Food but not recipes

[John Thomas8]

I love watching people enjoying making food and what they're doing on YouTube:

[MN-Skeptic]

I went to the grocery store today and they had Pumpkin Spice Cheerios.

It's only August!

[Volkonski]

All major retail holidays now last 3 months.

[neonzx]

All major retail holidays now last 3 months.

Well more than 3 months in advance it feels like.

[bill_g]

I wouldn't mind me some Reeses bunnies. They taste better than Reeses Santas.

[northland10]

I went to the grocery store today and they had Pumpkin Spice Cheerios.

It's only August!

Great Lakes Brewing's Oktoberfest releases in the beginning of August. I am not ready for a fall brew in the summer.

Of course, their Christmas Ale releases in October.

[Volkonski]

Game of inches: Lobster fishermen say tiny change in legal sizes could disrupt imperiled industry
The impending change might be only 1/16th of an inch or 1.6 millimeters, but it will make a huge difference to fishermen.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/ga ... rcna166519

The impending change might be only 1/16th of an inch or 1.6 millimeters, but it will make a huge difference for fishermen when the fishery is already facing major threats from climate change and new rules designed to protect whales, numerous lobster fishers told The Associated Press.

Interstate fishery regulators, however, say the change is necessary to preserve the future of the lobster population off New England as the species shifts farther north with warming waters.

In addition to causing a dispute between fishermen and regulators, the change has led to confusion about the ramifications for international trade in one of the world’s most popular seafoods.

“We don’t need any more, really, on our plate. It’s just a lot going on, one fight after another,” Cushman, 55, a boat captain who fishes out of Port Clyde, said. “We don’t need anything in the marketplace to lower the price of lobsters.”

Fishermen are pushing back at the new rules slated to go into effect next summer, because they fear even such a small change could dramatically alter their ability to fish. They also say it would put them at a competitive disadvantage with Canada, which harvests the same lobster species and has more relaxed rules. Some worry the size change could glut the market with lobsters in future years.

But recent surveys have shown a decline in baby lobsters off Maine, and regulators with the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission say that could foreshadow a decline in catch.

Lobsters need cool water ideally between 12–18°C (54–64°F). They can remain healthy in water up to 20°C (68°F).

Warming waters have mostly ended the once abundant lobster fisheries in southern New England and Long Island. Here the water temperatures in the Great Peconic Bay and Long Island Sound now are about 73°F.

[RTH10260]

Why Mexico Beats The U.S. In Avocado Production

CNBC
9 Aug 2024

The U.S. has developed a huge appetite for avocados, with per-capita consumption more than tripling since 2001. Neighbor Mexico has fueled a lot of the demand, with 80% of its avocado exports bound for the U.S., which in 2024 are set to total $2.7 billion. No other country comes close to Mexico’s production; in 2023, the state of Michoacán alone, where most of Mexico’s avocados come from, planted more than 440,000 acres, according to the USDA. By comparison, California, the U.S.' most dominant avocado producer, had little more than 52,000 planted avocado trees. Several factors like expensive labor, skyrocketing water costs and shrinking land availability have diminished the state’s role in the industry significantly. Can the U.S. avocado industry ever catch up to Mexico’s?

[AndyinPA]

Interesting. Thanks.

[Volkonski]

Boar’s Head Plant Tied to 9 Deaths Had Mold, Leaky Pipes and Flies

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/08/30/heal ... -meat.html

Over the course of a year, food safety inspectors, who are a constant presence in meat facilities across the United States, noted escalating problems at the plant.

Under U.S. Department of Agriculture rules, the processing facility, in rural Virginia, was expected to swab for listeria, which the agency considers a “zero tolerance” concern that can spur an immediate recall. Yet the inspectors — who also swab and test for listeria, a lethal bacteria — do not appear to have been the first to prompt a recall of more than seven million pounds of ham, salami, hot dogs and other meats by Boar’s Head.

The alarm rang after people like Günter Morgenstein, a hair stylist renowned in coastal Virginia, fell gravely ill. As Mr. Morgenstein, an active 88-year-old known as Garshon, grew frail in the hospital in early July, his family racked their brains to think of everything he had eaten in recent weeks.

As listeria illnesses spread, a disease detective in Maryland began to suspect liverwurst as the common thread, given the older age of the hospitalized patients. Her hunch proved correct: Whole genome sequencing matched the patients’ bacteria to Boar’s Head liverwurst bought at a store, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, setting off the recall of 3,500 tons of meat.

