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Have you ever stopped to wonder what drives the incessant innovation in processed food? Who thought that an energy bar would be a good thing to exist? What was the logic that drove the development of the cheese-flavoured powder that coats so many snacks? Even instant coffee; why was that needed? The answer to all these questions, and many more, can be traced back to the US Army’s Natick Center, outside Boston, Massachusetts. That is where the Combat Feeding Directorate of the US army, with the help of academics and large food processing companies, designs the rations that sustain American soldiers and much of the rest of America and the world. Soldiers need rations that are lightweight, that don’t spoil over time, and that can withstand some pretty brutal handling. The rest of us pay for the same. Author Anastacia Marx de Selcado’s book Combat-Ready Kitchen, published in early August, lifts the lid on how the army has invaded almost all aspects of processed food.

Notes

1. Combat-Ready Kitchen is available from Amazon and elsewhere. If you buy from that link, I get a tiny pittance.
2. Anastacia Marx de Selcado has a website, of course.
3. The banner photograph shows a high pressure processing production line, © Moira Mac.

24 August 2015

A drop more

1. Steal from one writer and you’re a plagiarist, steal from two or three and you’re doing original research, as Tom Lehrer, hymning the great Nikolai Ivanovich Lobachevsky, said. Something new(ish) and something a little older on recipe theft.
2. Organic food in the US is having to recall more food than ever. Maybe because more of it is being sold?
3. Speaking of industrialisation in the food system, “[E]ven though the total number of cows in the UK has halved since the 1970s, production has remained steady thanks to the fact average yields have doubled. Farmers are literally squeezing more out of each cow.” Not sure about that “literally,” but the fact is the supermarkets are not entirely to blame for a global glut of milk.
4. The people of Russia are no strangers to famine. So why are they allowing the government to destroy so much food? The Economist takes a longer view.
5. Shameless self-promotion: first, read about how the Federation of Quebec Maple Syrup Producers tries to strangle individualism. Then go listen to Amy Trubek talking to me about terroir and maple syrup.

A lot of people have been talking about the gender divide in restaurant kitchens; I had no idea sushi was a bastion of male privilege. Great story from AP about women challenging sushi norms in Tokyo. Via Lauren Bohn.

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The O-Pipin-Na-Piwin Cree Nation have suffered generations of maltreatment at the hands of various official entities. Moved from their homelands further south, they now occupy small scattered settlements in northern Manitoba, where summers are short and the land infertile. Having adapted to some extent to their new circumstances, large dams, built to supply energy to the rest of the province and beyond, flooded their traditional fishing and hunting grounds, destroying their livelihoods even further. Being so remote, the supply chain for outside foods is tenuous and expensive, with prices way beyond those found further south. No wonder, then, that the people are suffering an epidemic of malnutrition and its attendant diseases. But after years of maltreatment, the people are starting to reclaim their foodways and learning new ways to feed themselves sustainably. Andi Sharma, a policy analyst with the Northern Healthy Foods Initiative, told me about the problems and some of the incipient solutions.

Notes

1. The banner image is part of a very early map of the area now occupied by the indigenous people and Manitoba Hydro.
2. The Northern Healthy Foods Initiative is trying to improve food security in a variety of ways.
3. I didn’t spend much time following up on Canada’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission, but I’m struck by the historical similarities between Canada and Australia, and, again, by the power of food as a political weapon.

10 August 2015

Crunch down.

1. Restaurant critics (at least in the UK) cannot be relied upon? Say it isn’t so.
2. Once over lightly for the eating habits of old Pompeii. Lemonade? Really? I’m waiting for news on that one.
3. Maybe you saw some of the utter tosh about how the evolution of big human brains depended on potatoes? I can guarantee that it didn’t, and a far more interesting possibility is that all those carb-eschewing palaeo-dieters have got it wrong. Here’s a press release about the research.
4. More research, on where and when a bitter little gourd started to turn into summer’s perfect expression: watermelon.
5. More summer fun: bake stick bread over an open fire. (Worth subscribing to the magazine if you are into bread.)
6. Bonus shameless self-promotion. I moaned about fake truffle oil, now I learn that some truffle odours are produced not by the fungus itself but by the bacteria it supports.