Hey! Leave our raw ersters alone! Excerpt:
Since the Food and Drug Administration announced last month that it plans to ban the sale of unprocessed Gulf of Mexico oysters from April through October, people in New Orleans have been gobbling the things down as if there's no tomorrow. That's the Big Easy for you. Risky as it is just to live there, you think dey go worry about itty-bitty bacteria?"I served 50 dozen raw oysters yesterday," Mark Defelice, the chef at Pascal's Manale on Napoleon Street, told me Thursday. "People see the articles and TV about it, and they start thinking, 'Man, I'm going to eat me some raw oysters.' "
Like most people who sell or eat oysters in Louisiana, Defelice doesn't think much of the FDA's decision, which would take effect in 2011 and which is intended to stop the 15 or so annual food-poisoning deaths caused by Vibrio vulnificus, a choleralike bacteria that thrives in the Gulf. "It's just the stupidest thing I ever heard in my life," he said.
Abso-damn-lutely. This is obscene. The last time I was in New Orleans, I ate four dozen at the Acme, as God intended. This Slate article explains why this is an incredibly stupid, culture-and-livelihood-destroying policy. They can have my raw erster when they pry my cold, dead fingers from around it, the communiss! I am serious about this: what is wrong with our government, when it allows factory farms to grow all kinds of pathogens that kill lots of people every year, but has to all but kill the raw oyster industry because four people die from eating the things per annum.
"It's really a people-over-profit story," says the FDA's Rita Chappelle. My a*s it is. What about the people of Louisiana, and the Gulf Coast, and their traditions, and livelihood?!Oh, federal government, you have no idea what you're messin' with now.
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gamma rays will solve this problem
yes but then we will all have to wear tin foil hats to protect ourselves from having our minds invaded by government gamma rays
Growing up, it was tradition in our household to have oyster stew every Christmas Eve. My mom's father brought the tradition over from Sweden.
It took years, but my parents finally figured out their children absolutely DREADED Christmas Eve because of the dinner they served. My brother and I would sit at the table for hours, choking down the stew so we could get up.
So yeah, I'm absolutely FOR a ban on oysters. Nasty, nasty things they are!
I don't care for oysters personally.
But I care even less for supercilious bureaucrats like Matt who go around making life miserable by imposing their stupid regulations. I have gotten sick after eating at restaurants that get the highest health inspection ratings--usually national chain restaurants--just as often as I have gotten sick at the dumps that have great food. I choose the latter because the great food is worth it, and I don't get sick very often. That is a calculus of risk all people make.
Freedom=Risk. This is just another example of how we are exchanging liberty and risk for the supposed "security" of an authoritarian state. Oysters first, then all fish and meat later, just watch.
Regulation is a better idea when people have to take what they can get from huge interstate or international supply chains run by huge impersonal corporations, and a worser idea when people can choose to stop by a local joint or not. Nobody has described what the processing involves, how expensive it is to set up, whether it changes the taste of the oysters... I don't think the FDA is quite so unreasonable as made out here, but maybe they could leave well enough alone. Or maybe impose a rigorous licensing process from which an establishment may be exempted if they post a sign saying "We serve unprocessed raw oysters year round: enjoy this delicious local tradition at your own risk, because four people every year out of three million who enjoy this dish seem to die of bacterial poisoning each year. We warned you!"
Siaryls Jenkins has the right idea.
I prefer to be protected from anonymous BigCorp.
If my locally-owned restaurant serves me something bad, I know where to find them. And they know I know where to find them. So they minimize their bad practices.
BTW, have never gotten sick from eating at a locally-owned restaurant, whether nice or dive.
The last time I was sickened from restaurant food, it was a KFC in the 80s. I phased out my fast food and voila, no food borne illness.
Yeah, I realize raw oysters are something of a risk. Got sick once from eating raw oysters. I take my chances and avoid them in the summer months. But don't need the government telling me when to eat them.
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