A TRACE OF FOOD
Mayer, Milton
A trace of food The anatomy of an English muffin Milton Mayer As is our wont, and our want, Ms. Baby Mayer and I were breaking bread together. You could hear the bread breaking because it was...
...What they do, besides sending the consumer headlong into the grave, is prolong the shelf-life of the English Muffins sold by our very own Consumers Co-Op under the Co-Op Quality Pack label...
...I never heard of shelf-life," I said...
...Why don't we eat real food " "It's called organic food," said Ms...
...Why Penna...
...There's one big reason and two little ones," said Ms...
...All those goodies," said Ms., "are baddies, bad for the Hebrew Children, bad for the gentiles, bad for everybody...
...Penna...
...We are pushing them on ourselves, not on somebody else, and we admit that they are abominate, and Safeway and the A&P don't...
...Dept...
...But unlike everything else that is launched these days, into the stratosphere or the frying pan, it was good for us: Whole Wheat Matzos, hammered out by the House, or mischpochah, of Mamschewilz of Jersey City, New Jersey (Keg...
...The little reasons are, one, we just can't be bothered to go shopping for fresh food every day (or, like a Parisian, for fresh bread twice a day), and, two, there isn't a grocer within a mile or two, or ten, any more, so it means driving to the supermarket and then, as long as you have the car, you might as well stock up...
...Such as," said Ms., picking up the English Muffins package and reading the small print, " 'Enriched flour ' " "Enriched," I said, "now that's something...
...You're getting the idea," said Ms., "slowly...
...The nonpoisonous cost eighty-nine cents instead of forty-four cents, one of the reasons being that they have to be kept frozen to prevent their spoiling...
...Whole Wheat Flour, Wheat Bran and Water Only...
...Not altogether," said Ms...
...Such as...
...And so," I said, not without an edge in my voice, "we ourselves are pushing these carcinogenic abominate preservatives " " and additives, crunchatives, coloratives, and titilla-tives," said Ms., "just like Safeway and the A&P...
...shelf-life, no...
...Why, that comes to " and I reached into my shoulder holster for my calculator...
...No we didn't," said Ms., "we had 'and/or Monocalcium Phosphate.' That's not the same thing...
...What about it...
...Now," said Ms., "get this through your depilated gourd...
...If you asked the hired hands at the Safeway or the A&P what these ingredients are, or whether they are good or bad for you, they not only wouldn't know, they wouldn't even be able to tell you where to find out...
...The operational term is 'A preservative,' and the operational idea is the prolongation, not of life, but of shelf-life...
...Then," I said, "in order to get food that is just plain food, such as our earliest ancestors all ate in the bullrushes, we have to pay twice as much as we do for poisonous food with shelf-life...
...You can get bacon from Harrington's of Vermont cured with old-timey corncobs instead of nitrites and nitrates which shouldn't happen to a rat but you pay $4 a pound for the unadulterated, postpaid...
...There's nothing new about it except the 'Only.' Can you name anything else in the supermarket whose ingredients are only two...
...At the Co-Op we complained about the poisonous Muffins and our hired hands got in some nonpoisonous Muffins pronto...
...Baby, handing me the box, for all the world like the lady who hands her neighbor the Chocolate Ex-Lax box in the commercials, except that Baby was chewing hard, "at this...
...Don't be silly...
...The big reason is that we don't really care what becomes of us...
...from her withering heights, "unless the flour is stone-ground the Staff of Life is the Kiss of Death...
...I said...
...On the box it said: "Made With 100% Unbleached Stone Ground Milton Mayer is The Progressive's Roving Editor...
...If they didn't 'move' fast, they'd spoil in a day or two and the grocer would be stuck, in this case your very own Co-Op grocery, which you and I and all the other Co-Operators own...
...That's what I call the Staff of Life.'' "Enriched or impoverished," said Ms...
...Still-life, after-life, high-life, low-life, night-life, yes...
...I subsided, and Ms...
...And for this we pay eighty-nine cents for ten ounces of matzos...
...How," I said, "did we get started on this primrose path to perdition...
...They were moving so fast that they hadn't time to wait for the bread to rise...
...On poisons," I said...
...You could hear the bread breaking because it was unleavened, stiff as the board it tasted like...
...Nothing new about that recipe...
...It's twice as hard to find an unadulterated man or woman as it is to find an adulterated, and the same goes for English Muffins...
...Not quite," said Ms...
...Purity comes high...
...Unadulterated English Muffins unlike Whole Wheat Matzos would have a short shelf-life...
...Look," said Ms...
...They're in there to make the junk whiter than white, crunchier than crunch, and more durable than the pyramids...
...Now I'll have to start over with the ingredients of the English Muffins: Enriched flour (Flour, Malted Barley Flour, Niacin, Iron, Thiamine, Mononitrate, Riboflavin), Water, Yeast, Corn Meal, Sugar, Wheat Gluten, Salt, Leavening (May Contain Sodium Acid Pyrophosphate and/or Sodium Aluminum Phosphate and/or Monocalcium Phosphate and/or Calcium Phosphate), Distilled Vinegar, Calcium Propionate (A Preservative), Soy Flour, Whey Solids, Partially Hydrogena-ted Soybean Oil, Monocalcium Phosphate ' '' " Hey," I said, "we had that once...
...That's the way the Hebrew Children made it when they were smart enough to be hot-footing it out of, instead of into, Egypt...
...Without the additives and preservatives they'd have no shelf-life just like you, dear...
...Among the additives in the package is a trace of food...
...That's the point," said Ms...
...like the rest of the world...
...And got rid of the poisonous...
...Unless," said Ms., "you'd like these tasty English Muffins here, at forty-four cents for fourteen ounces with ten times the number of ingredients...
...resumed reading, " 'Calcium Sulphate, Corn Starch, Ammonium Sulphate, Potassium Bromate.' And," she said, "it doesn't end with 'Only.' " "How come," I said, "you get all those goodies in fourteen ounces of English muffins for only forty-four cents and you have to pay eighty-nine cents for ten ounces of Whole Wheat, Wheat Bran, and Water Only...
Vol. 43 • July 1979 • No. 7
