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The USDA’s Economic Research Service released a sobering report yesterday about “food security” in the United States. That term is a more nuanced way to explain what is generally called hunger, recognizing the many levels of need that exist between literal starvation and abundance. It could mean skipping meals, or going without food for an entire day. It could mean that your bank balance dictates how nutritionally balanced your meals are. It means anxiety lurking behind what should be pleasant words, like “lunch” and “dinner.”

Courtesy Flickr user tizzie

Perhaps it’s not surprising, since we’re in a recession, but I was alarmed to read these statistics: 14.6 percent of all households, or 49.1 million people, experienced food insecurity last year. That’s not only a significant increase over last year’s prevalence rate (11.1 percent), it’s the highest level reported since this annual survey began in 1995.

The number is even higher in households with children—up to a shocking 21 percent, which as the Washington Post pointed out today, means that nearly one in every four American children has experienced hunger on some level.

How is this possible in a country with the world’s largest economy and 10th-largest GDP per capita? As a point of comparison, Canada, which ranks 22nd on the global GDP scale, has a much lower rate of food insecurity, around 7 percent. On the other hand, look at this map of world hunger: Our problems pale compared to the prevalence of malnourishment in many developing countries.

Personally, I’m in the 85.4 percent of “food secure” American households. I’m generally thrifty; I shop sales and use coupons, but I don’t hew to a strict budget. I feel free to choose healthier, fresher ingredients over cheaper alternatives. Cravings and curiosity, rather than price tags, often guide what lands in my grocery cart. This report makes me feel both grateful and guilty for what I often take for granted.

The USDA offers a few resources for taking action on food security, and I know there are many worthy hunger-relief agencies out there which could use your donations of food, money or time. I don’t feel comfortable recommending a particular organization without researching it thoroughly, but if you do, please leave a comment. Here’s a starting point.

Courtesy Flickr user PumpkinWayne

Unless you leave your house (or turn off all the lights and hide, as at least one person I know does) this Saturday evening, chances are good that you’ll be faced with at least a few sweet-toothed, half-pint monsters on your doorstep.

It’s a funny custom, isn’t it? Dressing cute children up like ghouls and goblins, and sending them door-to-door to beg for fistfuls of usually forbidden treats… whose idea was that?

The custom of trick-or-treating may have Celtic origins, related to the pagan celebration of Samhain, which marked the end of the harvest and the threshold of a new season. According to this paper by anthropologist Bettina Arnold:

The association between Halloween and ghosts and spirits today comes from the Celtic belief that it was at this time of transition between the old year and the new that the barrier between this world and the Otherworld where the dead and supernatural beings lived became permeable….Trick-or-treating is a modern day holdover of the practice of propitiating, or bribing, the spirits and their human counterparts roaming the world of the living on that night. Pumpkins carved as jack-o-lanterns would not have been part of traditional Halloween festivals in Celtic Europe, since pumpkins are New World plants, but large turnips were hollowed out, carved with faces and placed in windows to ward off evil spirits.

Others argue that Halloween is a Christian, not a pagan holiday, pointing to the early Catholic church’s celebrations of All Hallows (Saints) Day, and the night before it, All Hallows E’en (Evening), when Christians were instructed to pray for the souls of the departed. I can see how that would lead to a certain fascination with ghosts, but the candy? Well, back in medieval Europe, kids and beggars would go “souling” on All Hallows Eve…which sounds like a macabre version of door-to-door Christmas caroling: Instead of a merry song, the visitors offered prayers for dead loved ones, in exchange for “soul cakes.” (These, too, may have had pagan roots.)

Some chap named Charles Dickens mentions this tradition in an 1887 issue of his literary journal, “All the Year Round” (actually, I think it must have been Charles Dickens, Jr., who took over the journal after his dad died in 1870):

“…it was a custom to bake on All Hallow E’en, a cake for every soul in the house, which cakes were eaten on All Souls’ Day. The poor people used to go round begging for some cakes or anything to make merry with on this night. Their petition consisted in singing a doggerel sort of rhyme: A soul cake, A soul cake; Have mercy on all Christian souls; For a soul cake; A soul cake. In Cheshire on this night they once had a custom called ‘Hob Nob,’ which consisted of a man carrying a dead horse’s head covered with a sheet to frighten people.”

