SHOULD YOU EAT THAT? REALLY?

Posted on October 24, 2023October 26, 2023 by vlaw759

Ever wonder about the safety of the food you put in your mouth or serve to your guests? It should be fine, actually. There are multiple government agencies charged with seeing to it.

Specifically, There are Three US Agencies Dealing With Food Safety

U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA)

*Norovirus, a primary cause of gastroentiritis cases in the winter, looks disconcertingly fluffy under a microscope.*

The FDA is charged with protecting public health. They make sure that foods are safe, wholesome, sanitary and properly labeled. Safety and proper labeling of cosmetics and dietary supplements also fall under FDA oversight.

FDA standards and inspections cover both human and veterinary drugs, vaccines, biological products, and medical devices, ensuring they are safe and effective. This includes tobacco products.

The FDA also protects the public from electronic radiation.

Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS)

As part of the US Department of Agriculture, the FSIS, rather than the FDA, has jurisdiction over most meat and egg products sold in the US. From their website, “FSIS protects the public’s health by ensuring that meat, poultry and egg products are safe, wholesome and properly labeled.” The FSIS does this in part by requiring any producer of meat or eggs to follow a Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point (HACCP) system.

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)

*Grapes! No, just Staphylococcus aureus.*

Somewhat surprisingly, the CDC leads federal efforts to gather data on food-borne illnesses, investigate food-borne illnesses and outbreaks, and monitor the effectiveness of prevention and control efforts in reducing food-borne illnesses. The CDC also plays a key role in building state and local health department epidemiology, laboratory, and environmental health capacity to support food-borne disease surveillance and outbreak response.

So, How Effective are These Safety Measures?

According to the FDA, Americans suffer approximately 48 million cases of food poisoning every year. The CDC estimates that each year 1 in 6 Americans get sick from contaminated food or beverages and 3,000 die from food borne illness. The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) estimates that food-borne illnesses cost the United States more than $15.6 billion each year.

Top 15 Foods That Caused Outbreak-Associated Illnesses, 2009–2018*

*Source: CDC Foodborne Disease Outbreak Surveillance System*

*Vegetable row crops (e.g., leafy vegetables); seeded vegetables (e.g., cucumbers); mollusks (e.g., oysters); root/underground vegetables (e.g., carrots, potatoes)
*Unpasteurized dairy products accounted for 80% of outbreak-associated illnesses linked to dairy. Pasteurized dairy products accounted for 10%, and pasteurization status was unknown for 9%.
*Other = foods that don’t fit in the top 15 categories and other federally regulated items such as alcohol, coffee, other beverages, ice, condiments, and dietary supplements.
**Total of percentages does not equal 100% because of rounding.

Who is Really Responsible for Food Safety?

Everywhere I looked, I had to conclude that food safety still lays largely in the hands of individual cooks and consumers.

Things to Be Aware Of

*Campylobacter kind of looks like Cheetos.*

Biological hazards include bacteria, parasites, fungi, and viruses and are the main cause of food-borne illnesses. They can develop in poorly handled food or through contamination from an outside source. Ensure that all your produce has been purchased from an approved supplier. In all cases of suspected contaminated food, dispose of it immediately. And of course, that goes double for recalled items.

Chemical hazards are substances such as pesticides or machine oils. Always handle and store correctly. Keep potentially hazardous items stored separately from your food and prep area.

Physical hazards are objects which contaminate your foods such as pieces of glass or metal, toothpicks, jewelry, or hair. The majority of recalls in the food industry in the US are related to physical hazards. Keeping all foods covered in storage will help prevent physical contamination. Take care during preparation to reduce the risk of such contamination in the kitchen.

The Three Main Sources of “Food Poisoning”

*A close-up of salmonella looks like candy!*

1) Time and temperature hazards result from improper cooking, holding, cooling, and reheating of food, leading to the growth of pathogens.

Do not leave cooked food at room temperature for more than 2 hours
Promptly refrigerate all cooked and perishable food (preferably below 5°C)
Keep cooked food piping hot (more than 60°C) prior to serving
Do not store food too long in the refrigerator
Do not thaw frozen food at room temperature
Know the degree of doneness needed for various foods, especially meat, fish, and poultry

2) Cross contamination occurs when you mix cooked and uncooked food, especially raw meat or fish.

*Toxoplasma gondii may look like a Day-Glo ghost, but it’s very dangerous to pregnant women.*

Assign different containers for the preparation of each kind of food
Avoid un-sanitized surfaces, utensils and equipment at all stages of food preparation

3) Poor personal hygiene is a common culprit that’s easily avoidable by following these rules:

Wash and sanitize hands properly between tasks and whenever they get dirty
Wear single-use gloves while preparing or serving ready-to-eat food
Clean and trim nails
Bathe or shower daily
Keep hair neatly combed, with long hair tied back
Wear a hair net or cap and apron at all times
Cover wounds at all times and refrain from handling food with open wounds
Stay away from the kitchen when sick and consult a doctor as to when it is safe to return
Remove jewelry before working

*Underwater plant life or Escherichia coli (E. coli)? Who can tell?*

Okay, so individually each of these is easy to do. But how many people actually do all of these things all the time?

