Smithsonian.com

Bologna was the subject of familial intrigue. Image courtesy of Flickr user MomPop

For this month’s Inviting Writing, we asked for stories about food and reconciliation—reconciliation with a food or a loved one, or even a food-related failure of reconciliation. Today’s story comes from Kelly Robinson, a freelance writer for Mental Floss, Curve and other magazines, and the author of an earlier Inviting Writing essay about addiction to Tab. She blogs about books and writing at Book Dirt, and can tell you without equivocation that she didn’t do it.

The Case of the Criminal Lunch Meat

By Kelly Robinson

I read nostalgic food memoirs with a skeptical eye, especially the ones that are sweet as cotton candy unicorns. They’re true, I suppose, but the Norman Rockwell-esque scenes just don’t jibe with some of the most memorable moments at table with my family.

Sure, we had our share of dinnertime jollies—my toddler sister eating mountains of chicken livers because she was told they were chocolate cake, for example—but they’re so easily eclipsed by images of things like my Aunt Nancy in a white nightgown, covered from top to bottom with blood-red beet juice. I’ve never seen Carrie in its entirety. I don’t need to.

There’s also my other sister, who spilled her drink at something like 3,057 consecutive dinners, giving our mother fits that left no tooth ungnashed. Our mother seethed just as much when we had guests one night and the lid to the butter dish was removed to reveal the Twisted Sister logo my metalhead brother had carved there.

And then there was the incident of the gritloaf, which I’ve promised my mother never to speak of again.

The real family drama, though, the one that surpasses even metal bands in the butter or horror movie nightgowns, involves a single slice of bologna. It was 1979. My sister, brother and I were anticipating our mother’s arrival home, and for once, we scrambled to make sure things were in order: no plastic bags tied to the cat, no stray Weebles on the floor. We were neatly lined up on the couch, wondering what stunt Yogi Kudu would pull next on “That’s Incredible!”

Mom walked in, surveyed the room slowly, then stopped suddenly and screeched: Who put the bologna on the wall?!

And there was, indeed, a single slice of bologna, red plastic ring outlining its shiny meat circle, adhered to the wall, slightly above and to the right of the television set. The denials came in rapid fire, and once the interrogation was well underway it was clear that none of us seemed to have done it. None of us admitted it, anyway.

I don’t recall the actual punishment. I may have blocked some it out of my mind, but I know it was severe. I’m sure we were grounded for life plus twenty years and cut off of Little Debbie snack cakes. We probably didn’t get to watch “That’s Incredible!” that night, either.

The bologna game of whodunit still rages today, and it rages hard. We’re now entering our fourth decade of pointing fingers and making accusations. You’d think someone would be mature enough to cop to it, but no one has ever cracked, and whoever it was, the other two of us didn’t witness the deed.

The feud still rages, yes, but the more time passes, the more the feud bonds us rather than divides us. We’re parents of children who have moved out of state or joined the Army. We work in very different fields. We sometimes go months without seeing or talking to each other. But, come holiday time, when we’re all in one room for what might be the only time until next year, there is no conversation so awkward or silence so deep that it can’t be completely turned around with the question, “So who really put the bologna on the wall?”

I fume. I didn’t even like the smell of bologna, I insist. My sister points the finger at my brother, who is my prime suspect this year. He thinks it was me, and that my dislike of lunch meat smell is a lifelong cover story.

It might seem odd by some family’s standards, but it’s how we communicate, and there’s comfort in knowing that’s how we always will.

I’ve always wondered if a deathbed confession might be what it would take to ultimately solve the mystery, but it hardly matters. In fact, it’s far more likely that one of us would slowly wheeze and cough out last words from the hospital bed and say, “I-i-i-i-i-t wasn’t m-e-e-e-e-e-e-e.”

The only proper response from the rest of us would be, “We love you too.”

Leaf plates. Images courtesy of VerTerra

The first single-use food service item was the paper plate, invented in 1904. Paper cups followed soon after. Over the next century, disposable cups, utensils and plates were developed in increasingly durable—and environmentally unfriendly—materials. The low point, as far as the planet’s health is concerned, was probably the original Styrofoam cup. It was durable, lightweight and kept people from burning their hands while holding a hot cup of coffee, but it was also made using chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), which break down ozone in the atmosphere. CFCs were phased out in the late 1980s, but that didn’t eliminate the problem of polystyrene, like other plastics, hanging around landfills for centuries after being used just once.