At the same time, U.S.D.A. inspectors documented flies, bits of meat on food-contact surfaces and mold on a wall at the Boar’s Head plant in Jarratt, Va. From June 2023 through this August, inspectors listed 84 problems at the facility. Listeria was not mentioned in more 80 pages of inspection records on the plant that were released by the agency.

“Clearly there’s a breakdown in the process when you have a zero-tolerance policy but you still see listeria and deaths as well,” said Brian Ronholm, who is the director of food policy for Consumer Reports, a watchdog group, and a former food safety official at the U.S.D.A. Under the policy, ready-to-eat food discovered by a company or the U.S.D.A. to be contaminated with listeria is to be destroyed and recalled.

A spokeswoman for the Agriculture Department said that the Virginia facility has been closed until it “is able to demonstrate it can produce safe product.”

[northland10]

Gift link for those who used up their freebees.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/08/30/heal ... =url-share

[RTH10260]

On harvesting wild growing morel mushrooms in the Canadian wilderness. Like the greater Yukon region.

Channel https://youtube.com/@northernwildharvest

[bill_g]

Great video. Thanks. I have never done it, but those I know who have did well. It's work most don't want to make a career of. It's a continuous ongoing never ending fitness program from Hell that earns you $400-500 a day currently. The retail side of this makes even bigger margins. By then they look more like Chinese medicine than food, and they want ten bucks for you to shake some on their spaghetti.

It did look a bit like fun though!

I did wonder about his fingers and those lopers. (A) His right hand had to be getting really tired. And (B) His left hand fingers have probably had a nip or three from the lopers. I'd be wearing gloves.

[Volkonski]

No!!!!!!!

Kimchi no more? Climate change puts South Korea’s beloved cabbage dish at risk
Climate change adds to the challenges facing South Korea’s kimchi industry, which is already battling lower-priced imports from China, which are mostly served in restaurants.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/asian-amer ... rcna169439

South Korea’s famous kimchi is falling victim to climate change, with scientists, farmers and manufacturers saying the quality and quantity of the napa cabbage that is pickled to make the ubiquitous dish is suffering due to rising temperatures.

Napa cabbage thrives in cooler climates, and is usually planted in mountainous regions where temperatures during the key growing summer season once rarely rose above 25 Celsius (77 Fahrenheit).

Studies show that warmer weather brought about by climate change is now threatening these crops, so much so that South Korea might not be able to grow napa cabbage one day due to the intensifying heat.

“We hope these predictions don’t come to pass,” plant pathologist and virologist Lee Young-gyu said.

“Cabbage likes to grow in cool climate and adapts to a very narrow band of temperatures,” Lee said. “The optimal temperatures are between 18 and 21 Celsius.”

In the fields and in kitchens — both commercial and domestic — farmers and kimchi makers are already feeling the change.

Spicy, fermented kimchi is made from other vegetables such as radish, cucumber and green onion, but the most popular dish remains cabbage-based.

Describing the effect of higher temperatures on the vegetable, Lee Ha-yeon, who holds the designation of Kimchi Master from the Agriculture Ministry, said the heart of the cabbage “goes bad, and the root becomes mushy.”

“If this continues, then in the summer time we might have to give up cabbage kimchi,” said Lee, whose title reflects her contribution to food culture.

Data from the government statistics agency shows the area of highland cabbage farmed last year was less than half of what it was 20 years ago: 3,995 hectares compared to 8,796 hectares.

According to the Rural Development Administration, a state farming think tank, climate change scenarios project the farmed area to shrink dramatically in the next 25 years to just 44 hectares, with no cabbage grown in the highlands by 2090.

Researchers cite higher temperatures, unpredictable heavy rains and pests that become more difficult to control in the warmer and longer summers as the cause for the crop shrinkage.

A fungal infection that wilts the plant has also been particularly troublesome for farmers because it only becomes apparent very close to harvest.

Climate change adds to the challenges facing South Korea’s kimchi industry, which is already battling lower-priced imports from China, which are mostly served in restaurants.

Customs data released on Monday showed kimchi imports through the end of July was up 6.9% at $98.5 million this year, almost all of it from China and the highest ever for the period.

So far, the government has relied on massive climate-controlled storage to prevent price spikes and shortages. Scientists are also racing to develop crop varieties that can grow in warmer climates and that are more resilient to large fluctuations in rainfall and infections.

