The real terrorist is that bag of Fritos...

Every time I return to the United States, I find myself asking "are people getting...bigger?" Sad confirmation from CNN's little map showing the rise of obesity since 1985 (the year I moved abroad, come to think of it). Unsurprisingly, the South seems most affected.

Many reasons, I'm sure, lie behind the trend. The enormous amount of processed foods on supermarket shelves never fails to shock me, and I would assume they are one of the chief culprits (but, then, I've been reading The Omnivore's Dilemma, enough to put you off processed foods for the rest of your life).

But when I ask Americans about what will be the biggest threat to the Republic over the next 50 years, the answer is always.. always... "terrorism." What poppycock. Terrorism is, at most, an irritant. What will hold America back is losing a growing share of its productive work force (and lots of cash and resources) to obesity. Damn, people, lay off the Fluffernutter already.

Hat tips to Anil Dash and John Dvorak.

Technorati : CNN, demographic map, fluffernutter, obesity, terrorism

Posted by Allan Jenkins at 10:05pm in Food and Drink, Healthcare, South | Permalink | Comments Welcome! (3) | TrackBack (0)

Food hacking, why not?

Food hacking -- it is what the name implies -- has its own wiki. Food hacking is the other end of the spectrum from ordered-in pizza.

Hat tip to Mike Love.

Technorati : food, food hacking, marc powell

Posted by Allan Jenkins at 07:32pm in Food, Food and Drink, Social Media, Taxonomy of Cyberspace | Permalink | Comments Welcome! (1)

Why flags are at half-staff over college dormitories...

Welcome back!

I was delayed in returning to the grid because I have been puzzling, as I am sure you have, over why so many flags are at half-staff over college dormitories, military barracks, cheap apartment complexes, trailer parks and the little huts on the corner of used-car lots.

Explanation -- and sad news -- comes from The Economist: Momofuko Ando, inventor of the ramen noodle,  the instant noodle, the Cup-A-Noodle, has died, on January 5th, aged 96.

Now, let me say this from the get-go -- I never imagined there was an inventor of the instant noodle. I always assumed that they, like foie gras, simply sprang into our cuisine, centuries ago, when some forefather tried it, liked it and said "me want more!"

But the humble ramen noodle is, in fact, only 50 years old.

I think we can all agree the ramen noodle is not foie gras. But can you think of something so cheap that brings so much pleasure? Beef flavor, prawn flavor, chicken flavor -- it's all indistinguishable (we conducted 18 months of blind taste tests when I was in the Navy, so I know) and it's all good.

R.I.P. Ando-san, you noodle-making son-of-a-gun!

Posted by Allan Jenkins at 09:12pm in Food and Drink | Permalink | Comments Welcome! (2)

One of the reasons I like Europe is that "wild" food doesn't frighten anyone

Via Frank Bruni's Diner's Journal comes an elaborate explanation of how game is labeled by US restaurants and wholesalers. Here's an excerpt:

"You see the word “wild” on a lot of New York restaurant menus. You hear servers introduce pheasant as “game.” You order venison, its popularity resurgent, and maybe you think you’re getting a beast shot in a forest not far away. Food that’s local and seasonal is what so many chefs are aiming for, after all.

"But that venison is probably coming from an enormous ranch in New Zealand that exists solely for the raising, feeding and killing of deer. That pheasant is probably farmed. When it comes to game, the full picture is pretty complicated, and wild can mean a lot of different things. It can mean little more than super-free-range.... an American restaurant can’t sell truly wild birds that have been shot in this country."

Here in Denmark, the game I buy -- and this is the time of year for it -- is probably largely farmed. But at the organic butchers and fish/game mongers, you can find a fair amount of wild duck, quail and pheasant that were shot down in happy flight to adorn my table (and, let me emphasize, it's no great loss to the birds: wild pheasant are so numerous in Denmark that you have to blow your horn on country roads just to get them out of the way). From Sweden, you can buy boar. From Scotland, Sweden, and Norway, you can get venison that was on the hoof a week ago.

I don't know about you, but I think it shortsighted that good chefs in the US have to dance around "wild" and "game," and import both, because of rules that make little practical sense.