Bottom Line: It’s surprising that only 1 person in 6 suffers from food-borne illnesses each year.

A MATTER OF TASTE!

Posted on July 4, 2023July 4, 2023 by vlaw759

There are people out there who actually eat durian fruit!

Named the “king of fruits” in some regions, the durian is large and has a thorn-covered rind. The fruit can grow to 12 inches long and 6 in in diameter, and it typically weighs 2 to 7 pounds. Its shape ranges from oblong to round, the color of its husk from green to brown, and its flesh pale yellow to red, depending on the species. I’ve heard the texture described as somewhere between banana and pudding.

But the most distinctive characteristic is the smell! Some people consider the durian to have a pleasantly sweet fragrance. For them, the smell evokes reactions of deep appreciation. Others find the aroma unpleasant, overpowering, even intensely disgusting.

The persistence of its odor, which can linger for hours or even days, has led many public spaces in Southeast Asia, including hotels and civic buildings, to ban the fruit. One cannot carry it on public transportation of any sort, not even motorbike taxis.

Many people, most westerners especially, feel nauseous or gag, at the sight, scent, or taste of durian. As travel writer Richard Sterling said, “Its odor is best described as pig-excrement, turpentine and onions, garnished with a gym sock.” And yet, some people—many people—enjoy durian.

*A hotel in Huế, Vietnam, bans durians right along with pets and gambling.*

Why Do We Like What We Like?

So how do food preferences come about? There is a great, comprehensive article about this at That Thinking Feeling. Food preferences are determined by lots of factors including:

*Japanese snack food is famous for including unexpected flavors.*

Age
Gender
Wealth
Childhood experience
Whether you’re a supertaster
How often you’ve been exposed to the food in question
Social context (my addition)
Emotional factors

Generally speaking, each of our taste-detecting tongue cells ‘specializes’ in one of five flavors: salt, sweet, bitter, sour, or umami. That last is from Japanese and roughly corresponds to ‘savory.’ Contrary to what you were taught in school, no one area of the tongue specializes in anything. Besides the tongue, we have taste buds on the other mouth surfaces and in the throat.

*Escargot (snails) are quite popular in France.*

Big Bombshell: 90% of what is perceived as taste is actually smell! (This according to Dr. Alan Hirsch of the Smell and Taste Treatment and Research Foundation in Chicago.) But for the purposes of this blog, that isn’t relevant.

Age

*Though originally a Scandinavian delicacy, more lutefisk (fish brined in lye) is sold in the US and Canada today.*

Babies prefer sweet and salty and reject the other three flavors. If the mother suffered a lot of morning sickness during pregnancy, leading to dehydration, her child will have a stronger preference for salty compared to other babies. Also, babies tend to avoid/reject new or unfamiliar foods. Babies are most open to trying new flavors between the ages of 4 and 7 months.

People ages 20-39 years old eat the most fast food on any given day.

As we grow up, our taste buds become less intense. With age, both taste and smell change.

Taste buds regenerate quickly when we are younger, but over time they don’t reproduce as quickly, or at all. Remaining taste buds shrink as we get older too, resulting in diminished sense of taste. Typically, seniors notice this loss of taste with salty or sweet foods first.

*Grilled scorpion and seahorse skewers are a common snack in many Chinese night markets.*

After age 60, you may begin to lose the ability to distinguish the taste of sweet, salty, sour, and bitter foods. The sense of smell does not begin to fade until after the age of 70; its decrease exacerbates the loss of taste for those affected.

Older adults tend to consume less energy-dense sweets and fast foods, moving toward more grains, vegetables and fruits. Daily volume of foods and beverages also declines as a function of age.

Gender

Men eat more meat and bread, while women consume more fruit, yogurt, and diet soda. Women also have higher intakes of dietary fiber and lower intakes of fat.

*In Korea, bundaegi (silkworm larvae) are traditionally eaten by men, often accompanied by rice wine.*

In general, there appears to be greater evidence for picky eating in males than females.

Men consume more fast food than women.

Some research suggests that women respond more to environmental cues regarding food. Women’s brains tend to form stronger associations between the perception of food and pleasure. Food preferences in women’s brains are more likely than men’s to develop in response to social cues and self-perception.

Wealth

The affluent have more access to higher quality, nutrient dense but typically more expensive food while the underprivileged are often forced to choose cheaper, energy dense food options.

*Percebes, a variety of Portugese barnacles, are both difficult and dangerous to harvest, making them a very expensive delicacy.*

Upper class groups prefer foods that signify exclusivity and access to rare goods; while lower class groups, on the other hand, consume foods that are readily available.

*Until the Industrial Revolution, lobster was considered an undesirable food relegated to the poorer classes.*

On the flip side, lack of access to healthy foods can affect mental and physical performance at school and at work. This poor performance in turn makes it more difficult for people to improve their income and wealth.

