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The Colonel's secret recipe ... for Peeps?

See

http://notionscapital.wordpress.com/2009/04/11/finger-lickin-peeps/

To answer the question...of course not! Never say never and never say always. I must not be eating enough local food (anybody who knows me would laugh hysterically at this point) as I haven't gotten burned badly enough to feel like this...or my standards are awfully low!

Am I down with eating bad food produced by good people? No, but I'd like to help them become better producers with feedback. We need all the good growers/food entrepreneurs we can get. I had an experience where I bought pickles made by a CSA farm I love. They looked great but were kinda mushy. I spoke to the farmer and they realized what happened and learned what to do next batch/time. I think they decided to stick to being growers and not continue with value added items as it can be harder than it looks. I used them in tuna salad, etc and they were fine but not good for plain eating. Unless something is down and out manky/nasty, I can find a way to improve and use a challenging purchase. And if it is manky, any decent food seller will want to know, feel dreadful about it, and make restitution.

Ask for samples, if no samples ask what they'll do if you don't like their food (out of luck, money back, exchange). If you have an issue, speak up...though like others have said, one person's salt lick is another's just right - food is sooooo subjective. If you don't want to speak up, don't go back.

As far as thanking my lucky stars for Smuckers & Oscar Mayers? Food is better than no food however, I'm an upper lower class blue collar person who's been buying local/organic/natural for too long to feel very celebratory about agribiz and industrial food production. Not ungrateful mind you as I was raised on it and once I'm eating out and about...who can keep track of where everything comes from? I'm watchful and do what I can but don't get mental about it.

1-I have a couple of farm stands I go to regularly to buy fruits and vegtables and the occasional dairy product. They also sell various baked goods, and once in a while I'll buy a baked good thinking it *has* to be good cuz its from the farm. It never ever is good. I should just stick with my local bakery -- or even myself!
2-This is kinda along the lines of why I don't buy grass-fed beef and such from my local farmers just because they sell it: I wonder "who's inspecting this stuff"? "How do I know its safe and handled properly"? I wish I would have some assurance so I could bring myself to buy it, but so far, I see none.

I've had some truly amazing artisanal salumi and cheese, and I have had some truly awful meat and cheese. The awful stuff inspired me to step out on my own and cure some meat. I have had really good luck with smoked bacon, pancetta, guanciale. My luck with sausage has been less impressive. I even had some success with making what amounts to venison prosciutto.
The one thing that I never do is rate my own products. I might really love the salt level in my bacon, someone else might think they are eating a salt-lick.
So before I decide that I can open my on charcuterie stand at the market, I'll make sure that my products are the best I can make if not the "best in the world".
I think finding and supporting artisanal food producers is as important as finding sustainable farmers.

Chris

You're all pointing out something wonderful about local, artisanal foods--they are unique, they are different as night & day from one another, and although they can be good, bad or ugly, they are "self-regulating".

If you get a hairy, nipple covered, salty slab of bacon you don't like, will you buy from that producer again? Probably not. He has just lost a sale. If enough people stop buying from him, he will dry up and blow away. Or...Perhaps you should provide him feed-back. As a consumer, help him become a better producer. Take it as an opportunity to explain why you didn't like the food he was producing. If he's smart he will take it on the chin, adapt and try to do a better job at producing a quality product and providing what the market will buy.

There are going to be some bumps and ruts on the road to local, sustainable, quality foods. Too long we have been lulled into a palate deadening wasteland. We are going to have to re-learn to cook foods which our grandparents knew how to prepare instinctively. Producers are going to have to experiment and learn what works, what doesn't and to rediscover how to make excellent artisanal foods--which once upon a time were standard fare.

And producers--give your customers a feedback form. Offer free samples & tasters. Open yourselves up to criticism. Ask you customers to help you be better. Learn from other producers. Have tasting competitions amongst one another. Earn the right to sell you Mother's Jam recipe or "the Best bacon in the world" Do this, or you will find your products marginalized, your sales figures weak and you farm broken. A free market, a self-regulating local system means the best get better and they get the business while the rest loose money or earn nothing at all. Don't give up. Strive to be better! And if someone does have a complaint, if your product falls short of your sales pitch, your standards or reputation, offer to replace it, exchange for something else or give them their money back.

