Frites . . .

ACCORDING TO THE LA TIMES, France has banned the use of ketchup in school cafeterias — except for consumption with French Fries. Go figure. Kim Willsher reports that

In an effort to promote healthful eating and, it has been suggested, to protect traditional Gallic cuisine, the French government has banned school and college cafeterias nationwide from offering the American tomato-based condiment with any food but — of all things — French fries.

As a result, students can no longer use ketchup on such traditional dishes as veal stew, no matter how gristly, and boeuf bourguignon, regardless of its fat content.

Moreover, French fries can be offered only once a week, usually with steak hache, or burger. Not clear is whether the food police will send students to detention if they dip their burgers into the ketchup that accompanies their fries.

A history of junk food . . .

THE NEW YORK TIMES has an interesting article by Manny Fernandez, "Let Us Now Praise the Great Men of Junk Food". It's a history of munchies.

Ours is a nation that has given the world baseball, the airplane and the electric light, but also Kool-Aid (Edwin Perkins, 1927), Pizza Hut (the Carney brothers, 1958) and Doritos (Arch West, 1966).

The history of junk food is a largely American tale: It has been around for hundreds of years, in many parts of the world, but no one has done a better job inventing so many varieties of it, branding it, mass-producing it, making people rich off it and, of course, eating it.

The death of an obscure New York entrepreneur on July 27 — Morrie Yohai, 90, a World War II veteran who was the man responsible for Cheez Doodles — was a reminder that the world of junk food is no different from celebrated American industries. The pioneers behind the automobile and the personal computer are household names, and their ingenuity and a-ha moments have become part of the folklore of American entrepreneurship. But the back story of junk food and fast food has its own moments of genius, serendipity and clever adaptations.

“I look at it as an incredible phenomenon that’s changed America, for better and worse,” said Andrew F. Smith, the author of the Encyclopedia of Junk Food and Fast Food.

Soft drinks, ready-to-eat hamburgers, salty snacks, ice cream and candy all fall under his definitions of junk and fast food — products that have little or no nutritional value or are high in calories and fat, or both. Putting health questions aside, here, then, are a few great moments in junk-food history:

1896

Two street vendor brothers — Frederick and Louis Rueckheim — sold a popcorn, molasses and peanuts confection at the Chicago World’s Fair in 1893. By 1896, they had perfected their recipe and called it Cracker Jack, and would soon repackage it for freshness and start advertising around the country. “They created a product that is commercially available nationally and salable,” said Mr. Smith, who considers Cracker Jack America’s first junk food.

1905

Tootsie Rolls, manufactured in New York City starting in 1905, changed junk food with one simple touch, and it had nothing to do with the chewy chocolate taste. It was the first penny candy to be individually wrapped.

Cheezie joke:

A man walks into the doctors office for his appointment... when the doctor comes to see him, he asks, "Whats the problem?" The man pulls down his pants and and shows the doc that he has an orange dick... Amazed at what he sees, the doctor runs a series of tests and the results show that the man has no type of sickness. The doctor asks, "Do you work in a place that is exposed to any chemicals?" "No, I don't work" he says. The doc asks, "Then what do you do all day?" The man responds, "I sit at home, watch porno movies and eat cheezies."

Earth Day. It's not just for chickens anymore...

You may never have heard of "Popeye's". If you're from Minnesota there is exactly one franchise.

For Earth Day, (You figure it out! It's like garbage collection companies using Killer Whales as a logo.), Popeye's offered a nationwide special on their spectacularly unhealthy fried chicken.

Except that the solitary Minneapolis franchise decided not to participate.

A near riot followed



Watch it again. Did you notice something? No... I'm not going to tell you... ever. Figure it out. You're smart enough.

In another place, an individual refused to cover his naked bod with a towel after being ordered to do so by police. Given his "natural state" a concealed weapon would have been a complete and utter impossibility.

So what did the cops do to gain his "compliance"?

Hit him with a Taser (TM, even though there's nothing else out there).

And then they hit him six more times in stun-drive mode.




And the only obvious thing is that the cops had spent way too much time eating at Popeye's.