Jakob's Bowl

Run Away, Run Away

If you didn't care what happened to me,
And I didn't care for you,
We would zig zag our way through the boredom and pain
Occasionally glancing up through the rain.
Wondering which of the buggars to blame
And watching for pigs on the wing.

Pigs On The Wing, 1976
Roger Waters

Well, there he goes again. Just as suddenly as he left Clarklewis in 2006, and Café 401 in 2009, Morgan Brownlow has departed Tails & Trotters. The announcement was made on Brownlow's facebook page on Monday. The collaboration between Aaron Silverman and Morgan Brownlow has produced some of the most amazing cuts of pork and charcuterie that the Pacific Northwest has ever tasted. Plans are for T&T to continue producing bistro cuts of fresh hazelnut-finished pork and cured pork products of every denomination for sale at area Farmers' Markets and their impending storefront. I certainly hope they don't miss a beat!!!

The Value Of Organic Certification?

What A Difference A Year Makes! It was about a year ago that I posted about the USDA Inspector General's audit of the USDA’s enforcement of the National Organic Program (NOP) (Certified Organic: Whom Can You Trust?). The results while shocking to some, were not unexpected by those who followed the letter of the law in growing and producing their organic products. Real organic producers had been paying the price for lax and even non-enforcement by not being able to compete on an even playing field with those who gamed and cheated the system. My main concern at the time was the lack of inspection of food products labeled "organic" coming from China. I assumed that the 'organic' risk in this country was a lot lower, and I was apparently wrong.

On March 2nd, the USDA took some long overdue steps to actually enforce the National Organic Program and in the process increase the value of 'real' organic certification...they revoked the accreditation of two - now formerly - organic certifying agencies, Certified Organic, Inc. (COI) and Guaranteed Organic Certification Agency (GOCA) for failing to comply with the National Organic Program regulations, including a failure to "ensure adequate training for employees about the regulations." Hopefully, this is just the first step in reversing the effects of Gresham's Law on 'real' organic food products and reestablishing their true value in the marketplace, as well as allowing the consumer to have more faith in the stamp on the back of the package.

 

Just Greasing The Pole

No, I haven’t disappeared…I’ve just been preoccupied. But earlier this week just as I was about to return to my examination of fish sauces, I received an email with the subject line "Hi From Frito-Lay." I assumed it was some sort of response to my post, The Slippery Slope, from a few weeks ago. Sure enough, it was:

Hi Michael-

I wanted to reach out to you because I recently read your article, "The Slippery Slope". I work at Ketchum PR and Frito-Lay is one my clients. I saw that you had some questions and concerns about the natural ingredients found in our snack chips.

I wanted to let you know that currently, Tostitos are made with only three ingredients - corn, healthier oils such as corn and sunflower and salt. In addition, what you mentioned about Frito-Lay announcing that approximately 50% of their products are being made with all natural ingredients is actually completely correct. And this includes three of their biggest brands- Lay's® potato chips, Tostitos® tortilla chips and SunChips® multigrain snacks. These products will not contain any artificial or synthetic ingredients, artificial flavors or artificial preservatives, or ingredients such as monosodium glutamate (MSG).

If you have any additional questions about Frito-Lay or its products and all natural portfolio, or would even like to sample them, please don’t hesitate to contact me.

Jessica Defilippo
Senior Account Executive

Ketchum. Passion and Precision in Communication.
A proud partner of Room to Read; World Change Starts with Educated Children®
Our goal is to reach more than 10 million children by 2015.

Given the fact that she did not provide any information that wasn’t in the press release referenced in my post or address any of my sarcasm tinged comments about the value of the Frito-Lay announcement, I am not quite sure why she took the time to send me the e-mail!!! However, I am grateful she did, since her corporate signature just serves, ironically, to add more fuel to the fire.

This PR firm seems to have a noble goal, but I wonder how many of those 10 million children that they hope to reach by 2015 will be taught how to read and understand the nutritional labels and the ingredients lists of those bags in the well stocked vending machines into which they keep pumping their dollars. How many of those children will be able to understand the relative and absolute nutritional merits of a bag of Tostitos versus a bag of Doritos, and why the latter are even being offered for sale???

Tostitos Ingredients: Whole White Corn, Vegetable Oil (Corn, Soybean, Canola and/or Sunflower Oil), and Salt.

