I was sorting through the mail this morning and an unusually thick envelope caught my eye. As a doctor’s family, we receive all kinds of mail from drug companies and hospitals, but this one was from the Corn Refiners Association. You may recall Leah’s rant in September about the corn syrup marketing campaign. Well, the corn syrup manufacturers have gotten together and sent every single member of the American Academy of Pediatrics a slick guide to high fructose goodness called “Changing the Conversation about High Fructose Corn Syrup.” It includes “The Top Published Myths,” an FAQ, and cute ads, with quotes about the safety of HFCS from medical journals, all sent straight to your kids’ doctor.
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Okay, okay - so Halloween isn’t exactly a “Jewish holiday.” But considering that the dominant theme on October 31st is chocolate (witches and goblins decidedly take a back seat to Snickers Bars and M&Ms), it seems like a perfectly good time to celebrate Jewish and Israeli chocolate makers. Over the last few years, the chocolate industry has grown significantly in Israel, with many new boutique chocolate stores and manufacturers popping up around the country. And in America, Jews continue to contribute to the industry, creating some of the world’s most renowned chocolate.
Below the jump, we’ve compiled a list of some of today’s most innovative Jewish chocolate makers - folks like Chuck Siegel, the official chocolate maker for Google, who started his company in the kitchen of the San Francisco JCC - and Netanya’s Choconoy, an Israeli company with a special mission.
Read below for the whole list…
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It’s a Jewish food blog, so, nu, here’s a little good old-fashioned Borscht belt humor:
Q: What are the two things Jews know?
A: Suffering, and where to find good Chinese food.
Okay, so maybe “good” shouldn’t be used to modify Borscht belt humor. I’ve known that joke for 20 years, and who knows how old it was when I first heard it. It must be further past the expiry date than that container of organic non-fat sour cream you’ve got pushed way back in the corner of your fridge.
So here’s an always-fresh corollary:
Q: What are the two things Jewish women love?
A: Eating and giving advice.
Thus is born a new The Jew & The Carrot feature, “The Shmethicist” - a moral nosh on ethical eating. Readers are hereby invited to send in your ethical food quandaries to shmethicist@jcarrot.org. Because why should Randy Cohen have all the fun?
Since you didn’t know I existed until just now, I’ve taken the shmethically questionable route of making up our first reader query, just so I had something to answer.
Below the jump: The Shmethicist’s take on Halloween candy…
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There’s a joke that all fun secular holidays have “Jewish” equivalents. Halloween has Purim, Christmas has Chanukah, etc. But Chanukah, in all its fried deliciousness, does not offer an opportunity to bake the mother of architectural sweets: The Gingerbread House. Now, the Jewish harvest holiday of Sukkot has stepped in to fill this wide gap in the Jewish culinary calendar with The Gingerbread Sukkah.
Boston resident Julia Greenstein (daughter of renowned baker, George Greenstein) makes gingerbread sukkahs every year with her family. These miniature “dwelling structures” are as temporary as their real-sized cousins - if only because they are irresistible to eat! Find out how she does it, and how you can build your own cookie sukkah below.
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This morning, while rumbling along the Q train to work, I nearly spit a mouthful of hot tea onto the man standing in front of me, as I surreptitiously read his copy of The New York Times. The cause of my near projectile mishap: a full page, color advertisement for corn syrup.
The ad, which was funded by the Corn Refiners Association (natch) featured a photo of a bagel spread with a dollop of bubble-gum pink cream cheese (decidedly unappetizing), and asked, “Could it be another schmear campaign?” Below the picture it pandered:
“Lately, high fructose corn syrup has had its name dragged through the media. Truth is, it’s nutritionally the same as table sugar. Has the same number of calories too. Even registered dietitians agree that you can keep enjoying the foods and beverages you love, just do it in moderation.”
The ad directed readers to a website called Sweet Surprise - which turned out to be a vapid collection of pages that tried to disguise pseudo-scientific stats and statements like,”high fructose corn syrup enhances fruit and spice flavors” as useful information. It seems that - just like the politicians the ad evokes - corn syrup manufacturers are trying to clean up their sullied public image.
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