Thursday, July 1: This project is getting out of hand. Since I’m trying to determine why it is necessary for us to intensively farm chickens so that we can get the 87 billion eggs for which we are impatiently tapping our feet, I’ve been spending a lot of time at webpages for companies like Michael Foods and Sunny Fresh Foods (a division of Cargill). Of course we don’t see pictures of the chickens; hell, we don’t even hear about the chickens. It’s all about the eggs, or rather, all about the ESL, IQF, imitation, white-only, dried, frozen, bagged, precooked, attractively browned, value-added egg products.
I mentioned this this morning to my downstairs neighbor A, as we sat on the deck, she drinking coffee, I sipping at another pink breakfast drink. I need to do my own research on this, but to hear A tell it, a certain Arkansas-based chicken monolith has managed to get itself in serious Dutch in Arkansas for its pollution of the state’s aquifers with carelessly-disposed chicken manure. This is another consequence of factory farming: according to Page Smith and Charles Daniel in The Chicken Book, once upon a time chicken manure, properly treated, was a much-coveted fertilizer. When the bulk of egg production switched from small farms to larger commercial farms, chicken manure was carefully collected and used in both home and truck gardens. It was only after the split of production into meat birds and egg birds, and after the introduction and wide application of chemical fertilizers took place, that the disposal of manure became the environmental catastrophe that it is today. As Smith and Daniel put it, “The present uselessness of chicken manure, once so prized as an ‘organic’ fertilizer, goes along with the systematic killing of male chicks.” Now chicken manure is worse than useless, it is dangerous.
A knows some chicken farmers who have contracts with Arkansas-based Chicken Monolith, and she said they told her that due to ABCM’s ongoing battles with the Arkansas DEP, they are cutting their losses, pulling all of their Arkansas contracts, and moving their business to Missouri.
There are still active springs all over Eureka Springs. In the walking tour brochure, they mention one where the water always flows, but caution that under federal guidelines, the spring water is no longer safe to drink and walkers should avail themselves of the nearby water fountain. I wonder if we have ABCM to thank for that, too.
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More industry hideousness: In tracking down information on Sunny Fresh Foods, another value-added egg producer that competes with Michael Foods, I find an article in the Foodservice Find column in the archives of the Food Product Design website. The article is entitled “Convenient Chef Shortcuts,” and is another paean to pre-cooked, flash-frozen, chemically enhanced (but we include mirepoix, so it’s okay!) foodstuffs, all of which the consumer, and by extension the industry, cannot live without. I know I should not be surprised when a company marketing director talks about why we need her product, because it’s her job. But god, it makes me feel like a relic when I read this:
Certain products create problems in large-scale production. “Imagine shelling eggs for a buffet feeding 200 people,” notes Terry Zauhar, director of marketing, Sunny Fresh Foods. “Shell eggs not only pose an issue with waste, convenience and food safety, but impact yield as well.” As a solution, a wide range of egg products exist, including frozen liquid whole eggs; seasoned and unseasoned frozen liquid whole eggs with milk; frozen products for baking, such as liquid whole eggs, egg whites, sugared yolks and plain yolks; cholesterol- and fat-free frozen products; frozen diced eggs for salad bars; and refrigerated hard-cooked eggs. Refrigerated liquid whole-egg products evolved from the frozen category and offer added convenience, because they eliminate thawing.
Or this:
Research and development programs have evolved through the years to offer innovative product solutions. “Refrigerated hard-cooked eggs were originally packed in 20-lb. pails of brine solution, which could potentially make the egg a bit tougher,” notes Zauhar. “Current technology uses atmospheric packaging, which eliminates the potential texture problem as well as the issue of shipping water.” Other technology gives precooked frozen product a homemade quality. “We’re now able to provide fried egg patties using technology that produces a product similar to that cooked in an old black skillet or frying pan, in contrast to the first generation of products,” he adds.
Or this:
Foodservice suppliers can leverage technical expertise that offers advantages over chef-prepared recipes. “Standard scratch recipes usually will not have engineered handling characteristics, such as thick batter for quick manufacturing or depositing; correct moisture without free water to ensure that the product eats well without sacrificing shelf life; or products that are less sensitive to mistakes, such as meringues that easily are over-mixed, or roux that can be burned,” says Freeman.
I love that phrase “the product eats well.” I’m guessing that eating well and tasting good are not synonymous.
Nothing has changed, nothing. Thirty years after the Hesses wrote that the dirty little secret of American luxury dining is frozen precooked foods, we are treated to verbiage like this: “Today’s chefs require valuable, timesaving products. These may be concentrated soups or sauces; seasonings or flavors mimicking authentic, fresh ingredients; pre-marinated, pre-breaded and precooked meats; or other pre-prepared entrées or desserts.” I live in New York, a place full of restaurants applauding their farmer’s market-based, seasonal menus, so it is easy for me to fool myself into thinking that things have changed for the better. They have not.
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7:02 p.m. Sudden storm. Oh, my word. I can feel this one through the bottoms of my feet. It is raining harder than I have ever seen it rain here. I have sat through my share of showers, but this is stormy rain, the kind that smacks the pavement and bounces back up, the kind I love to watch in Astoria. I was sitting here, reading depressing egg stories, when I heard something crackle over my head, like something was about to fall. The dishwasher was on, but no, it wasn’t that. I looked up at the skylight: rain, and plenty of it. I opened the front door, just in time to see the rain come down so hard that the bluff across the street looked like it was diffusion-filtered. I know that by leaving the door open, I am risking mosquitoes, or the creepy not-quite-a-wasp I killed in the kitchen last night, but it is worth it to watch the rain, and to hear it, and to smell that dirt smell, the kind that makes you want to plunge your fingers into it and say mmmmmmmmm. This being summer in northwest Arkansas, the rain will probably stop and we’ll be treated to one more blinding burst of sunlight before everything finally sets, but o, I hope not.I want one more nice big burst.