Eep! That’s quite a trick, alright. In America these days, not too many people take the “trick” part of trick-or-treating seriously anymore; it’s more like: “Hi, gimme candy.” But according to this New York Times article, Halloween night trickery is a problem in the United Kingdom, where “egg-and-flour-throwing, attacks on fences and doors, menacing gatherings of disaffected drunken youths and the theft of garden ornaments” are enough to make some people—gasp!—”hate Halloween.”

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A double-double cheesburger, fries, and soda from In-N-Out Burger. Courtesy of Flickr user Klara Kim

I recently finished the book In-N-Out Burger, by business writer Stacy Perman, about the wildly popular West Coast burger chain. Although I’ve never actually had a Double-Double, as their most iconic menu item is known, I’ve always been puzzled by the mystique surrounding what is, essentially, plain old fast food—just burgers, fries and shakes.

But, no, the devoted fans (among which are Michelin-starred chefs, celebrities and my brother) would argue, there’s nothing plain about In-N-Out. They use quality beef, real potatoes and ice cream, and make every burger to order. You can even order off the secret menu (now posted on the Web site, under the heading “Not-So-Secret Menu”), which includes Animal-style (the mustard is cooked into the patty and the onions are grilled), Protein-style (wrapped in lettuce instead of a bun), or, what I always get, Grilled Cheese (OK, so it’s really just a burger with no meat, but it’s actually pretty good).

My interest in the company also has to do with it being one of the client accounts I worked on as a young advertising art director, in the late 1990s and early 2000s. It was a boring account; the company was so set in its way of doing things that there was no room for creativity.

And who could argue with their track record? As Perman recounts, the little burger shack opened by Harry and Esther Snyder in 1948, in the working-class Los Angeles suburb of Baldwin Park, has grown steadily ever since. Investors have salivated over the family-owned business, which has steadfastly refused to franchise or go public, and eager fans cause traffic jams whenever a new location opens (which, in contrast to most fast-food chains, happens somewhat infrequently). Vanity Fair hires one of the company’s catering trucks for its annual post-Oscar bash. Ex-Californians and savvy out-of-towners head to In-N-Out straight from LAX to feed their burger joneses. Famous chefs, including Daniel Boulud, Ruth Reichl and Thomas Keller (who enjoys his cheeseburger with a glass of Zinfandel), have professed their love of In-N-Out in the national press.

Yet the company’s success has been counterintuitive, and opposite from how most successful chains operate. It never expands its menu, never cuts corners to save money, pays its employees better than the going fast-food wage (and treats them better than most), and does quirky things—like print Bible citations on its cups and burger wrappers—that risk offending some customers. If any of these things have hurt business, though, it’s hard to see how.

Perman’s book gives some insight into why the Snyders have done things as they have. She describes the original owners, Harry and Ethel, as hard workers with uncompromising values. They weren’t interested in a quick buck, but merely wanted to grow a solid family business that their sons, Rich and Guy, could carry on. Although, in many ways, things didn’t work out as the couple had hoped—Rich, who took over the business after Harry died in 1976 (and was behind the biblical citations), himself died in a plane accident in 1993, and Guy, who succeeded his brother, succumbed in 1999 to a drug addiction he had developed after a car-racing accident—their vision for the business itself persisted. Part of this, Perman writes, had to do with Ethel’s continued presence, if not active involvement, in the company. But Ethel died in 2006, leaving her 24-year-old granddaughter, Lynsi Martinez, as sole adult heir to the family business.

So far, nothing noticeable has changed at the chain. And, if fans like L.A. Times columnist Michael Hiltzik have their way, nothing ever will.

When I wrote about apple picking in Massachusetts last month, my editor spotted what she thought might be an error in the post: I referred to the “cider donuts” sold at the orchard. Did I mean cider AND donuts, she asked?

Cider donuts at Shelburne Orchards, VT, courtesy Flickr user Organic Nation

Nope. I meant donuts made with apple cider, and my condolences if you’ve never met one!

I don’t eat donuts in general, but I make an exception for these babies whenever I visit an orchard that makes them. Basically, they’re buttermilk donuts with apple cider added to the batter—lending more moisture, and a subtle sweetness—and often spiced with cinnamon and nutmeg. I like them best fresh from the fryer; they don’t taste as good even a few hours later, which puts a fortunate curb on my impulse to take home a few dozen. (Although I suspect that dunking a less-than-fresh cider donut in hot mulled cider would still taste pretty darn good.)