 Technorati Tags: frank bruni, diner's journal, game, labeling

Posted by Allan Jenkins at 06:54pm in Food and Drink | Permalink | Comments Welcome! (1)

Arla Foods speaks to Desirable Roasted Coffee, and we speak back

Arla Foods representatives left a couple of comments on my post last week: Arla Foods, Europe's biggest dairy, launches 3 blogs.

(By the way: Arla Foods keeps two websites: www.arla.dk for consumers, and www.arlafoods.dk for the more corporate-minded.)

One was Mikael, one of Arla's farmer bloggers. He reassures me that more will be forthcoming about the robotic milkers. Cows apparently like them:

"One af the main reasons for buying the robot was that the cows will get milked when ever they want to instead of twice a day as we want to. It is better for a cow who wants to delivered 50-60 kg of milk each day."

To the extent a cow can frame an opinion, of course -- I've known several, and only a few have shown even the most fleeting desire to form an opinion. It's my experience that a spaniel has more opinions than a cow, and spaniels are pretty stupid. But I digress.

Mikael also suspects I get too much of my knowledge of Arla Foods from the press:

"It seems to me that your knowledge about Arla is from the press. With the blog you have the chance to get inside."

That view -- that much of my knowledge comes from the press -- is echoed by Arla Food's head of Communication, Astrid Gade Nielsen, who writes:

"Often Arla is referred to as a ruthless giant that bulldozes not only other small dairires but also their own farmers."

Nielsen is being a tad disingenuous -- a turnover of more than US$7 billion (Annual Report) does not make one a "small" dairy -- but she at least acknowledges the widespread perception of Arla Foods in Denmark.

And, yes, Arla is referred to as a bulldozer of small dairies. By none other than Danish prosecutors, who have Arla Foods under indictment for unfair trade practice. Prosecutors are asking a $6 million fine -- a drop in the bucket for Arla Foods, but a record-breaking fine in Denmark, nonetheless.

With that fact in mind, let me reprint all of Astrid Gade Nielsen's comment, and then invite a response.

"You are right that some consumers have strong dislike towards Arla. And as you point out it is not Arla's products that causes these problems it is the dislike of the company itself. Often Arla is referred to as a ruthless giant that bulldozes not only other small dairires but also their own farmers.

In response to this criticism Arla has to put an effort into becoming more open and communicative and clarify what the company is about. Weblogs is just one initiative towards more dialogue. It is an open, direct way of communicating and it presents people within the company and puts more faces on Arla.

I realise it is a new media for us and we have not foreseen all the challenges that lie ahead but it feels like a good decision and having this dialogue with critics such as yourself have to be a step in the right direction

Astrid Gade Nielsen
Kommunikationschef i Arla

As I said before, Arla's move into blogging is brave and imaginative for a company beset on all sides by a largely captive consumer base, aggressive prosecutors, and a skeptical press.

Knowing that Nielsen cannot comment on the actual case, I'm not going to waste our time asking her to.

But I wonder if she would give Desirable Roasted Coffee readers an insight to what it's like to be under siege, so to speak? I'll ask her for an interview & we'll see what we can learn, shall we?

Technorati tags: Arla Foods
Arla

Technorati : arla foods, astrid gade nielsen

Posted by Allan Jenkins at 07:45pm in Communication, Denmark, Food and Drink, Public Relations | Permalink | Comments Welcome! (7) | TrackBack (0)

Arla Foods, Europe's biggest dairy, launches 3 blogs

UPDATE: 31 October. A couple of comments to this post have led me to make a new post today.

Arla Foods, Europe's largest dairy, has set up three blogs. All in Danish.

I have to come clean: I can't stand Arla [though... I have to admire their efforts to communicate (added 31 October 2005)]. Their tactics towards farmers who don't "go along to get along" are in the Danish press almost weekly. What's worse, Arla isn't a monolithic corporation stepping on small farmers, it's a farmers' cooperative stepping on farmers too  eccentric or who take too much pride in their work.

That said, their products are pretty good and they've got a fine organic line. They've got a virtual monopoly on Danish supermarket shelves, which I dislike, but I can't complain about the quality of the goods when I am forced to buy them.

But, and here's the rub, I've never met anyone who actually "likes" Arla (or MD Foods, the Danish root). Major image problem.

So maybe that's why Arla has launched three blogs.

