fresco

Fifi is much better equipped to answer for warmer water oysters, but yes, definitely, it's the summer of love in cold waters.

That is what my local oyster loving friends tell me. The summer oysters aren't all that good so why take the risk. Let the tourists take the risk. what about the summer oysters from cold water. Think Lesley answered this one early on--oyster farmers are working to eliminate "milky" aspect to summer harvested cold water oysters.

Okay, so oysters from water waters may be more of a health hazard. But isn't the real issue--assuming you're willing to take some risks-- that they don't taste nearly as good as oysters from colder waters?

The red tide phenomenon is an entirely different thing and can be managed. Trust me... In the south, contamination is a real issue. 35 years ago I was a foods microbiologist with FDA in New Orleans. Every summer, we were chasing food poisoning cases from raw oysters. It was a real test to identify the culprits in a lot of cases. We would find huge bacterial loads. I remember one celebrated case out of Mobile Bay that we never did figure out the origin of the particular Vibrio bug involved. Sure, but is contamination a rigidly summer/winter thing?

i don't think the oyster bar in NYC is going to stop serving oysters during the summer. that's ridiculous. The red tide discussion may be a bit of a red herring. Unless I am far wrong, the injunction against eating oysters, clams and mussels in non-R months began because that's when they spawn, at least in colder waters, and are therefore less succulent, not because they are more dangerous.

I made a mountain of zucchini pancakes (topped with corn salsa) for my son and several friends tonight. There was other stuff as well, but the pancakes were the big hit.

I beg to differ. In the past few years there have been some ferocious red tides, particularly down the coast towards Corpus Christi. I fly over the Gulf along the Louisiana coast fairly often. It is not unusual to see the patches of red tide off shore. They close the bays to oystering etc. if the red tide drifts toward shore. Also... Food poisoning outbreaks and hepatitis cases ramp up. Announcements and warnings are fairly common on the local news shows. Farmed or not... NO ONE should eat oysters that come out of 85 degree water. And it has nothing to do with "pollution". At those temperatures, naturally occurring buggles (like some of the vibrios or whatever they are called now) increase their population and the oysters are filter feeders, concentrating whatever is in the water. The only time I can recall red tide being an issue (and it was a bad one) was several years ago when a Toronto family and friends ate wild mussels. Everyone got very sick and think one elderly gent died. You are much safer with the farmed variety, because regulations are very stringent and any hint of red tide (or pollution) in an area means no harvesting until the all clear is given. (This applies to Canada's east coast, at any rate.)

Don't know about oysters, but I tend to follow the "r" rule for mussels, because they can be lean and stringy in the summer.

You really need to get out more. Could the problem be that she gets out too much to be a really effective couch potato?

Rachael Ray seems to be universally disliked, and as I think tommy noted, people find it particularly irritating that she giggles at her own lame jokes. She does have a whole bag of tics, none of them pleasing. But the concept of 30-minute meals has wide appeal. Any ideas why her producers haven't attempted to train Ms Ray out of her more grating mannerisms?

Evidence that this is actually the case? However, one of the negative effects of Western medicine in these countries is that many more children are surviving to adulthood and yet there has been no compensatory change in the culture with respect to women or having large families. DDT, as far as I know, is quite benign with respect to humans. The reason DDT was banned in the US and other countries was not because it is bad for humans but rather because of the effect it can have on the reproduction of other animals. Specifically, it caused the eggshells of certain birds to be thinner, which resulted in fewer of of these eggs surviving to hatch. DDT may well have a worse reputation than it deserves, but I would stop short of characterizing it as "benign" with respect to humans. The following piece, which is a defence of DDT, is at pains to point out that research does suggest a link between heavy DDT exposure and low birth weight and premature births. http://web.ask.com/redir?bpg=http%3a%2f%2f...gourevitch.html

That countryside salad sounds like a winner. I'm with you most of the way on the Greek classic, but I do have a horror of cucumbers.

Greek salad (at least outside of Greece) is one of those dishes that is usually much better at home than at a Greek restaurant, if only because you're likely to use much better ingredients (especially eschewing industrial feta and tomatoes). I like lemon juice, but this is probably a matter of personal preference.

Yan blames his heavily accented English on television on his "enthusiasm": http://web.ask.com/redir?bpg=http%3a%2f%2f...n%2findex3.html

I'll be there.

