#199 - jonesin'.

today is a time for rejoicing, eat!drink!snack! groupies. what you're currently reading is the 200th meditation i've written here on eat!drink!snack! you may be saying to yourself, "WAIT, JERK. WHY IS IT LISTED AS POST #199? WHAT UP WIT DAT?" well, sherlock holmes, it's meditation #200 because back in the semi-early days of the blog, i did a two-part post (#80a, #80b) about the two national semifinal games of the 2009 NCAA final four. yay, basketball. for our 200th post, we're going to talk about drugs. that's right...the funny stuff.

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nosh nook #188 - wednesday, december 2, 2009

montreal's bagels square off against new york's (link)
12.1.09 - the ny times - by jennifer 8 lee

the summer after my freshman year of college, i met a few friends up in burlington, VT & we headed up to montreal for an evening of drunken, strip club hoppin' good times. just after we crossed the border into canada, we picked up a bunch of molson xxx & quickly thereafter got to consuming it in all its enhanced alcohol content glory. oh canada! better alcohol content! better drinking age! after a series of follies, we somehow eventually made it to club super sexe & although i've only been to one other strip club in my life & that one was stateside, i can clearly say...oh canada! better strippers! better lap dances! we already know they have a better health care system, so i won't even get into that.

so wait? does their bagel capital (montreal) also have better bagels than our bagel capital (nyc)? there's no way. our bagels rule. jennifer 8 lee (who is quickly becoming one of my favorite times writers) & the ny times city room had heard rumors that montreal had legendarily delectable & different bagels, so they decided to find out for themselves. as lee explains, "montreal, which saw an influx of jewish immigrants both before and after world war II, had become one of the main world centers of distinctive jewish cuisine." that, of course, means good bagels. with that in mind, city room took a trip up to a bagel joint way up in montreal--st-viateur's bagels. it seems like a bit of a hike for a bagel, but i guess we are talking the ny times here. they still have lots of money to throw around, right?

the first thing that lee & city room learned was that "montreal bagel makers had no problem trash-talking new york bagels, which they found to be too gargantuan and too salty. they even talked to one of st-viateur's employees & he asked "why do they even call it a bagel? it's like having bread." oh snap! he says that because their bagels are skinnier & have a more pronounced hole. as for the taste, they're "hand-rolled and baked in wood-burning ovens," so they have a "crisp and smoky crust." they're also made with malt flour & "are boiled in water with honey," so they're sweeter on the inside. there's no salt either, which is just crazy talk.

city room brought some of the bagels back for their times co-workers & the overall consensus was that "the new york bagel clearly won out among those who had an opinion to offer," as the montreal ones were "like new york pretzels without salt," "completely flavorless" and "dense, a little tough, and totally bland." they don't sound all that bad, but since i'm not heading up to montreal any time soon, for now, i'm going to have to take their word for it. that's okay with me though. the bagels we've got down here in nyc will do me just fine for now.

nosh nook #151 - monday, october 12, 2009

where they grow our junk food (link)
10.11.09 - toronto star - by margaret webb

if there's one thing that canadians like, it's saying "ay," ay? if there's another thing that they like, it's hockey, ay? if i were to name a third thing that canadians enjoy, it's socialized medicine, ay? if there's something beyond that that's a favorite of canadians (in addition to the aforementioned first three things), it's nickelback, ay? if i was asked to name an additional thing that canadians can get behind, it's cheap junk food, ay? apparently, they can't get enough of it.

since canadians love cheap junk food so much, the toronto star's margaret webb went out in search of a junk food farm. as she notes, "such farms are not so easy to spot. no fields of dorito bags waving in the breeze, no orchards blooming with soda pop, no soil bursting with 99-cent burgers." the canadians are hiding their junk food farms just like the iranians are with their nuclear weapons program. sanctions! basically, the canadians have disguised their junk food farms as soybean & corn farms & those two crops go into a ton of crappy food. soybeans make feed for livestock which makes burgers, soy oil makes lards & corn goes into syrups, sweeteners, starches & oil. who doesn't like burgers, lard & syrups?

as the article describes, canadian farmers are under a lot of pressure. canadians want cheap food (they put less of their income toward food than any country in the world) & with globalization, farmers face a ton of competition. as a result, they have to farm every available inch of land, a practice that has its environmental impacts. one such river, the sydenham, has "turned the colour of chocolate milk." farmers such as dave ferguson have little to no choice but to grow soybean & corn. he's trying to change that by educating other farmers, but as david jenkins (a top canadian nutritional researcher) notes, without a dramatic shift in public policy, "improving our diets through education and persuasion alone will take decades." decades? that's a heck of a long time, ay?...& i thought the u.s. farm system was messed up.

nosh nook #56 - monday, june 1, 2009

former GG unimpressed with jean's seal snack (link)
05.31.09 - toronto star - by alexander panetta, the canadian press

joining in on the locals' rituals or customs is just one of the key tools in the politician's handbag, a way to show the people "hey, i'm an average person just like you." it doesn't always go as planned though. we saw it last march, during the last u.s. election season, when barack obama went to altoona, pa's pleasant valley lanes to bowl with pennsylvania senator robert casey. while it allowed obama to mingle with the locals, the takeaway message was that obama is not a good bowler...& we won't even get into the fact that the president compared his bowling skills to that of something out of the special olympics.

in canada, governor general michaelle jean, the country's first black governor general, has recently caused somewhat of a hubbub by participating in an inuit skinning ritual which involved her snacking on raw seal meat & more specifically, the seal heart. as alexander panetta explains, last week, jean was attending an "arctic symposium" in iqaluit (the capital of nunavut, canada's newest territory) & as a gesture to the citizens, skinned a seal with "a traditional ulu blade" and then asked for & ate a slice of its heart. the crowd gave her a standing ovation.  i've never tried seal heart myself, but i'm assuming that it tastes unlike anything i've ever eaten.

sure, it's pretty hardcore when politicians start eating mammal hearts, but former governor general adrienne clarkson was not impressed by jean's gesture.  shit.  she's been eating raw food since 1971 & has "a lovely seal skin coat."  she has a good point. it's a nice gesture & all, but as a politician, you can't expect the people to blindly follow you just because you're both cool with eating pieces of a circulatory system.  if jean expects to get the people behind her, she needs to go beyond shared snacking.  she probably needs to go on national TV & do something totally awesome like clubbing the hell out of a baby seal.  i hear people love that sort of stuff.