Category Archives: Food

Food, Security

Scientists Find Alarming Levels of Cocaine in Sharks

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The ocean is so polluted by cocaine, apparently, that a new study found sharks are being poisoned with high levels of the drug.

“Regardless of where the drug came from – which is still not possible to determine – the results show that cocaine is being widely traded and moved in Brazil,” said the study coordinator, Enrico Mendes Saggioro, from the Oswaldo Cruz Institute.

“Cocaine has a low half-life in the environment … so, for us to find it in an animal like this, it means a lot of drugs are entering the biota,” he said.

“In other studies, I had already found cocaine in rivers flowing into the sea off Rio, but it was a surprise to find it in sharks – and at such a high level,” said Saggioro.

Food, History, Security

Tesla Nazi Symbolism Expanded in New Mezcal Campaign

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Recently I wrote about the Tesla “Cyberhammer” Nazi symbolism, after I wrote about the Tesla 8/8 launch date fiasco and the rebrand of Twitter with a swastika. Now Tesla has unveiled a completely unnecessary and overpriced product: a bottle of booze in a weird lightning shape.

Notably, many people have pointed out to me how Mezcal lightning bottles form the infamous Nazi SS rune.

The bottles are 750ml, or 1500ml for a pair, allegedly an update on a 2020 design blamed on Javier Verdura, director of product.

In fact, the official Tesla release statement for the mezcal claims that that the infamous Nazi SS design by Javier was meant to honor his roots, a life in Mexico City.

The bottle was designed by Tesla’s Director of Product Design, Javier Verdura, in honor of his Mexican roots and early life growing up in Mexico City.

Honor roots how? The vast majority of mezcal is “artesanal” and “joven” (unaged), and the vast majority of agave is “espadín”, so this bottle says basically nothing. The details couldn’t be more superficial and generic.

I hate to be the one to point this out but mezcal is usually meant to share the particular details of people who make it and their methods, which the Tesla design absolutely does not “honor” in any way.

“I look for the name of the person who made it—the mezcalero or mezcalera—the town where it’s made, and the mezcal varietal, such as espadín,” says Boehm [owner of The Cabinet, an agave spirit-focused bar]. “And the more information, the better.”

So who made Tesla’s mezcal? The Tesla website just says Nosotros. That brand turns out to be a recent graduate from Loyola Marymount (LA) who in 2015 had “a college assignment” to imagine a business, so he created one in California.

I discovered tequila when I moved from Costa Rica to California… Our big break came from the San Francisco World Spirit Competition. With less than $1,000 in the bank, we submitted our Blanco and won multiple awards, including Best Tequila of the Show! Suddenly, we had the attention of buyers everywhere, and that led to our first string of large order sales. The first two years were spent focusing on small boutique restaurants. Now, we’re focused on continuing to grow our retail presence. After three years of development, we just recently launched our Mezcal.

That’s it. That’s Tesla mezcal. So how again is this design concept honoring Mexican roots?

I’m going to go out on a limb and guess that we are supposed to connect a lightning bolt bottle design to the ancient legend about an Agave plant in Mexico struck by the gods and mystically delivering alcohol. However, this actual Mexican connection seems far-fetched because why would Tesla honor real roots when they clearly don’t care about Mexico at all? Their mezcal press release could be accused of burying Mexican heritage if their lightning theme is supposed to fit somehow since they haven’t explained anything and did such a poor job of highlighting any reasons to believe them.

More specifically, Tesla chose a very obvious Nazi-looking lightning bolt design. How is that supposed to make us think about the ancient fertility goddess Mayahuel and her four hundred breasts, often depicted as agave leaves with “drunken bunnies” sipping on them? The Aztec symbolism, such as the phrase “drunk as 400 rabbits” (Centzon Tōtōchtin), representing infinite intoxication, would make far more sense.

Anyway, I digress. There’s really nothing about a Nazi SS-shaped lightning bolt that connects us to Mexico for a bottle filled by a Costa Rican business school student in California. A design with plausible roots featuring fertility, or a bunch of stumbling drunk rabbits would have been a much clearer tie-in.

Do you know who really promoted the lightning bolt into Mexican culture, specifically for tequila?

Can you guess?

It was two British guys from Peckham, England who drank a Siete Leguas Anejo in 2017 and then quit their jobs to start a competing brand in 2019 called El Rayo (lightning).