If you’re not near an orchard, and dare to delve into a vat of Crisco for deep-frying at home, Smitten Kitchen has a gorgeous recipe for apple cider donuts. This recipe from A Bowl of Mush is similar.

I don’t know exactly when cider donuts were invented, but they seem to have made their commercial debut in the United States in the 1950s. Using ProQuest, I found the following in a New York Times article from August 19, 1951:

A new type of product, the Sweet Cider Doughnut will be introduced by the Doughnut Corporation of America in its twenty-third annual campaign this fall to increase doughnut sales. The new item is a spicy round cake that is expected to have a natural fall appeal.

According to the 2008 book “Glazed America: A History of the Doughnut,” by Paul R. Mullins, the Doughnut Corporation of America (DCA) was founded in the 1920s by a Russian immigrant named Adolph Levitt who was quite the entrepreneur. He launched a chain of doughnut shops, developed a doughnut-making machine and a standardized a mix of ingredients to sell to other bakeries, and came up with National Donut Month and a host of other marketing gimmicks.

By the way, Levitt’s DCA no longer exists (it was bought out by Lyons in the 1970s), but its name does: In what Saveur magazine calls “a stroke of pure genius,” the brothers behind a small Seattle business called Top Pot Doughnuts bought the DCA trademark. Make that a “formerly small” business; Top Pot now sells its donuts in many Starbucks nationwide. Sadly—or perhaps happily for my arteries—their product line doesn’t include cider donuts.

As I wrote last week, food safety is a hot topic right now, and it just keeps getting hotter. Although there’s a growing “locavore” movement in parts of the United States, it’s still far from mainstream, and imports constitute a growing portion of the national food supply (80 percent of seafood, 60 percent of fresh fruits and vegetables, and 15 percent overall).

On Wednesday, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) released a report about what it calls “gaps in enforcement and collaboration” in the current system for ensuring the safety of imported food. You can read the entire 78-page document online, or just a summary.

That same day, I attended a “global food safety policy forum” at the Senate, convened by the Center for Science in the Public Interest and the Waters Corporation. Lisa Shames, director of the GAO’s food safety division, was among the speakers, and she discussed the highlights of the report.

I learned that three separate agencies are involved in the food import inspections system, which might be part of the problem in itself. Get ready for the acronyms: There’s the Department of Agriculture (USDA)’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS), the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and the Customs and Border Protection (CBP) division of Homeland Security.

The CBP’s role seems the most clear-cut: It’s their computer system that importers use to report incoming shipments to all the agencies involved. But that’s not as simple as it sounds. As Shames noted, the CBP’s computer system isn’t set up to share information about when a shipment actually arrives. In other words, the FDA might plan to inspect a boatload of Asian seafood from a certain importer, but by the time it finds out that the boat has physically arrived in port, that seafood may already have cleared a CBP inspection (which has more to do with documentation than food safety) and be on its way to your plate. Not reassuring, is it?

This lack of information sharing is one of the problems highlighted in the GAO report. Another problem is also technological: The same importer might have dozens of different identification numbers within the CBP’s computer system, making it nearly impossible to notice when they have a pattern of violations.

Also, the FDA’s rules for importers lack teeth. The GAO report includes this unsettling tidbit:

“Equally problematic is FDA’s lack of authority to assess civil penalties to deter importers from bringing violative goods into the country….liquidated damages that importers incur are often so small that they, in effect, encourage future illegal distribution of imported shipments.”

And finally, there’s the reality that it’s not possible—in terms of financial and human resources—for the FDA and FSIS to inspect all, or even most, of the imported food we eat. The FDA’s role includes inspecting overseas food production facilities to make sure they’re in keeping with U.S. food safety standards, but it inspected only 153 of  a total 189,000 foreign facilities last year. The GAO report estimates that if the FDA were to inspect each of these facilities just once in a year, it would cost nearly $3.2 billion—the agency’s entire budget.

Things may improve if the various agencies can start coordinating and sharing their resources better, both in terms of imports and domestic food inspection, but I can see why some people are calling for a single food safety agency to be established.

One of those single-agency advocates, Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.), who chairs the House Appropriations Agriculture-FDA Subcommittee, was among the forum’s speakers. She discussed legislative efforts to raise standards for food imports, especially Chinese poultry, and said evaluating other countries’ food safety systems should be a precursor, not an afterthought, to establishing trade with them.

“We flirt with disaster when we remain lax,” she said, and “we cannot allow trade issues to trump public well-being.”