Kman wrote:It's funny how consumer perceptions - and corporate perceptions of those consumers - can drive such aberrant practices. I'd always heard that while the Valencia oranges of Florida are, of course, outstanding juice oranges they are also pretty darned good eatin' fruit, too. The trouble is that they are rarely marketed as such outside of their immediate growing areas due to the non-uniform coloring issue that ronnie_suburban addresses above. Because they don't *look* "perfect" consumers won't buy them (or so the story goes). So, instead, we take the more uniform in appearance west coast varieties as the "standard" - but for fear of them ALSO not looking perfect we paint them (there's probably a joke/commentary or 12 about Hollywood buried in there)

Actually, my own personal research has shown that the Florida Valencias aren't nearly as sweet as the west coast navels even on their best day. For eating out of hand, give me a Sunkist navel any day of the week. Also, the Florida growers don't do themselves any favors by pre-squeezing the juice they deliver to most restaurants in So. Florida. When I see fresh squeezed OJ on the menu in a Florida restaurant, I always ask if the juice is squeezed in house or if they buy fresh squeezed juice by the gallon bottle. If it's from the bottle, I take a pass and skip the bitter taste.

I've been wondering about this lie since breakfast at Daley's a few months ago, although it hasn't stopped me from going there for a 5-fried chicken wing and pancakes breakfast.

The menu states "homemade maple syrup," and being curious as to their meaning, we asked the waitress. Her response was, "That means we make it here." Of course this didn't satisfy my boyfriend and me but we thought it better to wait and see what comes.

The syrup was warm and redolent with butter, decidedly not real maple, so we were still a bit mystified about the homemade descriptor on account of seeing no maple trees out back or any network of strings indicating tapped trees beyond the treeline.

My boyfriend and I have begun reciting the correct (in our eyes) "recipes" of confounding preparations such as this. They usually begin like this: plant maple saplings, wait 35 years for tree to mature. Tap tree, reduce sap by 40x..." You get the idea.

I suspect Daley's homemade syrup is actually the fake stuff warmed in a soup tureen with butter added, but I guess I'll never really know unless I approach the kitchen and ask the cook.

Still thinking about Pigmon’s review of Wasabi, I went to Maya del Sol in Oak Park tonight and had the Ultimate Kobe Beef Cheeseburger



It was pretty good, but was it Kobe beef? Can't imagine how it could have been.

They can't. Paramount Room claims the same on a sign in their front window. Got them a GNR though...

Jazzfood wrote:They can't. Paramount Room claims the same on a sign in their front window. Got them a GNR though...

I'm sure you're right. Kobe has been banned in the US since April of last year; the burger was under $20 bucks.

David Hammond wrote:

Jazzfood wrote:They can't. Paramount Room claims the same on a sign in their front window. Got them a GNR though...

I'm sure you're right. Kobe has been banned in the US since April of last year; the burger was under $20 bucks.

Guys,

Tell me more about this ban. Every one of my meat vendors is ofering some type of Kobe/Wagyu/whatever. Having worked with actual Kobe a while ago, I don't even bother with the American Kobe/Wagyu spin offs.

Evil

Evil, info about the ban: http://kobe-beef-store.com/blog/general ... l-21-2010/

Unless the meat was shipped in before the ban (and, of course, frozen), I don't see how you could get genuine Kobe in the US at the moment. Now, you could get "Kobe-style" (or Wagyu, the breed from which Kobe comes), but not genuine Kobe.

This is a confusing issue, and I'm guessing some meat suppliers and restaurants like it just fine that way.

What isn't confusing is the fact that they know they're misrepresenting their products to their customers. That's the issue to me. No tolerance for that type of bullshit. Suggest the same to others. Call the offender on it each and every time you come across it. If you accept it, you deserve it.

Jazzfood wrote:What isn't confusing is the fact that they know they're misrepresenting their products to their customers. That's the issue to me. No tolerance for that type of bullshit. Suggest the same to others. Call the offender on it each and every time you come across it. If you accept it, you deserve it.

Exactly. None of these "pretenders" are close to the real thing and worth the money. Just more b.s.

Evil

Evil Ronnie wrote:

Jazzfood wrote:What isn't confusing is the fact that they know they're misrepresenting their products to their customers. That's the issue to me. No tolerance for that type of bullshit. Suggest the same to others. Call the offender on it each and every time you come across it. If you accept it, you deserve it.

Exactly. None of these "pretenders" are close to the real thing and worth the money. Just more b.s.

Evil

I'm in favor of calling bullshit about this, but I think it's important to direct questions to the right people Servers, for the most part, are probably not going to know what Kobe/Waguy is or are not going to openly contradict their employers's false advertising or misleading menus. It's even possible some restaurant owners may not see through their suppliers' veil of misinformation.

Jazzfood wrote:They can't. Paramount Room claims the same on a sign in their front window. Got them a GNR though...

PR lists a "Kobe Burger" but the menu states quite clearly it is Wagu (sic) beef. Kuma's lists a Black Sabbath and a Black Oak Arkansas but, to my knowledge, neither Ozzy Osbourne nor Jim Dandy Mangrum appear on either burger (thankfully).

Look @ the sign in the front window next to the door. A chef of that stature knows better. The public on the other hand, often does not.

Jazzfood wrote:Look @ the sign in the front window next to the door. A chef of that stature knows better. The public on the other hand, often does not.

I'm not defending the marketing of it as a "Kobe Burger" - I'm merely pointing out that their menu that *describes* said burger clearly points out that it is Wagyu. This is clearly different then the deception of selling, say, dishes with surimi as actual crab and other practices as decried in the thread topic title. IMO there is a difference between marketing hyperbole and outright deception/dishonesty. I'm no fan of the former but the latter is, IMO, inexcusable. So while the RockitBurgers of the world (Good Morning America's Best Burger!) list Kobe on their menus PR is at least honest in their menu description. At least to me, there's a difference.