Once in Mexico we linked up with a local designer, Mario and he showed us a culture that blew our minds! Forget sombreros and cactuses, this was modern Mexico… but after 3 trips and a lot of sips! Lightning struck and in May 2019 El Rayo ⚡ was born!

Lightning struck in 2019. Could two British nerds vacationing be any more awkward about how they decided to reframe Mexican culture to be suited more to their own tastes?

And did I mention Tesla claims they alone came up with a lightning concept for a tequila bottle in 2020? Yeah, oops, Tesla your designer is busted. The idea looks to be stolen from these two English guys, who were not even pretending to like Mexican heritage because they repeatedly boast how lightning branding for tequila was invented by them to erase the past.

I wish I could say it was the first thing we came up with but it wasn’t, we had a fairly bleak process to get to El Rayo – but it was worth the wait! It actually came from a book that Jack’s brother gave to him! Lightning fits in with our brand world – we want to be a bold and exciting presence and it will be a key asset for the brand moving forward.

A book? What book? A bleak process to get to “bold” new El Rayo sounds like the literal opposite to Tesla claiming lightning is to honor the old life in Mexico. What book?

And that’s what makes this so interesting as a design issue. Tesla did not say it’s about electricity, or being an electric car. They said it’s about Mexico. Yet the El Rayo team did not make anything that even remotely resembled Nazi symbolism when they invented the lightning brand for tequila. So it’s a break from Mexican life, and Tesla is exposed.

With that in mind, also accompanying this release of Tesla mezcal “SS” bottles are two cups featuring a letter “S” each. When placed together these “SS” cups have a capacity of 88ml, a number notoriously associated with the phrase “Heil Hitler” in neo-Nazi circles.

Price: $55
Features: Holds 1.5 oz (44 ml)

Perhaps you know that when you buy random mezcal cups in Mexico they vary from 1oz to 3oz or more and usually come in sets of four wide mouth bowls called a “copita”.

“It allows the nose to get close to the mezcal while making it easy to sip,” says Jon Bamonte, lead bartender at Philadelphia’s Vernick Fish, which partners with Mezonte mezcal for the bar’s agave program.

Alas, Tesla is promoting exactly 88ml to their customers in their weirdly tall cups that look nothing like a proper shape. The affinity for that number is not new, as I’ve written before. In many other places Tesla has often featured it, though the company never directly admits their meaning. Given how often 88 comes up for the company the two cups with “SS” imagery fit into a clear and disturbing association to Nazi ideology.

Charge Plugs: 88
Model Cost: 88
Average Speed: 88
Engine Power: 88
Voice commands: 88
Taxi launch date: 8/8

The mezcal bottles and cups might be viewed by some as just another step in a long-running political extremism joke, but the historical and cultural sensitivity surrounding these symbols suggests a need for greater awareness and responsibility in product design and marketing. Tesla went with the worst lightning bolt design possible using a dubious backstory that apparently stole from a directly competing brand, for what?

Given well-documented associations of the Nazi SS runes and the number 88 with white supremacist groups, the context cannot be overlooked, especially given the pattern at Tesla. This incident adds to a series of ongoing controversies involving its CEO, including active support for Nazi politicians today, raising broader questions about his past and present political work.

Food, Security

Texas Warns Its Dairy Cows Are Suffering Bird Flu Outbreak

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The state of Texas has posted a notice that dairy cows are being impacted by a bird flu outbreak.

A mysterious disease has been working its way through the Texas Panhandle, puzzling the agriculture industry. Today, Texas Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller received confirmation from the United States Secretary of Agriculture, Tom Vilsack, and the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) that the mystery disease has been identified as a strain of Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza (HPAI) commonly known as Bird Flu. To date, three dairies in Texas and one in Kansas have tested positive for HPAI. The Texas Department of Agriculture (TDA) is vigilantly monitoring this outbreak.

Oh.

Did he say Kansas?

How long before that one little Kansas case is linked into nearby research at the new bioweapon lab in a prominent agriculture research university?

Just thinking out loud since Kansas ranchers have complained about lab leaks. Maybe Texas has a much louder political voice, which is what’s going on, and why they pulled in the feds. And maybe the WHO is right, cattle were inevitable.

