This week two firecrackers were lobbed into my personal food world. The first one came from — say it ain’t so – Zabar’s, a high end Manhattan deli that’s been satisfying my yen for smoked salmon and herring with onions and cream whenever I’ve felt particularly flush.
It turned out the lobster salad Zabar’s has been selling for umpteen years at the stratospheric price of $16.95 a pound contained — I kid you not — not a spec of lobster. The Sherlock Holmes who got to the bottom of this case was a Times-Picayune reporter in New Orleans who happened to visit Zabar’s to enjoy a typical northeastern nosh. Biting into his “lobster” salad, he quickly recognized the familiar taste and texture of crawfish from his own neck of the bayou. Sure enough, when he checked the container label, the only seafood ingredient listed was “Wild fresh water crayfish.”
After he got home and wrote about these crawfish that magically turned into pricey lobsters in New York City, the story was picked up by official lobster honchos in Maine who were not amused. They Immediately contacted Zabar’s owner, Sam Zabar, who coolly informed them Wikepedia stated “you will find that crawfish in many parts of the country is referred to as lobster.” But Sam’s tune quickly changed when the story picked up even more steam from influential food bloggers. Today if you buy that same “lobster” salad it’s now labeled “Seafare Salad,” And if you’re wondering how crawfish that live in fresh water can be describing as “Sea” anything, hey, it’s food-land where fantasy reigns supreme on food labels.
The next blow-up of one of my culinary assumptions came from Dr. Weil in reply to an email inquiry. No, he told the writer, the warning about eating baby carrots because they’re washed in chlorine was an old “Internet hoax.” Yes, they were treated with chlorine, but still perfectly edible. Of course, he added, those baby carrots were not babies at all. They were actually large Papa and Mama carrots that had been CUT UP AND SHAPED INTO SMALL CARROTS. For pity sake, who KNEW? Whenever I bought a package labeled baby carrots I actually assumed I was buying carrots bred to grow into small carrots.
So what’s the big deal you say? A carrot’s a carrot. No. A baby carrot is not a whole vegetable like a regular carrot is a whole vegetable. It’s a carrot that’s been TREATED — that’s been fiddled around with — cut up with knives, rolled up and down production lines, molded into little carrot shapes with god knows what implement and process, dumped in chlorine, swished in water and finally sealed in plastic, still slightly damp.
After receiving this info I gave baby carrots (labeled “petite” carrots in my fancy Eastside Fairways), a closer look. Ingenious, actually, the way they’re cut up. Instead of being sculpted into identical little shapes so consumers would instantly recognize they didn’t pop out of the ground that way, they were cut up into many different sizes and shapes — similar to what you’d see in a package of large-scale carrots.
As it happens, I like the taste of these “baby” carrots (they’re now bred for sweetness) and LOVE their no-peel aspect and speedy cooking time. What I don’t like is the aura of flimflam about them. Or am I being over-sensitive here?
More Food Bamboozlement:
- Meat that Glows in the Dark Perfectly Safe to Eat
- So How Much Wood Pulp did you eat today?
- What’s for Dinner? How About Super Salmon?
- Is Your Steak Cemented together with Meat Glue?
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