I agree that artisanal food may not always be better and you bring up a valid point there, Ed. It sucks that you were duped into buying jam that wasn't made by your friend's mom and that the "world's best bacon" was anything but; You just have to take this one for the team and count it as a loss. Your one-time experience does not an industry make. I don't appreciate bad food. I do appeciate the time an consideration put into food. But make no mistake, I won't be eating there again, if it's bad. Or at least, I won't put my $$ down on it.

If the question is: should you eat bad food simply because it is artisan or home-produced, of course the answer is no.

I think Ed's point is a larger one, however--industrial food is quality-controlled. One reason for its popularity is that too many children (and many adults) value consistency over what most people would call good taste. For example, have you ever taken a tiny tot to a really great restaurant that makes fab hamburgers, and have them complain they'd rather be at McDonald's?

If you eat artisanal food you have to accept sometimes the food will be poor, even made by a good producer.

Guess what? If you eat APPLES, you will find an apple with a worm/bruise. If you eat McDonald's apple pie, it will always be molten hot, symmetrical and taste the same.

Eating 'real' food means being surprised by goodness and badness sometimes. If it is bad, throw it out, but the thing is eating well is about EFFORT (finding who does make things well or making it yourself) and RISK. Risking eating something bad for something that is oh-so-good.

did you ever wonder who produced food before the big industrialized agri-businesses??????

regular people. in their homes, backyards, barns, cities, in caves.

thru trial and error the human race has managed to feed itself and not poison the species by smoking meats, making jams, baking breads long before the "culinary frankensteins" invented all of the hormones, preservatives, and other unnecessary "CRAP" .... that passes for food today.

hey, if you feel safer eating food that's been dis-assembled and re-assembled because it was done in a big secure science-fiction food manufacturing plant, knock yourself out.... but don't knock the knowledge of the common man.

the time line:

industrial food vs. food made by the common man

a mere drop in the bucket, folks. duh.

are we better off now than we were 100 years ago?

The photo on the right (all the Peeps on the conveyor belt) reminds me of the marching workers in Metropolis... kinda creepy, actually! Who knew that Peeps could symbolize the marginalization of the working class?

@meat guy
"I believe you are confusing quality with personal taste"

Perhaps, but no more than you are confusing it with utility in my previous example. There are sundry connotations associated with the phrase "quality" and perhaps I have crossed the line into personal preference. For the vast majority of people outside of production based industry the definition of quality differs vastly from "conformance to standards" (though most recognize that definition in the phrase quality control) and is more generally assumed to mean "excellence" - its like the difference between precision and accuracy.

"Under cooked food and unpasteurized milk are risky"

They are indeed, which is why I used them as example to refute your assertion that a public company would never provide a "hazardous" product to the public - which has absolutely no bearing on my personal preference to consume said products (with the exception of course of my contributing in a micro-economic sense). Of course there are outbreaks of problems from time to time, in a long enough time line all things that are possible become reality, but there is no doubt that public (and large private) companies contribute on the retail level to the consumption of these. There is no need to name names, the fact that sushi and raw milk products are available inside the US and elsewhere is testament enough that "companies" are willing to provide "hazardous" products, if they can turn a buck on it. Not even to mention the ol' Fight Club saying which may, in fact, be colloquial but brings home a message which has been independently corroborated by several named and unnamed sources since : "A new car built by my company leaves somewhere traveling at 60 mph. The rear differential locks up. The car crashes and burns with everyone trapped inside. Now: should we initiate a recall? Take the number of vehicles in the field, A, multiply by the probable rate of failure, B, multiply by the average out-of-court settlement, C. A times
B times C equals X. If X is less than the cost of a recall, we don't do one."