But farmers like Kim Si-gap, 71, who has worked in the cabbage fields of the eastern region of Gangneung all his life, fear these varieties will be more expensive to grow in addition to not tasting quite right.

“When we see the reports that there will come a time in Korea when we can no longer grow cabbage, it was shocking on the one hand and also sad at the same time,” Kim said.

“Kimchi is something we cannot not have on the table. What are we going to do if this happens?”

[Volkonski]

It is clear that China means to take advantage of the kimchi shortage to put political pressure on South Korea.

The free high latitude nations of the world must insure that adequate supplies of napa cabbage reach South Korea. The geopolitical threat of Chinese commie cabbage must be stopped.

Surely Alaska and Canada have available cool farm land that could be used.

If not, then the USA must annex those parts of Russian Siberia between longitudes 120 degrees and -169 degrees as a new Federal Territory of Western Alaska. Putin is far too busy in Ukraine to do much about it.

[bill_g]

Sure. Let's add The Road of Bones to our scenic highways inventory.

[northland10]

Last Saturday, I ordered from a Korean fried chicken place. I don't recall actually having it before.

OMG!!!

I had ordered enough that I would have leftovers. Um, that didn't happen.

[RTH10260]

After 155 years, the Campbell Soup company is changing its name

Nathaniel Meyersohn
Updated Wed, September 11, 2024 at 10:13 AM GMT+2

No more soup for the Campbell’s company.

The 155-year-old Campbell Soup Company (CPB) plans to drop “soup” from its corporate name, rebranding as The Campbell’s Company. More consumers are reaching for snacks and ditching ready-to-serve soups, and the company has bought up other food lines to grab them.

In addition to its lineup of soups, Campbell now owns snack brands like Goldfish, Snyder’s of Hanover, Cape Cod, Pepperidge Farm and others. Campbell also recently bought Sovos Brands, maker of popular Italian food brands like Rao’s sauces.

“This subtle yet important change retains the company’s iconic name recognition, reputation and equity built over 155 years while better reflecting the full breadth of the company’s portfolio,” Campbell CEO Mark Clouse said Tuesday in a statement. The name change is subject to shareholder approval at the company’s annual meeting in November.


https://www.yahoo.com/finance/news/camp ... 05411.html(original: CNN)

[northland10]

In the long run, this is just for C-suite love. In the aisle, it will say Campbell Soup or Goldfish. It's just I go to Google, not thinking that the corporate name is Alphabet. It is all just a Meta thing with execs.

[Volkonski]

RIP Liverwurst.

Boar’s Head will never make liverwurst again after outbreak that killed 9

https://arstechnica.com/science/2024/09 ... -killed-9/

On Friday, the company announced that it is indefinitely closing that Jarratt, Virginia-based plant and will never again produce liverwurst—the product that Maryland health investigators first identified as the source of the outbreak strain of Listeria monocytogenes. The finding led to the recall of more than 7 million pounds of Boar's Head meat. The Jarratt plant, where the company's liverwurst is made, has been shuttered since late July amid the investigation into how the outbreak occurred.
In the September 13 update, Boar's Head explained that:

[O]ur investigation has identified the root cause of the contamination as a specific production process that only existed at the Jarratt facility and was used only for liverwurst. With this discovery, we have decided to permanently discontinue liverwurst.

While the statement seems to offer some closure on the outbreak's source, previously released inspection reports described a facility riddled with sanitation failures. Between August 1, 2023, and August 2, 2024, the facility was cited for 69 violations, which included water leaks, mold in numerous places, algal growth, "meat buildup" caking equipment, and walls that were also crawling with flies and gnats, sightings of other insects, rancid smells, trash and debris on the floors, and even "ample amounts of blood in puddles."

[johnpcapitalist]

RIP Liverwurst.

Boar’s Head will never make liverwurst again after outbreak that killed 9

https://arstechnica.com/science/2024/09 ... -killed-9/

[sad-cafe]

I have been cooking only on Sundays. This last Sunday was beef Stroganoff

[Foggy]

Cool. Your noodles are named after a Grateful Dead album from 1970.

[Estiveo]

That has inspired me to make a childhood favorite this weekend: Skidroad Stroganoff from the I Hate to Cook Book.

[sugar magnolia]

That has inspired me to make a childhood favorite this weekend: Skidroad Stroganoff from the I Hate to Cook Book.

We love that stuff but never knew the real name. We just call it cheater's stroganoff. It's on my husband's short list of "things he can't mess up" recipes.