291598 Thu Jan 16 10:16:05 -0800 2003 41 27 General Chowhounding Topics 0 1587821 I'm not sure if this article on where to find 'illegal' foods does anyone a service. Perhaps some of the food laws prohibiting certain cheeses, fruits and fish/meat are as archaic as New York's blue laws but I'm not so sure. For example, the article in part states: "Certain Asian fruits have been banned from this country because they may contain pests that would attack stateside crops. Some game animals are illegal to serve because their meat hasn't been inspected." So does this article help anyone to find out which food suppliers can provide the 'forbidden fruit'? Comments from other 'hounds please. I've listed below the copy of this week's cover but I was unable to find the article online but it will probably show up on their website in the next few weeks. Link: http://www.timeoutny.com/381.cover.html Thu Jan 16 10:16:05 -0800 2003 0 Flynn 1 1587825 Just curious, why would you want to purchase smuggled goods that would carry pests that could destroy large segments of our country's agricultural industry, or meat that would carry diseases that may kill you? Thu Jan 16 10:38:55 -0800 2003 1587821 0 ironmom 2 1587828 Kinda reminds me of the "absinthe" thread a couple of months ago! I wonder whether the folks who brought kudzu to Georgia, africanized honey bees to Brazil and zebra mussels to the Great Lakes will ever get a cover story in Time Out magazine? Thu Jan 16 10:47:29 -0800 2003 1587825 0 Kirk 3 1587829 They should, if we could catch them. After we throw them in jail and fine them the costs of what they did. The last thing we need here is foot-and-mouth disease, mad cow, or medflies. Thu Jan 16 10:51:16 -0800 2003 1587828 0 ironmom 4 1587880 I'm with you, Ironmom. I've lived in countries with lax food and safety standards (Spain being one of them). I can attest that I would much rather go without "delicacies" like Sardinian Casu Marzu cheeses made with maggots than have 800 people die -- and 20,000 more have lasting health damage -- from using adulterated cooking oil (as they did in Spain in 1981). The Department of Agriculture and the FDA are NOT protectionist government conspiracies designed to keep you from trying rare or taboo foods. If anyone wants to try these "wonderful" things, please feel free to do so somewhere -- Sardinia, Spain, India, the Czech Republic -- where the rest of us don't have to clean up after you. Thu Jan 16 14:45:34 -0800 2003 1587829 0 Kirk 5 1587932 You make some good points. However I disagree on 3 issues: 1) We're not just talking about "trying rare & taboo foods" like some junior high kids sneaking out to smoke their first joint. We're discussing artisan food products of a high quality which have not gone through the destructive process of homogenization, pasteurization, irradation, etc. to the point of mass comsumed blandness. These are foods that taste the way food is SUPPOSED to taste. Yes there are risks. There are also risks everytime you step into a bathtub. 2) Perhaps I'm just a true libertarian but I do not believe that there should be rules, regulations & laws restricting issues of personal choice. If they are aware of the risks, then adults should be allowed to consume drugs, drink absinthe, not wear seatbelts, or eat unpasteurized cheese. 3) Yes the Agri. Dept. & FDA do a bang up job (they're heroes too). But a great, great, majority of their regulations are for the protection of the corporate industrial farming & meat industries. Our govt. spends billions of our dollars to keep us "safe" from foreign harm while allowing these conglomerates to poison the food & water supplies with chemical insecticides & fertiliziers, introduce genetically altered crops into the food cycle, allow animals to be raised for slaughter in over-crowded and unhealthy conditions while being pumped full of hormones and antibiotics. Read "Fast Food Nation". Go out to the country & try to find a real family farm. If you were aware of the horrifying condition of the food we consume these days, a little foreign dirt and a few insects would seem like small potatoes. Thu Jan 16 19:19:53 -0800 2003 1587880 0 Keller 6 1587943 Thank you. On a related subject, while I've had the best meals of my life in the US, the degree to which mass-market food is processed