"scandal" news and stories

An avocado scandal erupted in California. While avocado farmers are experiencing one of their worst years in avocado production, their advocates are celebrating, so it seems. Last week, Marisa McClellan wrote a post that foresees the scarcity of avocados in the coming year. Following the sad news, the New York Times printed an article revealing the decadent lifestyle of the California Avocado Commission "as a kind of free-spending, avocado-gone-wild farm party."

The California Department of Food and Agriculture just released a report explaining that commission employee benefits included: season tickets for the Los Angeles Angels and hockey's Mighty Ducks, paid gym memberships, stipends for vitamins, and even workout clothes. To think that I thought health insurance was an important benefit...As one would imagine avocado farmers are outraged. Rick Shade, an unpaid chairman of the board and third-generation avocado farmer, states that they uncovered about $300,000 in dubious expenses - $39,000 spent by commission employees at upscale clothing stores, like Ann Taylor and Nordstrom.

With such outrageous spending, how could it have taken this long for avocado farmers to take notice? Shade explains that they turned a blind-eye since most farmers were making more and more money from the commission's succuss at popularizing the fruit.

Champagne is a term that applies to sparkling wines that are from the Champagne region of France. This name is protected, in Europe, by Protected Designation of Origin status and in France by Appellation d'Origine Contrôlée, both of which state that to use the name "champagne," the wine must be produced in France, in the Champagne region and in a traditional manner to produce a specific product. Everything else is just a sparkling wine, not champagne.

This standard is followed throughout Europe and many other countries, although the US, for example, does not follow it and any sparkling wine can use the word champagne, which is considered to be a generic term. In France, the word carries a premium image and a premium price, so there is an incentive for sellers to use it instead of other descriptors. Just last week, the police arrested a number of people for passing off "tens of thousands of bottles of low-priced bubbly wine" as champagne, selling it for 5 to 10 times the original price after replacing the bottles' labels with false champagne labels. Most of these wines were sold "via associations or in door-to-door sales," which goes to show that if you want a premium product, you are better off going to a reputable source.

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The competitors on Top Chef seem to endlessly complain when they have to work with an ingredient that they didn't make from scratch, repeating ad nauseum that they feel such things - namely, processed foods - are far beneath them. But using commercial ingredients isn't beneath all chefs, not even ones like Jean-Georges Vongerichten and David Bouley. Vongerichten serves his Two-Flavored Stir-Fried Shrimp in a sauce of Hellmann's Mayo and condensed milk. Bouley uses Heinz Ketchup in several sauces, including the one served with his Braised Hawaiian Yellowtail appetizer. Other secret ingredients in chefs' pantries include Gravy Master, Kraft Singles, canned creamed corn and Dr. Pepper.

How are high-end, starred chefs getting away with using ingredients that you could find at a convenience store? The answer is that they don't advertise it the same way that they highlight grass-fed beef and organic tomatoes on their menus.

Diners who frequent higher end restaurants may have no problem accepting a chef's use of unusual or artificial flavoring agents when they are used to bring out unusual sensations in the food, like the menthol crystals used by Wylie Dufresne in some dishes at wd-50. The same cannot be said when artificial flavorings are used instead of readily available ingredients.

Leading French chefs Joel Robuchon and Alain Passard have denounced the growing trend among French cooks for using non-natural ingredients in their cooking, like saffron perfume, truffle essence or powdered wine sauce. The objective, unlike the use of similar things in the conceptual molecular gastronomy model, is to be able to achieve cheap, quick results. French cooks who use them use the "ingredients" secretly, for fear of being accused of cheating by others in their profession. A supplier stands by the products, saying "An increased range [of flavors] should logically be tolerated and accepted by everyone in the end," while Passard said "I don't know what to call the people who use these chemicals, but they are not cooks."

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An undercover investigation revealed that some butchers in the UK were selling non-certified organic beef under an organic label. Some of the butchers were from small towns and knew their meat suppliers closely. They were willing to attest to the quality of the beef that they sold, even if they have not been willing or able to purchase organic certification for their shop. Others, however, simply claimed to use the term as "shorthand."

Because the organic label can command up to 5 times the price of conventional beef, there is a clear financial incentive for less scrupulous butchers to try and sell it as such. From the customer's perspective, it can be quite difficult, if not nearly impossible, to tell the difference between organic and non-organic beef based on physical appearance and the scientific methods are not a guarantee. Relying on certification continues to be the most trustworthy method, but is it actually doing a disservice to small businesses, like some butchers, who say they can't afford the £300-£400 to become certified?

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