Even when more nutritious foods become available, people raised in low-income households tend to buy cheaper, less nutritious foods they are familiar with. This traces back to food preferences formed in childhood.

Childhood Experience

Parental food habits and feeding strategies are the most dominant determinants of a child’s eating behavior and food preferences. For example, parents make some foods available rather than others.

My personal food recipe for rearing children to become eclectic eaters:

*Escamoles (ant eggs) are popular in dishes in Mexico, Guatemala, and Peru.*

Have children eat with adults, whatever adults eat (with the exception of caffeine and alcohol until age appropriate).
Do not demand that a child eat any particular thing. You can’t actually make them eat, and arguments are negative all around.
Set clear contingencies: eat everything or no dessert and no snacks before the next meal.

*The popularity of Peeps (a marshmallow candy) in the United States mystifies people in other countries.*

In the United States, food advertisers face no regulations around marketing food to children. As they grow up, children become increasingly bombarded with social and commercial messaging. The combination of nostalgia with familiarity surrounding foods eaten in childhood encourages people to maintain eating habits developed in childhood, even if those habits are unhealthy.

Supertasters

Picky eaters might be picky because they are supertasters. Whether or not someone is a supertaster depends on the number of taste buds on his or her tongue. One can actually see this by visually inspecting a person’s tongue.

*Along with blood pudding and Scotch eggs, haggis is a dish popular in Scotland though viewed rather dubiously by outsiders.*

To supertasters, the flavors of foods are much stronger than to average tasters. This often leads to supertasters having very strong likes and dislikes for different foods.

*Diners in Italy must cover their casu marzu (cheese with live maggots) while eating in case the maggots wriggle free.*

These people have more cell receptors for bitter taste. Supertasters are also more sensitive to sweet, salty and umami tastes, but to a lesser extent.

Research suggests that those on the autism spectrum may be more likely to be supertasters. People with sensory issues, including many pregnant women, may experience food aversions due to a heightened sense of smell before they even taste a food.

Food Exposure

Repeated exposure to the taste of unfamiliar foods is a promising strategy for promoting liking of previously rejected foods.

*Ackee, a fruit that is poisonous if harvested too early, is often served with onions and fish in western Africa and Jamaica.*

Fewer than 8 exposures may be sufficient for infants and toddlers to increase acceptability of a food. But there may be times when a child never likes a particular food regardless of the number of exposures.

Evidence suggests that children need to be exposed to a food at least 12 times before they start to like it. It can take as many as 15 exposures for a child to get fully comfortable with a new food.

Sociocultural Effects

Even when eating alone, food choice is influenced by social factors because attitudes and habits develop through the interaction with others.

*Muktuk (narwhal and whale blubber and skin) is a staple in Inuit diets, providing more vitamin C than oranges.*

Sociocultural variables contribute to food selection, eating practices and purchasing behaviors.

*Ifinkubala (mopane worms) are a delicacy through much of southern Africa.*

Ethnicity
Religion
Reference group
Family
Education
Occupation
Marital status
Geography
Societal trends
Messages in the media

Research has shown that we eat more with our friends and family than when we eat alone. The quantity of food increases as the number of fellow diners grows.

Emotional Factors

*Sometimes being drunk is the primary emotional factor for being drawn to certain foods.*

Researchers have linked irregular eating patterns and negative emotions such as anger, fear and sadness with eating as a distraction, to relax or feel better.

Scientists associate stress with cravings for high fat and high carbohydrate foods particularly among women. Stress related eating is more common in women than men.

Bottom Line: The development of food preferences involves a complex braiding of factors. Preferences develop early and are generally stable but can shift over time.

*I think this one is just a joke. I hope it’s a joke.*

SNACKS AND SNACKING IN AMERICA

Posted on February 1, 2022February 1, 2022 by vlaw759

While filming **The Avengers** (2012), Robert Downey Jr routinely hid food around the set so he could snack between takes. When he offered to share with his co-stars, the director let the camera keep filming. And so we end up with Iron Man offering Captain America and Hulk some of his blueberries.

*Some people (particularly those who keep outgrowing their sneakers) snack on anything that stays still long enough.*

February is National Snack Food Month. It was started in 1989 to “to increase consumption and build awareness of snacks during a month when snack food consumption was traditionally low” according to the Fooducate wellness community. February 15th is a particularly good day to stock up on chocolate!

According to Oxford Languages, a snack is a small amount of food eaten between meals. Snacks often differ from main meals in what they contain, portion size, consumption time, and place as well as why they`re eaten
So, theoretically, it can be anything. But certain foods are more likely to be chosen than others. My personal observations—totally not scientific—is that people tend to be primarily salty snackers OR sweet snackers.

Salty or Sweet?

You can find favorite junk food by state, but these are the nation’s most popular snacks, as measured by consumer opinion.

Jif. (peanut butter)
Oreos.
Lay’s.
Pringles.
Fritos.
Snickers.
Tostitos.
Cheetos.

And sometimes, one is not enough: according to a OnePoll survey of 2000 snackers, 60% said snacks taste better when they’re paired together.