here is just unbelievable. Look at the ingredients lists of basic dairy products in the supermarket - it's truly educational. Not that Europe has a profound cultural disdain for all this artificiality - it's just still far more traditional and far less efficient, and efficiency-obsessed. In many cases the European companies haven't figured out yet how to use all those chemicals to give everything a million-year shelf life. Just give us time... Thu Jan 16 21:24:42 -0800 2003 1587932 0 Katerina 6 1587962 You are right about having the responsibility of -- and for -- our choices. I think that anyone who decides to eat, or grow, or breed anything that has consequences for all of us needs to recognize that and accept responsibility for it. That holds true whether it is Kraft Foods, or Ben & Jerry's Ice Cream, or Aunt Nora's cranberry farm. In a perfect world, all of us would be adult enough not to do anything that would harm others. But we all know this is not a perfect world. For example, in the abstract, I don't mind if someone decides to create artisanal cheeses from unpasteurized milk. But if my immune-system-surpressed neighbor decides to eat it and contracts tuberculosis, which he then passes along to my family, I would probably feel very differently about it. Same goes for pork or ham that might cause trichinosis. The reason jamon serrano, mentioned above, was not allowed in this country was not protectionism...it was the fact that uncooked ham from pigs raised in the filth of Spanish pig farms contained trichinosis or worse. Mind you, I am not suggesting that genetically modified foods or even over-processed foods are the answer. I detest the fact that one of the U.S.'s biggest exports these days is diabetes, thanks to the ubiquity of fast foods on continents that before now have subsisted quite well on 1,500 calories a day (which you can easily get in a single "super-sized value meal" at your local McDonalds.) My basic point is, let's not consider everything "fine" simply because it is "natural" or "artisanal" or "old school." And while I wholeheartedly believe that everyone should make their own choices, I would remind you that libertarianism is fine ... up to the point where someone else decides to impinge on your rights. If your libertarian neighbor decides to build a chicken farm in her backyard, are you going to respect her right to choose to do that? Especially if your kids like to play in their backyard and have to deal with run-off? OK...I've said my piece. Please make your own choices, as long as they don't affect my ability to make mine. Fri Jan 17 00:11:26 -0800 2003 1587932 0 Kirk 7 1587969 Well put! I used to think of myself as a libertarian until I realized the implications of a world without rules. Fri Jan 17 08:14:18 -0800 2003 1587962 0 AlanH 3 1587834 Except that absinthe is illegal here because - brace yourself - it contains high quantities of ALCOHOL. So I think it's ethically, if not legally, OK to bring and consume it. It's not like anyone is going to die from it, unless they drink a bottle in a sitting. Absinth is made and freely sold in the Czech Republic; there are very stringent laws about toxins in food and drink, so if there was a good medical reason for it to be banned it would be. You may not believe it but the Czech norms are actually often stricter than EU ones, not to mention American. Thu Jan 16 11:11:45 -0800 2003 1587828 0 Katerina 4 1587837 Actually absinthe is illegal because of the wormwood derived toxins that supposedly cause cumulative brain damage. I can buy everclear, a 95% pure alcohol, and occasionally do, for liqueur-making. Thu Jan 16 11:30:02 -0800 2003 1587834 0 ironmom 5 1587839 You can also fill a hotel bathtub with everclear, fruit juice, and whole fruits and drink it all week! The cherries will be excellent by week's end. Oh excuse me...that was 18-year-old Danna posting ;-) Thu Jan 16 11:38:30 -0800 2003 1587837 0 danna 6 1587841 wooHOO! 