"europe" news and stories

With the safety and ethics of new food technologies causing concern across Europe, the European Parliament asked Wednesday for a ban on the sale of foods from cloned animals and their offspring, the New York Times reported. The group also called for a suspension of foods containing ingredients created with nanotechnology.

The parliament is looking to create legislation that deals specifically with cloning because of concerns over the process and animal cruelty, the Times reported.

"Although no safety concerns have been identified so far with meat produced from cloned animals, this technique raises serious issues about animal welfare, reduction of biodiversity, as well as ethical concerns," said Corinne Lepage, a French member of the European Parliament.

In 2008 the U.S. Food and Drug Administration said there were no inherent safety problems with meat or milk from cloned animals -- specifically cows, goats or pigs -- or their offspring, Slashfood reported. It also lifted a moratorium on the sale of meat from cloned animals or their kin.

Two down and two to go in our exploration of the Italian tradition of the "four Ms" of making espresso coffee. The third part of our list also happens to be my favorite: la miscela, or the espresso blend.

The word "espresso," contrary to relatively common belief, has almost nothing at all to do with the beans themselves, but rather the magically delicious elixir they produce when put through the process. You can actually toss any beans into il molino and extract them using la macchina and what you'll have is, by most definitions, espresso.

But that doesn't mean it's going to taste very good. Find out why after the jump.

Last week, you may recall, we started tackling the old Italian concept of the "four Ms" necessary to make espresso, with an introduction to la macchina. It's only fitting, then, that today we cozy up with la macchina's best buddy: il molino or la machinadosatore, the espresso grinder.

To put it in terms of that Neil Simon classic, "The Odd Couple," your grinder is to your espresso machine as Felix is to Oscar: It's precise, acute and fickle, while la macchina's less prone to acting than reacting.

Erin Meister trains baristas for North Carolina-based Counter Culture Coffee and sporadically maintains the blog Meet the Press Pot from her home in New York City. This is part of a series for the caffeine-addicted.

In the Italian tradition, espresso is impossible without the "four M's," or the elements necessary to craft the tiny, potent elixir we know and love. Over the next four weeks, the CoffeeMeister will delve into the four elements that make possible our favorite little jolt: the caffè espresso.

Of course, anybody who's ever desperately craved a latte at 3 p.m. knows that people generally work better and are more focused after a coffee. The same held true during Europe's Industrial Revolution, and before long, bosses started getting tired of watching the minutes tick by as factory workers slowly got caffeinated. That all changed in 1901, when an enterprising gentleman named Luigi Bezzera built a contraption that allowed captured steam pressure to force very hot water through very finely ground coffee, creating a kind of quick coffee concentrate meant to be slugged faster than you can say "coffee break."

And presto! La macchina was born.

Like larger than life art (think Andy Warhol print), cheeses, such as Époisses, can have such an immense flavor that people either love or hate them. We recently rediscovered torta-style cheeses, including Azeitão and La Serena, which, when ripe, have a degree of vegetal tanginess that would top just about any pungency charts. Torta del Casar, a torta-style cheese hailing from the region of Extremadura in Spain, has a distinct animal smell (some might say stink) that's sure to get the attention of even the most obtuse palate.

Named for its city of origin, Casar de Cáceres, Torta del Casar's meaty intensity can be detected the minute it enters a room. Its gamey taste and potent smell can be attributed to the raw milk of Merino and Entrefina sheep, from which the cheese is produced. Another explanation for this particularly sharp, nutty vegetal flavor has to do with thistle flower. Instead of using animal rennet to coagulate the sheep's milk, producers of this cheese use flower thistle.