Cookies and cream 39 percent
Chocolate and nuts 37 percent
Popcorn and chocolate 35 percent
Chocolate and marshmallow 34 percent
Chocolate and fruit 33 percent
Peanut butter and jelly 32 percent
Peanut butter and apples 30 percent
Cheese and crackers 27 percent
Chips and salsa 26 percent
Chocolate and peanut butter 26 percent

Modern Snack Trends

According to an article by Bridget Goldschmidt (progressivegrocer.com), Americans are snacking between meals more than ever, and eating snack foods with meals grew by 5% over the ten-year period from 2010 to 2020. She cited several conclusions.

*Some people bake the cookies before eating them.*

NPD (a national research group) also found that snacking follows a daily pattern in most U.S. households: better-for-you snacks such as fruit or yogurt are eaten in the morning; snacks like potato chips or tortilla chips are likely eaten at lunch; and sweeter snacks like chocolate candy and cookies in the evening.

What drives snacking?
- Taste
- Satiety (how full the eater is)
- Preferences
- How easy a food is to eat
- Time of day (health-driven motivation gives way to satiety as the day goes on)

The COVID-19 pandemic ramped up snacking. (How surprising is that? Not.) The NPD study cited in the article found that having enough snack foods available during the pandemic is important to 37% of consumers. These consumers’ homes are well stocked with salty snacks and frozen sweets more than other items.

In many cases, the more snack food packages in the home, the more often the item is eaten, which tends to be particularly true of certain kinds of snack foods, such as salty snacks.

*Wonder Woman takes her snacking seriously.*

According to the survey of 2,000 American snackers mentioned above:

71 percent of all those surveyed consider themselves “snackers”
66 percent said snacking brings them great joy
67 percent said snacking is one of their favorite forms of stress relief
- (No wonder snacking is up during the pandemic!)

Snacks? What Snacks?

**Conan the Barbarian** always steals Princess Yasimina’s snacks, but at least he shares.

48 percent of surveyed Americans have stashed their favorite treats in hidden spots around the house (often with no plans to share!).

*Doctor McCoy tries to hide his snacks, but Vulcans are notorious snack sleuths.*

46 percent of those who had hidden snacks said they simply “don’t want to share”
53 percent said the people they live with would “eat them all” if they knew where to look

Of respondents who have ever hidden snacks, 69 percent said they’re currently doing so!

72 percent said their snack stash has been discovered by someone else
The average person has moved a snack stash four times to try to keep it a secret.
71 percent of the time partners and kids were the finders of respondents’ “snackpiles”
Only 6 percent of respondents have never been caught

*Does time travel for fries count as a hiding place?*

A few creative snack hiding places:

Behind the washing machine
Inside oatmeal containers
Behind books on a bookshelf
In the freezer, behind the broccoli
Under yarn piles in a knitting basket
On a top shelf, out of sight
Among cleaning supplies
At the bottom of the diaper bag
Taped to the underside of the fish tank lid
Behind the butter churn
Suspended from the ceiling, above the ceiling fan
In the wall, behind the vents or outlet covers

And the average respondent believes they could survive almost FIVE full months on their stockpile of snacks alone.

Really? I’d be pressed to live 5 months on my pantry, 2 refrigerators, and a freezer! Surely that was 5 full months of snacks.

BOTTOM LINE: In the U.S., you now know the what of snacking, and a bit of the when.

STAY TUNED: Next week I’ll delve into where and why!

EDIBLE GOLD: IT’S A REAL THING. BUT WHY?

Posted on October 2, 2020October 2, 2020 by vlaw759

I was looking up something entirely different. When I’d entered “history of” several (presumably popular) topics showed up, one of which was “history of eating gold.” At the risk of revealing just how out of the food loop I am, eating gold was new to me. So I read more.

According to Wikipedia, pictures of foods with edible gold are all over social media. (So maybe it isn’t just the food fad loop I’m out of!) Apparently this fad started as a viral phenomenon in Dubai, and now there’s a worldwide proliferation of restaurants and pastries using edible gold, including more accessible (i.e., less expensive) cafés and restaurants.

They missed a spot.
(Church of Camarate in Portugal)

Putting gold on food requires a very similar technique to putting gold on fancy furniture, musical instruments, books, paintings, and just about anything else that stood still long for Baroque decorators to gild. Gilders today primarily use oil gilding or water gilding techniques, both of which are virtually identical to techniques used by Egyptian tomb decorators in the 23rd century BCE. (Ceramic objects, large surfaces such as outdoor statues, and metal or glass surfaces are often gilded with other methods, most of which make food entirely inedible.)

*Re-gilding the base of a Wurlitzer BB harp*

The surface to be gilded is prepared.
- Non-food surfaces are made as smooth as possible. This usually involves coating it with finely sanded gesso or a similar material.
- Food surfaces are smoothed and settled. Any cooking should be done before applying the gold.