Doritos (Nacho Cheese) Ingredients: Whole Corn, Vegetable Oil (Contains One or More of the Following: Corn, Soybean and/or Sunflower Oil), Salt, Cheddar Cheese (Milk, Cheese Cultures, Salt, Enzymes), Maltodexrin, Wheat Flour, Whey, Monosodium Glutamate, Buttermilk Solids, Romano Cheese From Cow’s Milk, Cheese (Part-Skim Cow’s Milk, Cheese Cultures, Salt, Enzymes), Whey Protein Concentrate, Onion Powder, Partially Hydrogenated Soybean and Cottonseed Oil, Corn Flour, Disodium Phosphate, Lactose, Natural and Artificial Flavors, Dextrose, Tomato Powder, Spices, Lactic Acid, Artificial Color (Including Yellow 6, Yellow5, Red 40), Citric Acid, Sugar, Garlic Powder, Red and Green Bell Pepper Powder, Sodium Caseinate, Disodium Inosinate, Disodium Guanylate, Non-Fat Milk Solids, Whey Protein Isolate, and Corn Syrup Solids. (emphasis added)

A Fish Sauce Saga - Prelude

My history with the funky smelling sauce from Asia made from fermenting small fish in the presence of salt extends back just about 30 years. The first half dozen of those years, however, I didn’t have a clue that it was a part of the Thai, Vietnamese, and Korean dishes I was consuming on a somewhat regular basis. No, it wasn’t until the late 1980s when I started seriously studying these and other Asian cuisines that I came to understand its properties and to grasp its role as both a seasoning and flavoring ingredient and its importance in the various culinary cultures of Southeast Asia and beyond.

I first noticed bottles of Tiparos brand of Nam Pla from Thailand and Pufina Pastis from the Philippines in the kitchens of a number of friends from the Philippines, and there seemed to be little bowls of it on the table at every meal. I wasn’t brand conscious at the time, nor was I aware that there might be differences in the way they were made from one country to another - and at the time I’m not sure if I even read the various ingredients lists. I distinctly remember buying Tiparos for the first few years, and then switching to the Three Crabs brand from Thailand, since it was most often recommended by the authors whose cook books I was working from. At the time, I also had no clue that the fish sauce made on the Vietnamese island of Phu Quoc was considered to be some of the best in Southeast Asia, if not the world. I also didn't know that because of the post-war embargo, it was impossible to buy Vietnamese fish sauce in this country - hence the recommendations for Three Crabs brand at the time even by Vietnamese chefs in this country.

Well, over the next few posts I hope to make some sense out of the smelly world of fish sauce, and in part through the process of comparative tasting decide for myself where the quality fish sauces are made...Vietnam's Nuoc Mam, Thailand's Nam Pla, The Philippines' Pastis, Korea's Aekjeot, or Japan's Shottsuru.

The Slippery Slope

Last week while flipping through the cable channels, I happened to catch a snack food commercial that amazed me. It was ostensibly about the lengths that the Tostitos “ingredient buyer” goes through to find the “natural” ingredients for the tortilla chips. The ingredients buyer was a fairly young woman and she walked around on a farm examining baskets of produce, and plunged her hands into a basket to examine the corn, etc, etc, etc. I laughed at the fairy story, but then I wondered how many people would actually believe that a multi-billion dollar snack company bought its main raw material from small farmers and not from the commodity giants of Big Ag - probably tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands. That’s the power of Madison Avenue, and its ability to bend the story of the small farmer and artisan producer to Big Food’s needs. This evening I searched online for the commercial without any luck, but I did come across something even better, this headline:

Frito-Lay Launches Products Made With All Natural Ingredients

It was from a December 28, 2010 Frito Lay press release announcing a change in company policy:

PepsiCo's Frito-Lay North America division today said that approximately 50 percent of its product portfolio will be made with all natural ingredients, including three of its biggest brands, Lay's(R) potato chips, Tostitos(R) tortilla chips and SunChips(R) multigrain snacks. The products made with all natural ingredients do not have any artificial or synthetic ingredients, and they do not contain any artificial flavors or artificial preservatives, or ingredients such as monosodium glutamate (MSG), yet still have the great taste consumers expect from Frito-Lay.

And just one paragraph later it offered some justification:

"As the snack food category leader, we have insights that show consumers are seeking a wider range of products made with all natural ingredients. At Frito-Lay North America we want to provide our customers with a broad portfolio of snack options that taste great and are made with real food ingredients," said Ann Mukherjee, senior vice president and chief marketing officer, Frito-Lay.

But how do they justify what they have been selling to consumers all these years, you know all those snacks made with ingredients that aren't "real" - including the 50% of their portfolio that will apparently continue to be made with the"synthetic" ingredients made to fool the consumers' taste buds.