No iguana meat for you!
The Food Nazis in New York City have been working overtime to Americanize the diets of recent immigrants:
NEW YORK -- A food safety inspector noticed an interesting special posted in the front window of a market in Queens: 12 beefy armadillos.In Brooklyn, inspectors found 15 pounds of iguana meat at a West Indian market and 200 pounds of cow lungs for sale at another store. A West African grocery in Manhattan sold smoked rodent meat from a refrigerated display case.
All of it was headed for the dinner table. All of it was also illegal.
Of course, the inspectors are all covered under the Eichmann defense...just doing their job to keep poor immigrants safe.
Ruiad Nasher, who immigrated from Bangladesh in 1995, manages the Master Mini Market in Brooklyn and was caught selling more than 50 pounds of chicken from an unapproved source this year. Nasher bought the chickens from a poultry market in Brooklyn, and said he didn't know he was violating state law."In Bangladesh, you didn't have all these rules," he said.
Sad but true. I wonder if he came here in search of freedom?
Meanwhile. I just found out about the FDA boilerplate that all eggs for retail sale MUST carry. Being a law-abiding American, I have made the following label for my egg cartons:
You are an informed consumer
so you know that eggs have 0 g trans fat and all about "SAFE HANDLING INSTRUCTIONS: To prevent illness from bacteria: keep eggs refrigerated, cook eggs until yolks are firm, and cook foods containing eggs thoroughly."
but the FDA makes me tell you anyway.
Comments
Posted by: Jo
Posted on: December 3, 2006 01:25 PM
In 1986, or maybe '87, the British Poet Society of America wanted to import haggis to celebrate Robert Burns' birthday, so they submitted the appropriate forms to the USFDA.
Haggis: sheep heart, liver and lungs, minced and cooked in oatmeal, onions, and pepper, and then boiled in a sheep stomach.
The FDA's ruling? Haggis is unfit for human consumption. So much for Scotland's national dish.
Posted by:
Posted on: December 3, 2006 01:58 PM
Posted by: Jeffrey Quick
Posted on: December 3, 2006 05:44 PM
Hey,idiot from Plano TX:
If we protected freedoms by limiting others, then if everyone were perfectly limited, then everyone would be perfectly free, right? As for having no rules making for lots of fighting and lawsuits, those open-air markets in Africa and the West Indies must have mobs of ambulance-chasing lawyers wading through the rioting crowds in search of people poisoned by iguana meat, right?
Enough...I have a concert to play.
Posted by: Jeffrey Quick
Posted on: December 3, 2006 05:45 PM
Jo-
The lungs were the problem...some tuburculosis issue, I think, but you can't buy them here.
Posted by:
Posted on: December 3, 2006 08:42 PM
Rights and abilities are granted by limiting others; that is the very basis of our government. We protect life by outlawing murder. We protect free speech by preventing violence. We offer equal education by removing religion. We protect health by controlling food quality and contents. We allow drinking by limit the amount to protect life and the right to travel with risking ones life. We protect our economy by controlling trade.
Posted by: Jo
Posted on: December 6, 2006 06:53 PM
Oh, I know it was the lungs. But bleah. The thought of any of the rest of it was rather off-putting. ;-)
Posted by: Jeffrey Quick
Posted on: December 6, 2006 07:28 PM
Oh, it sounds nummy to me. But then, I'm the guy who ate the head of a whole fried chicken at Bo Loong in front of 9 other people. Of course, it's just a sausage, and one is reminded of Bismarck's mot about laws and sausages: you don't want to look too closely at how either is made.