*Only the edge of the gilding brush touches the gold leaf.*

An adhesive is applied to the surface.
- The smoothed gesso on non-food surfaces is covered with sizing.
  - Oil gilding uses linseed oil boiled with lead oxide litharge.
  - “Water” gilding uses rabbit-skin glue flooded with high-proof grain alcohol. (A friend who worked as a gilder told me she used Everclear; there was usually enough left for a drink when she finished a commission!)
- Food surfaces are brushed with alcohol or very small amounts of water.

*Gold leaf will stick to anything and tear.*

The gold leaf, which is only a few molecules thick, is lifted using the static on a gilding brush or a special gilder’s knife. Touching the sheet of gold leaf directly will tear it.
Gold leaf is laid on the intended surface, gently pressed into adhesive with a soft brush, and left to dry.
- For non-food gilding, the drying process includes a chemical bond forming between the gold leaf, the sizing, and the gesso underneath.
- The adhesive water or alcohol used on edible gilding simply evaporates, leaving the gold leaf stuck to the surface below but not chemically bonded.

*Re-gilding the column of an Erard Gothic harp*

Excess gold leaf is brushed off, usually swept carefully into a jar to be used in another project.
After thoroughly drying (usually at least a day), the gilding is burnished. Because the gold is still thinner than the width of a human hair, burnishing must be done gently to avoid rubbing it off altogether.
- Gold leaf applied with water gilding can be burnished to mirror brightness using agate stones.
- It is very difficult to burnish gilding on food, though some people are just overachievers.

*Gold leaf is very common on religious icons.*

Most people are aware of gold used for gilding, artworks, architecture, and general beautification. Ancient Indians and Egyptians used gold in many ways: architecture, decoration, ornaments, religious ceremonies, and jewelry. They also used gold for mental, spiritual, and physical purification. They ingested gold in elixirs for medicinal purposes.

Ancient Egyptian braces
(I’ll bet he still forgot his retainer in the cafeteria.)

Medicines and elixirs made by court physicians, as well as the use of gold as a decorative garnish for foods and drinks, have been found in Japan, China, and India.

In Europe during the Middle Ages, gold as food decoration became a marker of extreme luxury and prestige. By this time, court physicians believed that gold could help with arthritis and other problems of sore limbs. During the Renaissance, this gold-as-medicine use got a big boost from Paracelsus (1493-1541), considered the father of modern pharmacology, who used gold in both pills and powders. This focus on gold for health held until the twentieth century.

*Science Direct* – *Application of Gold in Biomedicine: Past, Present and Future*

*The gold in this jar, if pressed together, would almost be enough to fill a tooth.*

But don’t rush out to grind up your gold jewelry. It won’t do anything for COVID-19! In fact, regular gold doesn’t do anything in the body: it isn’t even absorbed. There is some research underway into the use of particularly controlled gold nanoparticles as a system of drug delivery within the body, but that is still a long way from hitting the shelves at your local drugstore. Although edible gold is safe to eat, it has no nutritional value or health benefits. Also, be aware that edible gold must meet strict requirements under the code E 175. You can also find edible gold that is certified to be kosher or halal!

If you’re interested in eating gold, you can find it everywhere in the online market, worldwide, and from WalMart to Amazon. It’s available in gold leaves, flakes, or powders. And because it doesn’t do anything but look pretty, it’s usually used on top of the dish or drink. The New York restaurant Serendipity 3 has created the world’s (presumably most expensive) dessert: a $25,000 ice cream sundae 23-karat gold.

*Hard Rock Café menu featuring a “24-Karat Gold Leaf Steak Burger”*

A New York City food truck, 666 Burger, offered a “Douche Burger” for $666, to mock this trend. The burger includes Kobe beef, gruyere cheese, champagne steam, foie gras, and optional toppings such as lobster or caviar, all wrapped in gold leaf sheets.

Franz Aliquo, the owner of 666 Burger said, “We took everything that people socially associate with rich people food and threw it on a burger and made it the most expensive, disgusting burger ever.” It may have been put on the menu as a joke, but the “Douche Burger” is not too far off from actual over-the-top expensive dishes (and burgers) on the menus at other restaurants. At least one person has tried to order the “Douche Burger” from the food truck.

.

.

“It’s a satirical expression of these burgers that people make and try to sell in all seriousness. We took the most offensive pieces from other famous burgers and just took it up a level. I mean, what’s the point of putting gold flakes on your food? It doesn’t add to the flavor. It’s just to be able to say you ate gold flakes.”

Franz Aliquo

Edible gold doesn’t oxidize or corrode. It is inert, has no taste, smell, or nutritional value. So why consume it? Bottom line: conspicuous consumption.

*Nothing says decadent extravagance like mashed potatoes.*

SALT

Posted on February 11, 2020May 19, 2020 by vlaw759

It’s everywhere! And surely anything as ubiquitous as salt has a place in your writing. The English language is sprinkled liberally with salt. The following phrases are so common that they are clichés, and writers note: as such these may have a place in dialogue but seldom, if at all, in narrative. No doubt most if not all of these are familiar, so take this as a nudge to use them.

