Category: Food

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Congress has passed passed the Food Allergen Labeling and Consumer Protection Act, mandating the top 8 food allergens appear on labels in plain English! The voluntary labeling over the past few years has been very helpful. Well, some of it has — the “processed in a facility that also processes XYZ” labels mainly amount to a CYA statement, although I’m sure there are people sensitive enough that it does help.

The NPR story provided some examples of why this matters, including a story of a college student who had a very similar experience to one I had a few years ago: he bought a chocolate chip cookie from a vending machine — a brand he had been eating with no problems for several years — but they had added peanut flour to their mix without labeling the change. He died within 15 minutes. When it happened to me, I had enough medication to stop it. But I don’t eat anything from Famous Amos anymore.

Some other nice provisions include having the FDA do a study on cross-contamination [archive.org], and having the CDC track allergy-related deaths.

Further reading: The Food Allergy and Anaphylaxis Network, The Food Allergy Initiative. [Update: The organizations have since merged as FARE.]

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Today’s recipe:

LIVERWURST PATE

1 lb liverwurst
1/2 t basil
1/4 c minced onion
1 (8 oz) pkg cream cheese
1/8 t red pepper sauce
1 t mayonnaise
red or black anchovy paste
salt and pepper to taste
2 cloves garlic, crushed (keep cloves separate)
parsley

Mash liverwurst with fork. Add 1 clove garlic, basil, onion, salt and pepper. Mix thoroughly. Mound into an igloo shape on plate. Cover and chill. Blend together cream cheese, 1 clove garlic, red pepper sauce and mayonnaise. Spread over liverwurst. Refrigerate for 8 hours. Spread with anchovy paste right before serving and garnish with parsley. Serves about 15.

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Typist’s note: I actually like liverwurst, but this sounds disgusting. I assume there are people who would beg to differ, but I don’t know any.

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Today’s pathetic recipe:

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APPLE YOGURT

2 c fruit-flavored yogurt
4 apples, cored and sliced

Spoon yogurt into 4 serving bowls and top with apple slices. Serve chilled. Serves 4.
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Now let’s look at just how craptastic this is. First off, it’s labeled a dessert. Secondly, 4 apples?? Unless we’re talking miniature Galas off your tree, this is not only difficult to spoon up but also way too much fruit for the yogurt. Laying the slices on top would overflow the dish and completely obscure the yogurt. I suppose one could arrange the slices standing up in a flower pattern and use the yogurt as dip, but why serve that chilled? Thirdly, this is the second recipe in the calendar for basically the same thing; the first one was with orange yogurt and tangerines. However, put some orange blossom honey (and possibly a little finely chopped candied ginger) on that and you’ve got something slightly resembling dessert. For this one to fly, you’d need to use Yoplait Whips (or a similar product) and some caramel sauce. Oh, and half the apples.

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I have a page-a-day calendar at work called “The Quick Cook.” It advertises itself as containing a variety of recipes with low prep time and uncomplicated ingredients. After five months of it, I think I know what their sourcebooks were:

  • Desserts Kids Will Hate
  • The Dijon Mustard Council Cookbook
  • Imitation International Cooking
  • Midwestern Weirdos’ Aid Society Cookbook, 1967 edition
  • I Can’t Believe They’re Vegetables
  • White Trash Family Favorites
  • The Precooked Seafood Association Cookbook
  • Quick Country French Cooking

There are a few gems of the actually good kind, like an actual workable recipe for avgolemono soup and one for panzanella, but otherwise it’s less hit than miss. Continue reading →