be National Frozen Food Month. And I don’t think they’re talking baby peas, which really are better than fresh. Shouldn’t the former designation get 12 slots on the calendar? And in other flackery gone bad, someone hit me with the big news a chef is “reinventing” shepherd’s pie using lamb rather than beef. I have yet to hear of a crook for calves’ necks. And no one would ever describe New Zealand as a place where the men are men and the cows are nervous.

I spend more time on pol porn than following the vacuity in the food world these days, obviously, so I shouldn’t be surprised there’s smarter commentary on the McD oatmeal outrage over there than you’ll get from the Egopedist. It’s as if he never read all those Wells we slaved to make publishable. And as much as I enjoy the old “always exaggerate — it makes life more interesting” cartoon caption, a sausage biscuit is just hyperbole when it contains nearly as many calories from fat alone as the oatmeal does altogether. Still, I’m assuming the designated thinker is paying for all the Twitthelp and research. Unlike a nobler character who’s compiling his next best-seller Arianna-style. (I’m all in favor of crowd-sourcing, but at some point there’s gotta be profit-sharing. Or look out, Egypt, here we come. . . )

Apparently I don’t get out much, because I’m way too obsessed with print fud. So I noticed the erstwhile Mr. Cutlets’ ode to margarine in Time magazine omitted a key detail. Sure, the other yellow stuff is still hugely popular even after the trans fat hysteria. And you know why? The shit is a lot cheaper than real butter. Five bucks for Land O’Lakes or $2-something for suspending disbelief? Your food stamps decide. . . But at least no Spam was harmed in the nostalgia fest.