That is just how business is done, very few companies/people feel a genuine ethical responsibility to anyone else, and until more people understand that, they are going to continue to look the other way while they are spoon fed potentially hazardous products by somebody trying to turn a buck. The food industry is certainly no more immune to this than any other. Why do you think the cost of litigation and insurance has skyrocketed in the past 20 years?

"Trust your life to a chef with an associates degree in restaurant and hospitality, rather than a product that is cooked safely accoding to the USDA and FDA.."

For the most part I do not. I buy a lot of my food directly from the producer, especially my beef, lamb and pork. I have the ability to physically inspect the premises if I so desire and trust that the living conditions for the animals are such that my chances of becoming ill are extremely low. I can name the restaurants I'd eat a medium piece of pork or a beef from on one hand. Oh and, the USDA "cook to" temperatures are absolutely ridiculous and considerably higher than their associated agencies in other countries. You have your $60 piece of beef tenderloin cooked to 145F to feel safe and completely ruin the dish, not to mention waste your money. I will continue to eat my (mostly) naturally produced meat at under the recommended temperature and if I get trich. or salmonella and what not, then so be it, I'd rather something easily treatable than to a) eat food that taste like crap for the rest of my life or b)worry about all the unnatural additives slowly building up in my body until they reach a level that causes some horrific problem that modern medicine is not yet capable of solving.

Look, we can agree to disagree- but I will continually chose to buy products of superior quality (read: handled by the fewest people) and cook it to its maximum potential. You can continually chose to cook your pork to 165F and beef to 145F, ruining both. Enjoy

Stale peeps are the best. I slit the packages open and leave them for a couple days.

AAH, For the love of a Peep!!--let us who love stale peeps, enjoy our guilty pleasure!!!..:o)

BTW: I wouldn't say no to a chocolate bunny either..hee hee

@Meat guy
"No publicly owned company would ever knowingly make a product that is hazardous" I'm pretty sure the peanut producers knew their product was tainted prior to the recall. Milk that is chemically adulterated to appear as though it has an increase butterfat content (to cover up the fact it is watered down) is rampant by companies throughout the world (especially in developing countries). Not to mention closer to home, explain the prevalence and popularity of: raw eggs/beef/fish/shell fish and under cooked pork, especially among the "top" restaurants in this country and elsewhere around the world. What about raw milk and cheese in Canada/France? Are these products not inherently "hazardous?" Sure, they aren't razor blade studded apples, but there is certainly a risk and yet people are willing to turn a blind eye to products all the time in the pursuit of excellent tasting food - and so are the very companies who are profiting from it - they only care to eschew the practice enough to limit their own liability and not one bit more.

"As for the quality issue, an 89 cent loaf of white bread that is uniform from day to day and affordable and stays fresh for a week, is far better than a 4 dollar loaf of artisinal bread that stales overnight to a family of four on a fixed food budget. THe standard of quality is not high to you, but the standard it met every time, which by the definition is high quality."

You are really confusing "quality" with "utility" here, nonetheless this is an excellent point. As is:

"All Processed foods are not the garbage you are stating, yes, if it is all you eat, you are getting too much sodium, too much fat, and an unbalanced diet. Food education is more important than subsidizing hucksters and crooks making bad products."

Don't be confused, I am not anti-food industry even in the slightest. I am aware that the advances and benefits of industrialized food processing are many and varied, including the fact (that most other people don't realize) if you take the mechanics out of our food industry only the very wealthy would be able to afford things like daily milk, bread, eggs, and especially protein. I purchase items out of a pursuit for "quality" alone. And I am not referring to the consistently affordable, safe product that is widely available and distributed as "quality." I am referring to: "high grade; superiority; excellence" as it relates to taste and nutritional value regardless of the dangers associated with the product, though for the sake of full disclosure I am not young/old, immune compromised nor do I have any food allergies (other than wheat which I completely ignore because I'd rather have an upset tummy than forgo the beautiful Italian loaf that just popped out of my oven).

Thank you all for the excellent discussion today, it has made my afternoon.