Food alerts

[brebis noire]

A Swedish/Finnish friend of mine has been trying to get me enthusiastic about eating very salty and oily fish, but she's never told me about any sandwiches.

I don't have anything against tuna with mayonnaise, but I've been cutting down on the mayonnaise and increasing the olive oil.

The only kind of mayo I can stomach is Hellman's anyways. Is that a Scandinavian name?

[skdadl]

But mayo is just eggs and oil (real mayo), and you eat eggs, yes? I understand that they are too rich for many people, and no one should be eating them all that much, but it's not as though real mayo has some nuclear ingredient.

I'm cooking in olive oil almost every day, whereas I may eat something with mayo once every two weeks. I eat an actual egg about that often. But it never occurred to me that they were in competition -- olive oil is just the more basic worker.

[brebis noire]

Yeah, my beef isn't so much with real mayo, which is fine when homemade, especially with garlic. My problem is with that stuff they call mayo that has a tonne of ingredients but hardly any egg. I don't think that eggs are too rich for anybody, if they're eating a non-industrialised diet.
I don't think that mayo necessarily goes with everything, but it's become kind of a glue to hold foods together. I'm sure I'd love real mayo and Scandinavian fish.

[skdadl]

The wiki says (now, you know to take this with a grain of sea-salt, but ...) that real mayo does not make people sick, even when it spoils, because its pH  (from the lemon juice and mustard) is too low. When it spoils, it discolours and tastes funny, but it is not a friendly host for bad bacteria.

So maybe this latest alert is just about meat that has gone bad?

[brebis noire]

With Listeria, I don't think you get that typical spoiling. Listeria can easily grow in mayonnaise salads, according to this article but the lower the pH, the less will grow. I don't think the mayonnaise that's used in these salads is particularly acidic anyways, at least the ones I've tasted.

[skdadl]

I think I was misreading the wiki. Acidic = low pH, yes? That's what they meant, anyway.

That article mentions the original Hellmann family, who were German. That's the only commercial brand I know, too, that comes close to being real mayo. I think a lot of people buy the odd things that Kraft invented as mayo substitutes, like Miracle Whip, and who knows what's in that.

When I can be bothered to haul out the food processor, I do sometimes make my own -- so easy to do through that drip tube. But then it's not going to keep for long, and there's all that mess and fuss, whereas I just want a jar I can dip into occasionally sitting there in the fridge. So Hellmann's still has me sold.

[sparqui]

Ensalada Russa is a very popular tapa in most Spanish bars, Antonia. I could never stomach it because I had a major hatred for anything mayo. I still can't stand all those mayo based salads but I learned to love mayo on burgers and seafood sushi rolls in Japan. I swear there was some secret addictive ingredient. Now I just adore BLTs.

[Mandos]

Apparently Japanese Pizza Hut has mayonnaise pizza.

[pogge]

Some ground beef being recalled due to E. coli

The Canadian Food Inspection Agency has recalled ground beef sold at small grocers in Winnipeg, Yellowknife, Ignace, Ont., and Thrifty Food Stores in British Columbia because it might be contaminated with E. coli bacteria.

[Berlynn]

I have finally taken time to look up Maple Leaf and the other brand names with which they are affiliated.  It made me sad to see Tenderflake because they do decent pie crusts -- well, not as good as DNA Daughter's, but good, nonetheless.  Look at this list:

Burns
California Goldminer
Hygrade
Nutriwhip
Prime Turkey
Shopsy's
Tenderflake
Maison-Cousin
Maple Leaf
Maple Leaf Prime Naturally
Maple Leaf Simply Fresh
Maple Leaf Simply SavourTM
Dempster's
Olivieri

[skdadl]

The name that surprises me there is Olivieri -- I think of them as producing pasta sauces, maybe fresh pasta. Ah, well, that's how the conglomerate gloms, I guess.

[lagatta]

Yeah, lots of congloms have labels that seem to have nothing to do with what they are known for producing. Except for the wee bit of meat in the meat varieties of Olivieri stufed pasta...

I would'n't worry about pie crust as it is cooked at a high temperature. Idem bacon (though of course there are lots of other health issues, between the cholesterol, sodium nitrite etc). Maple Leaf has beeen running a lot of loss leader deals on bacon ($2 or 2 for $5) at supermarkets here - haven't been tempted because in Amsterdam I was eating good but overly-rich meals prepared by a cooking team of Belgian firefighters and family... so very east /souteast Asian, green veg etc.

Belgians left behind the greater part of a LITRE container of 35% cooking cream, which they didn't get round to using.  :shock:

[deBeauxOs]

...I don't think that mayo necessarily goes with everything, but it's become kind of a glue to hold foods together. ...

I've found that a couple of tbs of thick, Lebanese or Greek style yoghurt (that has been dripped to remove whey) is a splendid substitute for mayo when binding ingredients together for sandwiches.  Add fresh lemon zest and garlic - heavenly with tinned tuna or any leftover bits of baked/poached fish.

[Antonia]

I drip yoghurt in coffee filters.

Oh and I sometimes use mashed up ripe avocados or guacamole instead of mayo. Great in egg salad SWs.

[pogge]

Frito Lay Canada pulls pistachios tied to U.S. recall