18-year-old nancy was a huge fan of the everclear tub... Thu Jan 16 11:43:18 -0800 2003 1587839 0 Nancy 7 1587852 We used to make it in a brand new, plastic garbage can, back in college... Thu Jan 16 12:49:00 -0800 2003 1587841 0 Peter Cuce 8 1587907 My husband had the plastic garbage can version at a wedding in North Carolina years ago. They called it Purple Jesus, and he drank more than he realized since it tasted more of fruit juice than alchohol. The next morning he could barely crawl, and when he told a local friend about it, she just smiled. Purple Jesus got another Yankee! Thu Jan 16 16:49:49 -0800 2003 1587852 0 Dancin' Cook 9 1587946 Oh, my God! We used to call it Purple Passion. My husband's fraternity used to mix it up in college. I won't even tell you how much trouble it got us into. Recipe called for grain alcohol - mucho proofo! I still have the recipe but we have enough kids by now. Thanks for the memories, though. D. Thu Jan 16 21:32:18 -0800 2003 1587907 0 Donna - MI 10 1588010 In college we'd use a big can of grape juice concentrate as the base, and mix it up in a clean bathtub. It was a great way to get back at particularly evil landlords, that purple stain NEVER came out! Fri Jan 17 13:39:07 -0800 2003 1587946 0 Patti 9 1587968 And here I thought PJ stood for Party Juice. Fri Jan 17 07:55:25 -0800 2003 1587907 0 danna 9 1588144 at my college that garbage can fruit hooch stuff was called hairy buffalo. yeah hairy buffalo parties, how dimly i remember them. Sat Jan 18 10:26:59 -0800 2003 1587907 0 mrnyc 6 1588389 Gotta soak the fruit in the alcohol for a couple of hours though. Eating the fruit then becomes very interesting. Mon Jan 20 16:47:59 -0800 2003 1587839 0 Hunter 5 1587873 The quantities of wormwood in the currently available absinth are so small that it's perfectly safe to drink it in reasonable quantities. The historic reputation of absinth is more due to high alcohol content than any halucinogenic effects of wormwood. Or so they say nowadays (NOT absinth manufacturers, medical researchers.) Thu Jan 16 14:00:46 -0800 2003 1587837 0 Katerina 6 1587882 The normal alcohol content for absinthe when it was banned was 65-75%, less than good 'ole Bacardi 151. And I don't think any modern absinthe from the Czech Republic, Spain, or even illegal ones such as La Bleue from Switzerland (simply fantastic if you can find it) go above the 120 proof mark, but I may be mistaken. It's banned simply because wormwood, or more appropriately thujone, is thought to cause brain degredation, and therefore no food products may contain in it in anything but trace amounts. If you want your wormwood, Absente sells a little dropper full of essence of wormwood. 5 drops per 750ml bottle of Absente pastis and you get the proper thujone content. Is it illegal, no, since the bottle says that it is not to be consumed (though last I saw one it had the recipe on how to consume it on the side.) After all, I think Vick VapoRub has wormwood in it. Apparently they got in a little trouble because some goth idiot though you drank the whole bottle of wormwood essence - his liver shut down and he almost died. Good one. Thu Jan 16 14:51:28 -0800 2003 1587873 0 Lambretta76 7 1587899 ...ha ha... but what a "goth" death that would have been... Hill's absinth (the "original" Czech absinth) is 70% alcohol, so 140 proof, but weaker versions are made by other manufacturers. It's undrinkable undiluted, but pretty good with the carmelized sugar and water. Less licorice-y than other kinds. Thu Jan 16 16:22:09 -0800 2003 1587882 0 Katerina 3 1587878 Europe's supposedly "killer" raw-milk cheese kills only a tiny fraction of the people that cars do. Yet U.S. hysteria insists on banning raw-milk cheese and subsidizing car use. Curious. Me, I'd rather see Kraft and its ilk fined--or worse--for their crimes against cuisine than a small importer get slapped by the government for sneaking in some brilliant french cheese. Or a small domestic producer for making and selling a minimally proccessed product. For an interesting discussion of the horrors of "Africanized" bees, see Michael Moore's Bowling for Columbine. As for mad cow, it's caused, evidently, by feeding cow parts to cows. Our wonderful meat industry would *never* cut corners like that...right? Thu Jan 16 14:32:29 -0800 2003 1587828 0 Tom Philpott 2 1587842 My point, exactly! Thu Jan 16 11:46:35 -0800 2003 1587825 0 Flynn 2 1587872 Don't you think the phrase "or meat that would carry diseases that may kill you?" is a wee bit extreme? I mean, when you travel to other countries, do you eat the food there or pack everything in or do you just stay home? I've traveled in a lot of other