According to Time magazine, Americans throw away an estimated trillion disposable plates and utensils per year. The best option, of course, would be if everyone stopped using disposable products altogether. That’s probably never going to happen—it’s just too convenient to be able to grab a cup of coffee on your way to work. But some ingenious new products have come out in recent years that might be able to reduce the damage, including disposable cups and utensils made from a material derived from corn. They look just like plastic, but can be composted by a commercial composter so they don’t end up in landfills. Even more interesting—not to mention seasonally appropriate—is a line of plates made from fallen leaves, which can be naturally home-composted after use.

In the natural order of things, leaves fall from trees and eventually disintegrate, their nutrients enriching the soil to help the next generation of leaves and other plants grow. If those leaves happen to be in someone’s yard or a public place, they are usually picked up. Gardeners and other environmentally conscious people will add the leaves to a compost pile to become a natural fertilizer. But more often than not, the fallen leaves are incinerated or taken to the dump, where they will still disintegrate over time, but the plastic bags that were used to collect them will stick around for a good, long while.

VerTerra, a company founded in 2007, just adds another step to the leaves’ natural life cycle: dinner. The idea for plates made from fallen leaves came to VerTerra founder and CEO, Michael Dwork, when he was traveling in rural India. He saw a woman soaking palm leaves and then pressing them in a kind of waffle iron. She then served food on the pressed leaves. When he returned to the United States and business school, he experimented with adapting this simple and resourceful concept to make a line of attractive, durable and environmentally friendly single-use plates and bowls. (Not as cheap as paper or plastic, though; they can cost up to about a dollar per piece.) After they’re used, they can be thrown in the compost pile, where they will naturally compost within two months. The company website even includes a tutorial on composting at home, whether you live in the country or in a tiny apartment.

According to the company, the plates are made from leaves in India because no American leaves would produce the right effect. Only fallen leaves are used; steam, heat and pressure are applied to form the plates. Since nothing but leaves and water are added, they’re nontoxic and can be safely added to the compost pile.

That means the plate you eat your food on can help grow your next meal. Pretty cool.

A male Atlantic salmon. Image courtesy of Flickr user U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service - Northeast Region

Salmon farming has received its share of criticism for being detrimental to the environment. Many salmon are raised in net pens, which allow fish waste, chemicals and farming byproducts to spread into the wild. There’s also the threat of pathogens that could thrive in crowded pens and escape to harm natural fish populations. One disease, infectious salmon anemia, was once thought to be a problem exclusive to farmed Atlantic salmon. A new study by a group of researchers from Simon Fraser University in British Columbia has found that this influenza-like virus is infecting naturally ocurring salmon populations.

Infectious salmon anemia was first observed 1984 and occurs most often in overcrowded, filthy salmon pens. As the name suggests, the virus causes anemia, the condition in which a body doesn’t have enough healthy red blood cells to deliver oxygen to its tissues. Infected fish may exhibit symptoms—such as pale gills and loss of appetite—or they may outwardly seem perfectly fine. While the disease doesn’t pose any risks to humans, it can wipe out upwards of 70 percent of a farmed salmon population.

This is the first time the disease has been found in wild fish off the coast of North America. After observing a decline in the salmon population off the British Columbia coast, researchers collected 48 specimens for study and discovering two juvenile fish infected with the disease. While there is currently no evidence to definitively link fish farming to the presence of salmon anemia in wild populations, there could be devastating ramifications, not just for the fishing industry, but for the wildlife that depends on salmon for food. “It’s a disease emergency,” James Winton, director of the U.S. Geological Survey’s fish health section, told the Associated Press. “We’re concerned. Should it be introduced, it might be able to adapt to Pacific salmon.”

What does one do with star anise? Image courtesy of Flickr user joana hard

In each installment of this occasional series, we ask (and answer) questions about the less familiar items in the spice aisles—most importantly, what the heck you do with them. So far, we’ve looked at nigella seeds, annatto and galangal.

This time, it’s star anise. My first stab at an answer to the title question—what do you do with it—might have been: Turn it into earrings! Or maybe add it to a bowl of decorative potpourri. But star anise isn’t just the prettiest spice in the rack; its flower-shaped pods add essential flavoring to popular dishes from several cultures.