One is by Inge and Michael Mikael, a couple of farmers who are shareholders in Arla  (note to Arla: did you just get lucky, or did you have to search the country for the most photogenic couple of farmers in the country?). So far, Inge and Michael Mikael have written that farming isn't about manure and cruel animal transport.  They're reported on some dairy robots that got delivered (the bovine point of view, however, was unreported), and Michael  Mikael is going to a course to learn how to use the Internet.

Funny, that, since he's a blogger.

The second blog is by Maja and Louis. They work for Arla; Maja is the head of Arla's Fact and Consumer Center, and Louis is the chief PR guy (they call their blog, by the way, "Natural Thoughts").

The cynical reader will have already realized that this blog toes the Party line, and she wouldn't be wrong. The last article is a long complaint about this week's EU decision that "feta" cheese is... as we all know ... Greek. That sends Arla around the bend, because they've been feeding the world with salty white cheese for years, calling it feta.

Maja's lament? "All white cheese packed in salt water is "feta""

No, honey, it's not.

Arla's blogging attempt is brave, imaginative and... falls to earth on the second glance. That they've tried it bodes well for Arla, but if they fail to get it right.... another PR disaster for a cooperative that, at the end of the day, makes pretty good milk.

They allow comments, but no trackbacks.

Technorati tags: Arla FoodsArla

Posted by Allan Jenkins at 02:56pm in Bloggers, Corporate Communication, Denmark, Food and Drink, Public Relations | Permalink | Comments Welcome! (5) | TrackBack (0)

Hugh McLeod & Ben Metcalfe Take the Gloves Off and Begin Thrashing One Another

It's got drama, fighting words, studied insults, and an audience baying for blood. It's the Hugh McLeod vs. Ben Metcalfe knock-down, drag out. And it's playing simultaneously at Ben's and at Hugh's.

As most of the free world probably already knows, Hugh is using his blog to promote Stormhoek Wine, just as he promotes  Thomas Mahon's bespoke suits. His belief that social media can be used to launch global microbrands has many observers and -- including Desirable Roasted Coffee -- more than a few believers.

Ben thinks Hugh's promotion of Stormhoek is unseemly, even distasteful. And said so, calling the wine "crappy" and Hugh's promotion of it "pimping". Hugh fired back with one of his trademark cards -- I never want to be a target of one of those -- and called Ben an apparatchnik of "socialist media". Yikes. Let the fur fly!

The spat has generated about 40 comments between the two sites. And while the boys are grudgingly making nice again, the core issue remains. Is it seemly to use blogs to market products (especially using free samples)? Is marketing in keeping with the spirit of social media.

I'm 100% with Hugh's principles on this: what on earth is wrong with marketing using one's status in the blogosphere? It may well backfire on Hugh one day, but I see little that is unseemly or unethical about trying it. And the other side of the argument -- that the blogosphere should be non-commercial -- is just plain silly.

But opinion seems sharply divided -- and I don't think this debate will die anytime soon. The discussion continues here and here.

Posted by Allan Jenkins at 05:03pm in Bizarre & Amusing, Blogging for Benjamins, Ethics, Food and Drink, In Defense of Elitism, Marketing | Permalink | Comments Welcome! (4) | TrackBack (1)

Ismail Merchant Gave Me My Comfort Food

Ismail Merchant, film producer and half of the Merchant-Ivory film collaboration, died yesterday, as reported here and elsewhere.

I wasn't a great fan of his films. But his films were often the exceptions that prove the rule "The book is always better than the film." I cannot imagine how Kazuo Ishiguro's novel  The Remains of the Day could have been brought to film more skillfully.

But, for me, Ismail Merchant will always be the cookbook author who refined my love for and skills in making traditional Indian dishes. His Passionate Meals is in near tatters on my bookshelf, and several of his recipes -- Red Lentil Soup, and Kicheri, among them -- I've modified, played with, adulterated and loved so much that they are staples in my kitchen.

Dinner after a client meeting where I didn't get the project... or after a client meeting when I did get the project: Nothing better than Ismail Merchant's Red Lentil Soup. Ideally, with The Remains of the Day on video.

Posted by Allan Jenkins at 07:45pm in Books, Food and Drink, People of Note | Permalink | Comments Welcome! (0) | TrackBack (0)