countries, eatten at markets and from stalls in the street and still I've had all but one of 5 lifetime episodes of food poisoning caused by meals here in the States. Certainly there are valid reasons for certain types of products not to imported but an awful lot of the justification is simply protectionism and prejudice. Thu Jan 16 13:56:44 -0800 2003 1587825 0 jenn 3 1587954 I'd rather not risk CJD myself. You go ahead and eat beef from countries where mad cow disease is known to exist. Thu Jan 16 22:43:08 -0800 2003 1587872 0 ironmom 1 1587855 My SO would give his left arm for some contraband jamon iberico. USDA rules often ensure that the very best artisan products from abroad cannot be imported. That's why there is only one brand of Spanish chorizo imported to the US. They raise their pigs in a USDA approved facility. Thu Jan 16 13:00:43 -0800 2003 1587821 0 butterfly 2 1587869 Actually, I know of more than one, at least here in the Boston area.... Thu Jan 16 13:45:33 -0800 2003 1587855 0 Karl S. 3 1587913 Palacios is the only legal brand imported to the US. What other brands have you seen? Thu Jan 16 17:39:34 -0800 2003 1587869 0 butterfly 4 1587915 If you go back to tienda.com, you'll see that they sell at least three different varieties, including Redondo. It's Jamon Iberico that won't be here till next year. Link: http://www.tienda.com/food/jamon.htm Thu Jan 16 17:57:57 -0800 2003 1587913 0 Kirk 5 1587918 The chorizo Soria they sell (U.S. made) is, to my taste, as good as anything I have eaten in Spain. Link: http://www.tienda.com/food/pop/cz-21.html Thu Jan 16 18:02:07 -0800 2003 1587915 0 Kirk 6 1588133 You have not had the good stuff in Spain. No US made chorizo even comes close to the really good Spanish stuff. I had stuff made by a local butcher in Madrid that essentially had whole pork loins inside. Cured beautifully it was as good as Iberico ham in it's own special chorizo way. Sat Jan 18 06:49:23 -0800 2003 1587918 0 StriperGuy 7 1588145 Sorry, Striper, but I lived there for seven years, and I assure you I had the good stuff. The Soria chorizo I referred to above has huge pieces of lomo in it, and the garlic/paprika seasonings are as perfect as anything I've tasted. Try some, and then tell me whether you think it's a poor imitation. By the way, the morcilla made by the same company is not as good as what you can buy in Asturias (or elsewhere in Spain for that matter). Sat Jan 18 10:29:55 -0800 2003 1588133 0 Kirk 8 1588147 Pretty sure I tried all of the tienda offerings at one point or another. The Palacio, the newest from Tienda and from Spain with Danish pork does not do the trick. Lived in Spain for 2+ years myself and even in Spain you have to be a chorizo lover and know what to look for. That said, I will have to give Soria another try. Sat Jan 18 10:47:48 -0800 2003 1588145 0 StriperGuy 4 1587971 A place I know sells chorizo from Salamanca (or Salamanca style from Spain -- Salamanca is a specific subtype of chorizo), which I find is better (it's larger and dried a bit longer) than the ones marketed by Palacio. Fri Jan 17 09:06:34 -0800 2003 1587913 0 Karl S. 5 1587993 Hmm, I wonder how they're importing it... Though if I were you I wouldn't ask to many questions--wouldn't want to mess up a good thing! Fri Jan 17 11:54:48 -0800 2003 1587971 0 butterfly 6 1587996 yes. it is a place of sterling repute. Fri Jan 17 12:20:27 -0800 2003 1587993 0 Karl S. 5 1588132 I would love to know your source for Chorizo hear in beantown... big chorizo fan! Sat Jan 18 06:46:24 -0800 2003 1587971 0 s 2 1587876 You might take a look at the website for Tienda, an importer of Spanish goods. They are taking pre-orders for authentic Iberian Jamon that they are specially curing to meat US standards. Link: http://www.tienda.com Thu Jan 16 14:09:03 -0800 2003 1587855 0 JudiAU 3 1587912 Yes, we know tienda.com well. In order to get USDA approval, they had to raise the pigs in a different country in a USDA approved facility. The pigs won't be kept on Spanish soil... God willing--by the time that jamon makes it over here, we'll be living in Madrid! Thu Jan 16 17:38:47 -0800 2003 1587876 0 butterfly 1 1587901 From an editorial standpoint, I found this article (as I find most all TONY "food articles" totally useless. Thu Jan 16 16:29:07 -0800 2003 1587821 0 Abbylovi