My Sun-Times piece today is, of course, related to this LTH conversation of many years running.

In response to the Sun-Times piece, I got an email from a reader, which I include here, but I’m taking out the names of alleged malefactors to avoid problems (and because I have not verified these claims). At some point, though, I fell I gots to name names:

You can do a nice article on this one. Just for the fun of it we weighed the contents of packages of meat and seafood from Dominick's, X , and XX. Dominick's was almost right on the money. X was 30% short and they blamed the vendor, but gave us a refund. XX was 35% short and failed to respond. The old thumb on the scale trick at your meat counter, prepriced fraud.

hmm. I might have to start taking my mini digital scale to the market when I gather provisions.

cabrito wrote:I've been wondering about this lie since breakfast at Daley's a few months ago, although it hasn't stopped me from going there for a 5-fried chicken wing and pancakes breakfast.

The menu states "homemade maple syrup," and being curious as to their meaning, we asked the waitress. Her response was, "That means we make it here." Of course this didn't satisfy my boyfriend and me but we thought it better to wait and see what comes.

=============================

There is ONE commercial maple syrup producer in the state of Illinois - down in Shirley, IL south of Bloomington.

Now, I have gallons of "homemade maple syrup" but it is produced in Northern Ohio where sugar maples are plentiful and where the syrup was produced in the past month.

teatpuller wrote:hmm. I might have to start taking my mini digital scale to the market when I gather provisions.

I need to get a mini digital scale.

I had lunch at the Longhorn Steakhouse recently. Lately I have been asking restaurants what is the country of origin for their seafood. I have been concentrating on shrimp.

So during our meal the manger stopped by and I asked. She came back and said that the shrimp comes from Thailand. Since the menu states that all their chicken and seafood is fresh and has never been frozen, I commented that must be a very fast trip. I don’t think she got it.

Of course maybe I am an idiot, but I don’t see how they can serve shrimp that is “fresh and has never been frozen” from Thailand???

D.

I don’t see how they can serve shrimp that is “fresh and has never been frozen” from Thailand???

It's not that they can't, it's just that they aren't.

Concerning the shrimp at Longhorn Steakhouse I emailed them to ask about how do they get shrimp from Thailand fresh never been frozen. Here is their reply:

"We obtain our seafood from locations all over the world. We get many varieties of fresh fish and shellfish from over 45 different countries. Some seafood, such as salmon and shrimp, are farm-raised. All of our fish is shipped fresh.

Virtually all of our shrimp comes from sustainable shrimp farms. Most are located in Central South America and Southeast Asia; countries like Ecuador, Honduras, Venezuela, Thailand, Vietnam, and Indonesia. Longhorn visits these farms to ensure that they meet environmental, social, and quality standards. Certain preperations of shrimp are received fresh, then prepared and shipped to the restaurants frozen."

Hey, I got a reply, so I guess I shouldn’t complain about “preperations”.

D.

It looks like honey.

David Hammond wrote:A few days ago, The Wife and I stopped by Dominick’s to get some Oak Park-required stickers for our yard trash, and thought we might as well pick up some fruit.

The Wife spotted this:



“Could it be,” she gasped, “that they spray paint oranges to be more…orange?!”

“Yes, my child,” I responded, gently moved by her naiveté and innocent wonder, ”Lies are what they feed us.”

Got this email today; interesting how our stuff gets around:

Hello,

I work as a picture editor for the french science magazine for kids “Science & Vie découvertes”. I’m contacting you because for an article about treatments used on oranges, I’d like to know if you’d be OK to send us the high resolution version of the picture I've attached to this mail. Just be aware that my e-mail can’t get messages with more than 5 Mo of attached documents. If you wish, add your mail adress so that I can send you a copy of the magazine once it’s printed. And don’t forget to specify the credit for this picture. As you probably guess it’s urgent, thank you very much for your help !

Best regards,

Pierre Tessier
Icono/photo editor
Sciences et Vie Découvertes
8, rue François-Ory
92543 Montrouge Cédex
Tel : 00.33(0)1.46.48.19.66

David, are you sure that's not just a birthmark?

BR wrote:David, are you sure that's not just a birthmark?

Honestly not sure what it is, but am suspicious. Justified? Oh, I believe so, yes.

David Hammond wrote:

BR wrote:David, are you sure that's not just a birthmark?

Honestly not sure what it is, but am suspicious. Justified? Oh, I believe so, yes.

Do you think that happened somehow during ethylene gas ripening? It does look very even, like a machine was rotating the orange while it was being painted and for some reason stopped short of a complete revolution.

My cousin grows citrus and there are citrus varieties that naturally have a similar patterning. I'd think it's just a genetic variation.

Here is a tangerine with something similar:


His citrus are used by the restaurant Manresa and I don't think Chef Kinch would be happy with a spray painted product

My SWAG would be sun dying. Probably the lighter portion faces out when it's on the tree and the rear is blocked by the shade.

fropones wrote:My SWAG would be sun dying. Probably the lighter portion faces out when it's on the tree and the rear is blocked by the shade.

My parents have a couple of types of orange trees and I've never seen that effect.

NYTimes slideshow on counterfeit Italian Extra-Virgin Olive Oil

Claims that 69% of olive oil in the US isn't.

SO how can you tell if you ARE buying 100% olive oil or the adulterated junk?
What's a housewife and cook to do?

(I already check the label for country of origin and for those that do label when they are a blend...)