Last night’s show.
{ 3 comments }
Posts tagged as:
food safety
P.S. Not unrelatedly, a haggis-related Blawg Review #248 at Scots Law Student. More: Alex Massie, Spectator (via Katherine Mangu-Ward).
P.P.S. Jumping the gun? An email to Andrew Sullivan from someone claiming to be with USDA says the ban is under review for revision but that no decision has been made yet. And more from Katherine Mangu-Ward.
{ 10 comments }
The New York Times has more on the customs surrounding the traditional French galette des rois baked with little figurines inside, though it does not get into the possible legal or regulatory angles that might prohibit placing such items in interstate commerce. In this case they’re prepared by a licensed home baker in Larchmont, N.Y. For the cases of New Orleans king cake, Christmas puddings, Kinder Surprise candy, etc., see earlier posts.
P.S. For more on Epiphany traditions of “Twelfth Cake,” see Christine Lalumia/BBC, David Zincavage, and KatInTheCupboard/Flickr (1937 children’s book).
More about the toy-in-chocolate Kinder Surprise [CanWest via Free-Range Kids; earlier, related]
P.S. In comments, Moriarty notes an instance in which various brands of American soda pop turned out to be illegal to sell in Canada (even aside from their lack of French-language labeling).
{ 8 comments }
Beware brunch. [Richard Goldfarb, Food Liability Law Blog]
{ 6 comments }
Outlaw meats in Chicago [The Reader] And Katherine Mangu-Ward at Reason reports on the continuing legal travails of food trucks.
{ 4 comments }
The High Timber restaurant in London is seeking to protect 
itself because it follows the traditional practice of including the occasional coin or silver charm for lucky diners to happen upon. [Zincavage] Similarly in this 2005 dispatch (supermarket pudding); for the parallel custom of baking figurines into New Orleans king cake, see these posts.
{ 3 comments }
Following a huge outcry in Louisiana and elsewhere (see Oct. 28; Slashfood, Washington Times, Ryan Young/CEI), the agency will reconsider the rule. The uber-nannyish Center for Science in the Public Interest was dismayed at the delay [BayouBuzz], while the New Orleans publication Gambit, which calls the episode “a glaring example of bureaucratic overkill,” warns that after finishing further study the FDA “could still return with its faulty reasoning.” Nancy Leson at the Seattle Times passes on word from a Northwest shellfish official: “We were told by FDA officials that initially, they were planning to mandate post-harvest treatment of all oysters, and at the last minute they decided to just stick to Gulf oysters — for now.” And ubiquitous food-poisoning lawyer Bill Marler, whose publicity juggernaut rolls on* (recent Seattle Times profile — “I represent poisoned little children against giant corporations”), feels like he’s been wasting a fortune:
…let me make clear that I dumped a lot of “change” into the Democratic change wagon – I have given or raised millions of dollars for Democratic candidates over the last several years. My goal was to put people in office that did good public policy. Well, I guess I needed to wake up literally and figuratively. … Now, the FDA runs and hides from the Oyster industry. … Democratic candidates – do not bother calling, this “change” machine is out of order.
*Marketing disclosure for the FTC’s benefit: when I spoke at the recent AEI food safety panel an employee of one of Marler’s journalistic enterprises presented me with one of his promotional t-shirts.
{ 6 comments }
Yet another interesting food that may never be the same following a safety crackdown, in this case by the Los Angeles health department [L.A. Times via Katherine Mangu-Ward, Crispy on the Outside]
Remember how the food safety crackdown was going to be a win-win affair for all of us, with only the sinister interests of Big Food having anything real to lose? New Orleans Times-Picayune:
In an effort to reduce cases of a rare, but potentially fatal, bacterial illness contracted from raw oysters, the FDA announced new rules this month that will require any oyster served from April through October to undergo a sterilization process before it can be sold in restaurants or on the market.