As well as increased levels of herbicides, pesticides and estrogen which reduce the overall sperm count in men living in First World countries. Though this is still being debated, the very things that have helped increase the food supply and have bettered our standards of living may also be making us sterile. 1) The larger the family, the more hands you have working in the proverbial fields to put bread on the table. 2) Given the high death rate among children in Third World countries, having larger families increases the odds of some of them living to adulthood...survival of the fittest...those who survive propogate the bloodline, increase the number of the family and (see #1) increase the number of hands in the field. 3) Religion/The Church has a large influence in many Third World countries and usually the number one rule is "go forth and propogate"...more family members mean more "lambs of God" (and, cynically) more pews filled in the church. The Church has far less influence over the population in First World countries than they do in Third World countries so the "Go forth..." holds less sway in more developed countries. I wouldn't lean too heavily on religion as a factor in overpopulation. For instance, Quebec, where the overwhelming majority of people are Catholic, has for years had the lowest birth rate by far in Canada. Think you will also find that Spain, Italy, Portugal, Ireland and other Catholic countries also have very low birth rates. As for pesticides (DDT especially) and other pollutants, aren't they far more commonly used and found in food sources in many countries with high birth rates than they are in places like Canada and the US?

Your piece made me stop and think a few times, which is one measure of its success. That it provoked a heated debate should be proof enough for anyone that it works, and works well. Congratulations.

The fallacy of this argument is the same fallacy that projects the need to cover half the surface of a city with roads to keep traffic moving. The more roads we build, the more people will find that travel by car is cheap, fast and convenient. So more people will buy cars that they will use more often, clogging up the roads and enforciing the need to build yet more roads. It's the same with food. Food availability is a natural delimiter on world population. The more food we provide to the world, the more the population will grow, demanding ever more food. Whilst some may take offense at that idea, the reality is there today, staring us in the face. All the first world countries have food surplusses. They are producing far more food than their own population needs, or enabling other countries to produce the food for them to import. This has been so for the past hundred years, without the existence of GM foods. At the same time, the third world countries almost all suffer from food shortages. Now there are two different ways to define a food shortage --- too little food supply for the existing population, or too great a population for the existing food supply. Whichever definition you prefer, the important question is why do not the countries with food surplusses transfer them to the countries with shortages ? The answer is nothing to do with the cost of food production which is the angle that GM foods purport to address. It is due to the unavailability in third world countries of the means of distribution, and to do with the capitalist demand to maintain order in the worldwide food market. Neither of these problems is addressed by GM food production. In fact, many GM crops have been carefully and wickedly designed with a genetic makeup which disables the crop's ability to self-propagate. This means that the third world country will in perpetuity have to buy new seed from Monsanto and the like, placing them in thrall to those companies forever into the future. On the subject of cost, I would like to see evidence that GM foods, which have been sold in the USA for up to tewnty years (?) have had the claimed effect of reducing food prices. All my instinct says they have not. So why would they suddenly start to do so in the third world ? The whole argument for GM as a means to "feed the world" is specious. What the world needs to do is to decide how much food can safely and sustainably be produced on this planet, and then stop producing more. The population of the world will naturally adjust to that availability. If food availability was a natural delimiter to population, the developed world should have an explosive, out of control birth rate, while the developing world's birth rate would be in sharp decline. Rising education levels, on the other hand, especially for women, are, so far, the most potent force in reducing birth rate.

Well, when you're all hooked on peameal bacon, I don't want you to blame Canada. Your drug enforcement people are already saying that Canadian pot is causing serious problems for the US because it is so good. Get a taste of that Canadian bacon and you'll be ruined for any other kind of bacon, eh?

Maggie is arranging a shitload of peameal bacon for the new eGullet restaurant. (Shitload is a Canadian term for enough, or close to.) We are backward in these parts and frozen food is only available in most of Canada from November to April.

How can you not know what a corn dog is? Do you live under a rock? It is a hot dog coated in a corn meal batter and served on a stick. Go to your local grocery and get a box out of the freezer section. I just bought the Oscar Meyer brand and ate four. As to why anyone would crave one, I haven't a clue. That is why I started this thread. Not under a rock, but in Canada. How can you not know what peameal bacon is, eh? You live under a bush, eh?

I kind of feel like Maggie entering with some trepidation into MatthewB's treehouse but curiosity got the better of me: what is a corn dog and why would anyone crave one?

A few months ago, on my way out of town, I joined friends at a restaurant in a shopping mall in Whitby, a bedroom community east of Toronto. At the next table was a family of five--mom, dad, three kids all under the age of 10. In front of mom was a cast iron plate that I think had been heated in or on an oven, but perhaps not enough or a while ago. Mom was trying to cook strips of chicken breast for the kids. The kids did not seem amused. Mom seemed quite frustrated and dad seemed like he was waiting for the whole ordeal to end. Can't say that my meal was in any way memorable (in fact, can't remember it at all) but at least I was spared the indignity of trying to cook something that was guaranteed not to please on a device that was engineered not to cook.

Redarmy, Didn't Lethbridge Pilsner attain something approaching a goofy cult status among a certain sort of diehard Albertan, especially the ones who found symbolism in the label after smoking a lot of weed?

That all sounds encouraging, Suzanne. I'm open to surprises.