*Basamaci Restaurant in Shiraz is made entirely of salt.*

*Wieliczka-Zwiedzanie Salt Mine in Krakow, Poland*

Rub salt into the wound: make a painful experience worse
Salt a mine: bring in ore or something else to make the source seem rich
Salt the books: inflate receipts to falsely show more money
Salt of the earth: a really good person
Salting the earth: victors sowed salt to prevent the growth of plants on enemy land
Worth one’s salt (or not): has earned his money (or not)
Take something with a pinch/grain of salt: view skeptically, think something is exaggerated
Salt away: save for the future
Old salt: old seaman
Above/below the salt: above is closer to the seat of power, indicating the diners’ relative status
Salt mine: figuratively, work, especially a difficult job or task
Salty language: somewhat rude or shocking

Writers: Consider building a scene or a plot around one of these

Salt in Religion

As valuable as salt has been, finding it used in religious ceremonies is only to be expected.

*Different types of salt can make a rainbow of flames*

In Hittite rituals, during Semite and Greek festivals at the time of the new moon, salt was thrown into fire where it popped and crackled.
Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans made offerings of salt and water to their gods.
- Some historians think this may have been the origin of Holy Water in Christian rituals.
In Aztec tradition, the fertility goddess (Huixtocihuatl) presided over salt and salt water.
Hindus consider salt auspicious and use it in weddings and house-warmings.
Devotees of Jainism lay an offering of raw rice with a bit of salt before a deity to symbolize devotion.
- Salt is sprinkled on cremains before they are buried.
Mahayana Buddhists use salt to ward off evil spirits.
- After a funeral, a pinch of salt is thrown over the left shoulder to prevent evil spirits from entering the house, a practice that is also copied by superstitious people of many cultures.

In Shinto Buddhism, salt is used for ritual purification (people and places).
- Small piles of salt are placed at the entrances of shrines to ward off evil and attract patron spirits.
In Judaism, salted bread is recommended for passing around the table after the Kiddush.
- Sabbath bread is dipped in salt, as are the bitter herbs at Passover.
Both Jewish and Muslim dietary laws require removing blood from freshly slaughtered meat; salt and brine are used for the purpose.
In Wicca, salt is symbolic of the element Earth; it cleanses harmful or negative energy. A dish of salt and one of water are nearly always present on an altar, and salt is used in many rituals and ceremonies.

What if a character not of a particular culture or religion learned something about the rituals and decided to practice them?

When most people think “salt” they think of seasoning food. In fact, only 6% of salt is consumed by people. Even so, gourmets identify at least 12 salts used in food preparation. Also, salty is one of the five basic tastes (along with sweet, bitter, sour, and umami). In addition, salt releases food molecules into the air, giving food an aroma. And FYI, apart from the basic tastes, almost all other tastes are actually smell. In small amounts, salt curbs bitterness and enhances sweet, sour, and umami. In higher amounts, it reduces sweetness and enhances umami, great for savor and meat dishes.

Table salt: most common, from underground deposits, highly refined and finely ground, usually treated with an anti-caking age. Often iodine is added to prevent goiter.
Kosher salt: flakier and coarser grained than table salt, good for sprinkling on food and cooking. Does not have additives. Not kosher itself, it’s used in the koshering process
Sea salt: from evaporated sea water, usually unrefined and coarser grained than table salt. Contains minerals (e.g., zinc, potassium, iron) and flavor from where harvested.
Himalayan pink salt: purest salt in the world. It contains the 84 elements found in the human body.
Celtic sea salt (gray salt): harvest off the coast of France, mineral rich, chunky grains.

Fluer de sel (flower of salt):delicate, paper-thin crystals, harvested by hand with wooden rakes, the most expensive of all food salts
Kala namak (black salt): it’s Himalayan, with a faint sulfur aroma that goes tofu (for example) the taste of eggs
Flake salt: harvested by boiling sea water, thin irregular crystals, very low mineral content
Black and red Hawaiian salt: both coarse-grained and crunchy, great with seafood and meat.
Smoked salt: slow smoked up to two weeks over a wood fire (e.g., hickory, mesquite, apple, oak, alder); varies in flavor
Pickling salt: used for pickling and brining, no added iodine or anti-caking agents, not many base minerals

Consider a character who has 5 or 6 types of salt on hand: which kinds and why?

Myriad Uses for Salt

In researching this topic, I read that there are more than 14,000 uses for salt. Searching online for uses for salt turns up lists of all sorts of lengths—6, 12, 20, 55—more than enough to establish salt’s place in the life of your character. Is your character thrifty, and thus finds salt a less expensive alternative to cleaning, medical, or beauty products? Does your character strive for simplicity, and want to purge as many products as possible? Here are a few examples. Each bigger topic could be researched separately.

