Column: Warnng: Breakfast may be risky business

Oct 13, 2009 By Gale Hammond

Breakfast: It's the most important meal of the day according to some experts. So if you are reading this column while enjoying your morning meal, let me apologize in advance for any sudden urges to heave your breakfast burrito.

That's because an alarming food announcement was issued recently by a group in charge of scaring the bejabbers out of anyone who believes food consumption is pretty important in the Staying Alive Department. And you know who I mean; those food authority types who point out to us on a regular basis that the food we are about to consume is a festering, moldering mass of deadly microbes.

That's right, just when you thought it was safe to consume a leafy green, we're told - again - that serving up a big old dinner salad is about as dicey as taking a spin on the Indy 500.

"The Center for Science in the Public Interest" compiled the study, and if that doesn't sound like a suspicious outfit, I don't know what does. Heed the warnings and you will find yourself tiptoeing around the Public Interest folks' list of top 10 risky foods (in descending order): leafy greens, eggs, tuna, oysters, potatoes, cheese, ice cream (ICE CREAM??? Risky to WHAT? Our thighs?), tomatoes, sprouts and berries.

So what are we home cooks to do? Stop serving up staples like eggs, cheese or tomatoes since they are apparently teeming with bacteria? Well, it seems that we should, so my crack research department went to work finding a solution to this crisis. And in case you're wondering, my crack research department consists of me lying on our sofa the other night.

You'll be delighted to know that in doing this selfless research, I've uncovered some exciting new foods to tempt your palate. Furthermore, I'd speculate that the folks over at The Center for Science have never attempted to dissect these foods in the Public Interest. Nope. They wouldn't touch these babies with a 10 foot pole. Therefore, I suggest you do what I did and take a gander at an episode of the Food Network's "Next Iron Chef" because featured there was a whole plethora of victuals you've probably never thought of. If, for example, you thought lamb kidneys were exotic, you don't know what you've been missing. Take, for example, duck's tongue.



Now I don't know what circles you run in, but chances are you haven't encountered this delicacy as you've browsed your local meat counter. But bowls brimming with ducks' tongues, chicken feet and eel were only a few of the featured treats the prospective Iron Chefs were slicing and dicing over at the Food Network. Yes, I know these, um ... foods ... sound mildly yucky, but don't forget in our neck of the woods we eat garlic ice cream.

While I consider myself a fairly fearless cook at home, I admit to shuddering at the idea of whipping up dishes with such exotic ingredients. I mean, there on national television were professional chefs each about to dissolve into tears of frustration in their missions to create dishes using their assigned ingredients. What, for example, can one do with grasshoppers? Or "stinky tofu?" Or chicken feet? Or - egads! Cock's comb?

Now I'm not up on my reading of animal rights literature as it pertains to poultry, but there were an awful lot of rooster parts being bandied about in those Food Network kitchens. It made me wonder where on earth those various poultry appendages came from. I mean, somewhere there may be serious cases of chicken-rustling going on. And are there areas where large lakes are missing their ducks? Perhaps clandestine cults are springing up showing signs of chicken genocidal inclinations. It could happen, people!

So pity the poor aspiring (and perspiring) Iron Chef who draws - and I'm not making this up - un-laid bird eggs as his secret ingredient. I don't know about you, but a plate of fallopian tube pasta just doesn't, um ... tempt me somehow.

Imagine being a judge sitting on a panel tasting and weighing in on dishes containing grasshoppers, eel, or chicken feet. "I'm finding the cock's comb in your dish a little chewy," reprimands one judge looking down her nose at the platter of jaunty little topknots that previously adorned the barnyard's alarm clock. Well, HELLO?!!! It's a COCK'S COMB for Pete's sake. If you want tender, you might try a fillet.

Even if experts agree that ducks' tongues are "the other white meat" and have never seen the likes of a risky microbe, I can hear the naysayers now. But before you vow to never eat anything that came out of a duck's mouth, you might wish to reconsider. Where do you think those scrambled eggs you're having for breakfast came from? I rest my case.