The rule will essentially eliminate raw oysters — at least as Louisianans know them — from restaurant menus for seven months of the year. Even oysters that will eventually be cooked during those months would have to go through the same cleansing process before being added to any dish, a move some say would undermine the culinary integrity of some of New Orleans’ most famous delicacies. …
C.J. Casamento, the owner of Casamento’s restaurant on Magazine Street, said many chefs have tried the sterilized oysters in the past but have stopped because the flavor isn’t the same. … “If they try to implement this, it will destroy all the raw oyster restaurants in the city.”
Another restaurant owner, Tommy Cvitanovich of Drago’s, called the rules “ludicrous”, pointing out that they will also require sterilization of oysters destined for cooked use in gumbos, broils and po’ boys. Processor Mike Voisin compared the new guidelines to a “nuclear bomb” on the oyster business. And Louisiana state health officials, as well as fisheries officials, have assailed the new rules as going too far.
{ 17 comments }
And per this L.A. Times account, business — at least business with an organized Washington, D.C. presence — is on board, just as it was when CPSIA passed. So what could go wrong?
{ 2 comments }
A video is promised soon, and some of the speakers’ supporting materials are already online. Angela Logomasini has a writeup for CEI’s “Open Market”. Earlier here. I spoke at length about the CPSIA calamity and had a few things to say about the food side as well.
“Parents and students at Tooker Avenue Elementary School bid a bittersweet adieu to home-baked goods Friday on the final day of class before a West Babylon district policy goes into effect that allows only prepackaged snacks.” [Newsday via Free-Range Kids; earlier]
{ 4 comments }
The American Enterprise Institute is holding a panel discussion in Washington, D.C. Tuesday afternoon and I’ll be one of the participants, along with David W. K. Acheson of Leavitt Partners, Carol Tucker Foreman of the Consumer Federation of America, and Michelle Worosz of Auburn University, with AEI’s Kenneth Green as moderator. Details here. I’ve had a few things to say about food safety over the years and am also likely to draw on the potential parallels presented by the calamitous Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act (CPSIA).
{ 2 comments }
The new regulations have 
drawn considerable negative comment from New York Times readers, and cartoonist/commentator Roz Chast doesn’t seem to hold them in very high regard either.
Only indirectly related — but also pointing up the unlikelihood of getting anything particularly tasty to eat in a Gotham public school environment 
– it seems that raw meat is not allowed in NYC school cafeteria kitchens, because it “poses too much of a food-handling challenge” [NYT again]
{ 4 comments }
Get ready for the “next big controversy in the wine business”. [Jeff Siegel, Palate Press]
{ 3 comments }
Updating our August 21 item: The Health Department in Middletown, Connecticut issued a “citation against St. Vincent DePaul Place on Tuesday for accepting some donated food from unlicensed kitchens. 
The department has asked the nonprofit group, which runs a soup kitchen, to comply with the health code by accepting food that comes only from licensed kitchens.” [Middletown Eye] The state’s attorney general, Richard Blumenthal, is asking the legislature to loosen rules for charitable kitchens. [Hartford Courant] We covered the Connecticut pie menace nearly ten years ago [Dec. 13, 1999] and have since noted legal crimps put on cookies for troops, church potlucks, and much more.
{ 2 comments }
- Myrtle Beach Chamber of Commerce: “Elmer Fudd” commenter defamed us [Sun-News via Patrick at Popehat]
- “New Texas law seeks common sense instead of ‘zero tolerance’ in punishment of students” [Star-Telegram]
- Oprah can relax, poet’s self-scripted $1 trillion lawsuit against her is dismissed [THR Esq., Lowering the Bar and more, New Jersey Lawsuit Reform Watch]
- Overview of big push for new federal food safety laws [Kristin Choo, ABA Journal]
- And thanks for all the booze: “Chronic drunk costs SF taxpayers at least $150,000/year” [Obscure Store, Common Room]
- “We have made a grave mistake in politicizing the economy so deeply, and should back away now.” [Tyler Cowen, NYT]
- As a phrase, “sex toy product liability” is probably going to bring us the wrong sort of search engine traffic [Law and More]
- Overturning Supreme Court’s Iqbal/Twombly pleading jurisprudence emerging as key Congressional objective for trial lawyer lobby [Freddoso, Examiner; recent post of mine at Point of Law, and much other coverage there]
{ 1 comment }