Around the home
- Keep wicker looking new
- Put out a fire
- Deodorize shoes
- Prevent new towels from fading in the wash
Health and beauty
- Alternative to mouthwash
- Exfoliate your skin
- Dandruff treatment
- Gargle saltwater for sore throat
Cleaning with salt
- Remove tea and coffee stains from mugs and carafes
- Clean a dirty room
- Refresh chopping boards
- Get rid of watermarks on wood furniture

Salt in the kitchen
- Quick and easy nut shelling
- Test the freshness of an egg
- Extend the life of cheese
- Whip egg whites and heavy quicker
- Keep sliced apples and potatoes from browning
Salt outside
- Keep car windshield frost-free in winter
- Pain relief from a bee sting
- Keep stains from setting in clothing

Importance of Salt—Past and Present

*Or you could go to a salt cave in Minneapolis and sit*

It is essential for human and other animal life.
- At the same time, excessive salt consumption is related to high blood pressure and other cardiovascular diseases.
Salting food is one of the oldest methods of preservation, along with drying and smoking, dating to at least 6050 BCE in Bulgaria, 5400 BCE in Romania, and 6000 BCE in China. It’s still used as a preservative in processed foods.
Other uses include water conditioning (12%)
- De-icing highways (8%)
- 68% of world-wide salt production is used for manufacturing and industrial processing (PVC, plastics, paper pulp, aluminum, soaps, glycerine, synthetic rubber, and firing pottery, drilling, to fix color in dying textiles, tanning hides)

Salt was used for barter pretty much world-wide:
- Moorish merchants in the 6th century traded salt for gold, weight for weight.
- Salt was traded like gold or silk everywhere along the Silk Road and throughout Europe.
Salt has been used as money in Ethiopia, other parts of Africa, and Tibet.
- An allowance of salt was made to officers and soldiers in the Roman Army.

**The Road** (2009) from the novel by Cormac McCarthy

Writers: Consider an apocalyptic story in which the basic necessity of salt returns.

The Lasting Stamp of Salt

In many places, in many forms, the historical significance of salt continues to reverberate today.

Naming rights:
- One of the oldest roads in Italy is Via Salaria, salt route
- The river Salzach in Austria translates to salt river
- Salzburg means salt castle
The Roman allowance of salt turned into a monetary allowance to buy salt, and this salarium gave rise to the English word salary
- In Japan, a person who works a M-F office job is often referred to as a salaryman (サラリーマン )

*Gandhi led people on a march to the sea to distill salt after British salt laws were imposed.*

Salting the Dead—and Not Dead

*Somehow, I don’t think salt water is going to help alleviate torture…*

Salt accelerates the process of decomposition of the body.
It helps to prevent bad odor from leaking out of the soil where the corpse is buried, so dogs and other predators don’t dig up the body.
If someone is buried in salt up to his/her neck: the salt would start to draw water out of the body slowly. The skin starts wrinkling and drying as time goes by, mouth becomes parched and eyes become irritated because of the loss of moisture. It becomes harder to breathe as water leaves the body and the blood becomes thicker and more coagulated. The terrible thing is that unlike being buried alive, the person would likely remain conscious and eventually delirious before dying a long time later. The corpse would be dehydrated and preserved by the salt and thus become a mummy.

Writers: consider the dark possibilities of torture and/or murder.

*Cristal Samana Salt Hotel in Uyumi, Bolivia*

Bottom line for writers: sprinkled throughout!

*No discussion of salt is complete without mentioning legendary musicians Salt N Pepa!*

As American as Apple Pie

Posted on November 24, 2015 by vlaw759

What’s wrong with that?

First of all, with the sour exception of crabapples, apples themselves aren’t American. Apples as we know and love them probably originated in Asia and migrated to Europe.

Apples and apple pie were brought to the colonies by British, Dutch, and Swedish immigrants during the 17th and 18th centuries. In fact, that was pretty late in the history of apple pie.

Fossilized evidence of apples date as far back as the Iron and Stone Ages in Switzerland and other parts of Europe. Although most sources trace apple pie to Europe, there is a minority view that the first apple pie was made in Egypt, 9500 B.C.E.

English apple pie recipes go back to the time of Chaucer. A 1381 recipe calls for good apples, good spices, figs, raisins, and pears in a pastry casing. It is the first known written recipe for apple pie. Fruit sweeteners were typical of the times. Early apple pies had no sugar because of the expense but were sweetened with fruits such as these.

Apple pie was a prized dessert in England by 1577. The first mention of a fruit pie in literature was apple-pyes in Robert Greene’s Arcadia. Greene wrote between 1580 and 1592. A medieval Dutch cookbook (around 1514) has a recipe for apple pie that is almost identical to modern recipes. Such a pie was featured in a Dutch Golden Age painting from 1626.

In 1941, newspaper reporters talked about GI’s fighting for Mom and “good old American apple pie.” This seems to be the origin of apple pie attached to American identity—even though apple pie did not originate here. Vermont even made apple pie the official state pie in 1999.

The history of Mock Apple Pie (made with crackers instead of apples) is a bit murky. It may have been invented by pioneers on the move in the 19th century, or possibly in the South during Civil War food shortages. But in the 1930s, Ritz Crackers provided a recipe using Ritz Crackers, water, sugar, cream of tartar, lemon juice, grated lemon peel, margarine or butter, and cinnamon. The one thing that’s clear is that anything that leads to an imitation must be very popular indeed.