What is it?

Star anise is the seed pod from an evergreen tree, Illicium verum, that grows in China. It’s unrelated to regular anise, though they share a similar flavor. Star anise one of the five spices in Chinese five-spice blends, along with cloves, cinnamon, Sichuan pepper and ground fennel seeds. It’s one of the signature flavors in the Vietnamese noodle soup pho. Beyond the kitchen, it’s also a vital component of the influenza-fighting drug Tamiflu—although scientists have figured out a way to manufacture its active ingredient, shikimic acid, in recent years.

What does it taste like?

Star anise has a mild and fragrant licorice flavor. Max Falkowitz at Serious Eats describes it as having a “luxurious headiness along subtle sweet and herbal notes.” It’s subtler than the medicinal taste of black jelly beans or my least favorite liquor, Jägermeister, but it can still overpower a dish if used immoderately.

What the heck do I do with it?

The options are wide open, but there are a few classic combinations that are a good place to start. Chinese poached chicken with star anise, from Food & Wine magazine, uses an aromatic broth spiced with star anise, ginger, cinnamon and scallions. Steamy Kitchen gives step-by-step instructions for making a beef pho recipe from Into the Vietnamese Kitchen. In neighboring Thailand, some versions of condensed-milk-sweetened iced teas are flavored with star anise and other spices.

Desserts are also a natural place to use the licorice-flavored spice, and it works especially well with traditional fall and winter recipes. It adds another dimension to ginger cookies, like these triple ginger ones spiked with lemon, from 101 Cookbooks. A Life (Time) of Cooking uses it in a novel twist on baked apples. And Bobby Flay’s pumpkin bread pudding (via Food Republic) is topped with a caramel apple sauce spiced with star anise, cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger and cloves.

Deer in headlights. Image courtesy of Flickr user dogs & music.

The adoption of the automobile as our primary mode of transportation has impacted how we eat, notably with the proliferation of quick-service roadside restaurants replete with convenience foods. We usually think of fried and grilled fare when it comes to eating on the go, but another breed of convenience food is a direct result of the rise of car culture: road-kill cuisine. Although the concept is a source of class-conscious condescension—just search the internet for jokes on this theme—some see the roadside-cum-deli aisle as an acceptable, if not preferable, alternative to supermarket meats.

One such person is 44-year-old taxidermist Jonathan McGowan of Dorset, England. He’s been noshing on scavenged meat for decades. Living near a chicken production site prompted McGowan to seriously consider the source of his meats, especially after seeing farm-raised animals living in inhumane conditions. ”I used to cut up dead animals to see their insides,” McGowan told the Daily Mail, “and when I did, all I could see was fresh, organic meat, better than the kind I had seen in the supermarkets. So I never saw a problem with cooking and eating it.” His food-sourcing methods have resulted in kitchen creations such as owl curry and badger stew. And he’s not alone. Road-kill cuisine has inspired regional cook-off competitions and even cookbooks.

With the Humane Society of the United States estimating that approximately one million animals are killed by traffic daily, the idea of “waste not, want not” doesn’t seem so far-fetched. Even PETA, renowned for its anti-animal-eating stance, has said the consumption of road kill “is a superior option to the neatly shrink-wrapped plastic packages of meat in the supermarket.”

But is it safe? Unlike the average Joe, hunters and people like McGowan know their way around dead animals and are trained to spot the red flags that signify meat isn’t safe to eat. And while farm-raised meats undergo federally mandated health inspections,what you find by the side of the road may expose you to pathogens such as E. coli or tularemia, a bacterial infection common in rabbits and other rodents. Furthermore, a collision with a car can cause an animal such extensive internal damage—which might not be readily apparent—that it is unsuitable for consumption.

First off, if you hit an animal, call the local authorities. Regulations on what you are allowed to lift from the roadside vary from state to state, and if an animal is still living after a collision, it should be tended to as humanely as possible. And while you might be hard pressed to find formal instruction on how to handle road kill you bring home, you might try a hunter education course to get a sense of how to handle animals killed in the wild, be it by bullet or bumper. Those of you who prefer supermarket meat can satisfy yourselves with a round of road-kill bingo during your next car ride.