Along about the time that the Irish government issued a blanket recall for all pork products, I logged on to the FDA website, partially to see if there was any information there for American consumers of Irish pork products (there was, a single entry), and partly to research information on the large beef recall of 2008. While I was there, I subscribed to an email feed of recalls.
Every week, I receive a list of company XYZ and ABC company recalling a small batch of contaminated this, and another bit of mislabeled such-and-so. The fact that not a week goes by without one is a cause for alarm on its own. But there hasn't been a thing since the recent "peanut story" broke. Were there no active recalls? Were the servers overloaded? Or did they eat some Nutter Butters?
It is, of course, a classic example of the complicated web of industrial food supply. Many are questioning the slowness of the response (the toxin was first detected around Labor Day, it's Inauguration Day today). But tracing the ingredients in our food is no easy task, especially given the complex web of distribution, with trucks and boats ferrying ingredients all over the world. The ability of the government to oversee our food safety is severely hampered by the crushing pressure to produce cheap food.
Lest we point our fingers at the government and say it's all their fault, I would remind us that our own desire to save money means that we have also willingly aided and abetted business and our government. We are the ones who shop the discount stores, who stock up on the marked-down cookies and who look at the price per unit instead of the ingredients. Chain stores are doing their part too, putting suitable pressure on producers to not only keep prices low, but make them lower (thus increasing profit margins and shareholder value, cornerstones to our "keep growing"
economy); retailers are marking down things before they go past date to increase profits; and mother corporations continue funding lobbying to resist labeling requirements such as country of origin or genetic modification of ingredients.
But I would put to you that there is a way around all this mayhem. When bags of spinach from California were contaminated with
E. coli, we munched on fresh spinach from Carnation; when the Irish government told us pork may have eaten dioxin-contaminated feed, we dined on apricot-glazed pork loin chops, reassured by the farmer that his beast had eaten kitchen scraps; and if we really want peanut-butter cookies, we can grind peanuts at the co-op to make fresh peanut butter, and then go home and bake our own.
Is it cheaper? I may have had to shell out a few more cents for my bunch of organic spinach, but the loss to the industry topped $350
million; those loin chops seemed expensive at the time, but no amount of money could buy any bacon or sausage during the first two days of the recall; and my peanut butter sandwich cookies are far tastier than anything you can find in a big box store. Whether they cost more--in terms of time or money--is your call, since I personally consider the time spent making (and eating) them enriching, not costly.
I guess it's just a matter of value. Or values.
Peanut Butter Cookies 1 1/4 c flour
1/4 t. salt
1/4 t. baking soda
1/2 C butter
1/2 C freshly ground peanut butter
1/2 C granulated sugar
1/2 C brown sugar
1 egg
Combine flour, salt, and baking soda, and set aside. In large mixing bowl, mix butter and peanut butter until well blended; add granulated sugar and brown sugar, mixing well, and beat in egg. Stir flour mixture into peanut butter mixture until well blended. Drop by spoonfuls onto lightly greased cookie sheet; flatten with a fork, and sprinkle lightly with granulated sugar. Bake at 375 for 10-15 minutes, or until lightly browned. (the key is really to watch them very closely--pull when just browned and let set before moving to the cooling rack / paper sack or whatever you use).
We dunk in this:
Chocolate soup2 cups half & half
6 oz. bittersweet chocolate, chopped
Pour milk into a 2 quart heavy-bottomed saucepan and bring just to a boil. Remove from heat. Add the chopped chocolate and stir until well combined and the chocolate has melted. Cool a bit and serve in small espresso cups.