According to the American Pie Council, Apple pie is the most popular pie in the U.S., the favorite of 19% of Americans (approximately 36 million people at the time of the survey).

And now we get to the downside. Although homemade apple pie hasn’t changed much over centuries, anything that popular has to go commercial, including fast-food chains. McDonald’s started in California in 1940. In 1969, McDonald’s opened 211 new franchises, and the first Wendy’s was born in Columbus, Ohio.

Welcome to the world of food additives. L-cysteine, an amino acid used to condition dough for increased pliability, is derived from human hair and/or duck feathers. It’s used in McDonald’s Baked Hot Apple Pie (among other offerings). McDonald’s is only one of many fast-food providers who rely on L-cysteine in bakery products.

Bonus facts: Sand (silica dioxide) is an anti-caking agent that shows up in chili and other processed beef and chicken products on the menus of Wendy’s and Taco Bell; processed wood pulp (cellulose), used to thicken and stabilize everything from cheese to strawberry syrup, is on the rise because products can boast less fat and more fiber. For more disturbing food additives, go to mnn.com.

And to know what happened when with food, go to good books!

The Century in Food and The Food Chronology

Food and Fiction

Posted on September 5, 2015 by vlaw759

I was sitting in my recliner, much as I am now, sipping iced decaff coffee and leafing through catalogues from discount booksellers. (My favorites among these are Edward R. Hamilton Bookseller and Daedalus Books.)

three catalogs from booksellers, bargain books and deadalus books — Catalogs from discount booksellers

After ordering more books than I have shelf-space for—about half cookbooks for a vegan kitchen and half books I think will be useful writing references, such as Funerals to Die For—my thoughts drifted, as they are wont to do. I’ve been collecting cookbooks since long before I started writing fiction. Over the years, I’ve donated and gifted hundreds of cookbooks and mysteries. Even bookcases in every room of the house except the bathroom weren’t enough!

As best I can remember, my first connection between fiction and food was the Rex Stout mystery series featuring Nero Wolf. I’ve had the The Nero Wolf Cook Book so long I can’t remember.

Cook books for Sherlock Holmes, Lord Peter Wimsey, and Nero Wolf — Cookbooks for Sherlock Holmes, Lord Peter Wimsey, and Nero Wolf

I became enamored with Sherlock Holmes in college. But Dorothy L. Sayers is probably my all-time favorite mystery writer. She didn’t make a big deal about food in her Lord Peter Wimsey/Harriet Vane books. Still, I had to have The Lord Peter Wimsey Cookbook.

Perhaps mystery writers are especially attracted to food. Think poison? These two books are especially appealing to me.

two books for mystery writers , A Taste of Murder and Cook With Malice Domestic — Mystery writers’ cookbooks

More than one mystery has taken up a food theme. Perhaps the best known is Diane Mott Davidson. She’s written 17 novels featuring Goldy Schulz, a small town caterer who solves mysteries on the sides. Goldy Schulz also has a cookbook, although I haven’t seen it.

Of course, food isn’t solely the purview of mystery writers. See for yourself.

books and food connection from Margaret Atwood and Deal Wells — Non-mystery writers and food

And as in all fan activities, Jane Austen leads the pack. I don’t have them, but look for The Jane Austen Cookbook, Cooking With Jane Austen, Jane Austen and Food, Tea with Jane Austen, Tea With the Bennets, Dinner With Mr. Darcy, What Jane Austen Ate and Charles Dickens Knew.

And the options are never-ending. Consider A Feast of Words, for Lovers of Food & Fiction by Anna Shapiro. It includes excerpts from 25 novels, from Jane Austen to Alice Munro. Shapiro comments on the food scenes and includes her own menus and recipes inspired by each work. Eat Memory: Great Writers at the Table, edited by Amanda Hesser comes from her work as the New York Times Magazine‘s food editor. In this book she presents 26 food memories from leading writers, and the recipes they involve.

If you are more into the words than the food, consider this slim volume: Food Tales: A Literary Menu of Mouthwatering Masterpieces. It presents 8 stories, including “A Vicomte’s Breakfast” by Alexandre Dumas, “The Luncheon” by W. Somerset Maugham, and “Tortillas and Beans” by John Steinbeck.

Once you start on writing and food, it’s a short step to food writers. One of my favorites is M.F.K. Fisher, How to Cook a Wolf. She wrote it in 1942, the point being to cooking during the WWII food rationing.

book spine of "How to Cook a Wolf" by M.F.K. Fisher — How to Cook a Wolf by M.F.K. Fisher

inscription from M.F.K Fisher's "How to Cook a Wolf," "There's a whining at the threshold, There's a scratching at the floor..." — From M.F.K. Fisher’s How to Cook a Wolf

But enough! There must be an end somewhere!

Your Links Between Food and Fiction

What are your favorite cookbooks?

Don’t collect cookbooks? Do you have a collection that’s taking up your house?