Food, History, Poetry

The Curious Missing History of Corn Nuts

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“Corn Nuts Toasted Corn” seems redundant until you read the history of the brand

Corn Nuts, a well-known brand, essentially offer fried and salted corn. While this snack isn’t particularly novel, as variations exist worldwide, its marketing suggests a significant influence on American culture. It’s almost a given that any rural gas station will stock bad coffee and Corn Nuts, highlighting widespread popularity of the snack. However, what’s intriguing is how a single American brand came to dominate such a simple and common food without any real explanation.

But I’m getting ahead of myself.

Initially, the brand originated in Oakland, California, where a man named Olin Huntington invoked the well-known “Brown Jug” drinking song that had surfaced in 1869, shortly after the Civil War.

Source: Official Gazette of the US Patent Office, 10 August 1937

My wife and I lived all alone,
In a little log hut we called our own;
She loved gin and I loved rum,
I tell you we had lots of fun.

Chorus: Ha! Ha! Ha! you and me,
Little Brown Jug don’t I love thee!

‘Tis you who makes my friends and foes,
‘Tis you who makes me wear old clothes,
Here you are so near my nose,
So tip her up and down she goes.

When I go toiling to my farm
I take little brown jug under my arm,
Place him under a shady tree,
Little brown jug, ’tis you and me.

If I’d a cow that gave such milk,
I’d clothe her in the finest silk
I’d feed her on the choicest hay,
And milk her forty times a day.

The rose is red, my nose is too
The violet’s blue and so are you;
And yet I guess, before I stop
I’d better take another drop.

Went for a walk on the railroad track,
Little brown jug on my back.
Stubbed my toe, and down I fell,
And broke that little jug I loved so well.

Isn’t it catchy? It’s worth noting how famous the Brown Jug still was by the 1930s, when Olin’s particular version of salted fried corn started appearing for free in Oakland bars.

Moreover, again considering the Civil War influence on American culture, Olin’s recipe perhaps resembled a snack known very well by soldiers, as described by Serious Eats:

…regular dry corn, which tended to be stolen from local fields and was used to make [pinole] (parched corn ground to a fine powder, seasoned with salt or sugar and eaten dry)

It seems at the very least that Confederate soldiers were familiar with a food preservation technique that meant roasting or parching stolen corn kernels. This method likely provided pro-slavery militants with a comfort food during long and desperate retreats renowned for drunken looting and pillaging.

How and why did toasted corn also migrate West? Some could argue Americans on the California Trail through the late 1800s needed a convenient, light and durable food option that could withstand rigors of travel and provide much-needed energy. Others rightly might argue those are the exact same reasons that pinole had long been a common staple of native Americans and other long hunters. In other words, was any food in the 1930s (after prohibition) more comforting than a drink with some familiar corn on the side?

Voila!

While Olin’s Brown Jug Toasted Corn might sound like an odd brand to someone today, in 1936 that combination of words probably sounded more like someone saying water is wet. It was brilliant marketing for his day.

Thus the Oakland bars serving toasted corn rapidly grew the snack’s popularity until they ran directly into fierce political headwinds. A huge influx of hungry immigrants to California generated intense resentment towards “Okies” seeking a better life during the Dust Bowl. Free food? Suddenly a Brown Jug Toasted Corn model of handing out bar snacks was basically regulated out of business.

A man named Olin Huntington created a toasted corn product called Brown Jug and sold it to bars, which handed it out to patrons for free. The toasted corn was legendarily so popular, especially with children, that kids were often caught dashing into taverns to grab handfuls.

But shortly thereafter, California passed a law making it illegal to give away food at bars, spelling disaster for Brown Jug’s business model.

An ages old concept of using corn to feed starving Americans on long journeys became very popular with starving kids during the Dust Bowl? You don’t say.

One of the most famous photos of the Dust Bowl starvation-level struggles for American families. “I wish she hadn’t taken my picture. I can’t get a penny out of it. [Lange] didn’t ask my name. She said she wouldn’t sell the pictures.” Florence Owens Thompson. Source: CA.gov

The new laws were apparently too much for Olin, so he threw in the towel and sold his company. The transfer of Olin Manufacturing and their Brown Jug Toasted Corn business to a new entrepreneur (Albert Holloway) included a huge marketing reversal. Not only did the product now distance itself from an association to drinking, it added a 5 cent charge. The new focus shifted to selling small bags into schools as wholesome snacks for children… if they could pay ($1.50 in today’s terms).

1949 Corn Nuts marketing to parents and kids. Click to enlarge

The product was renamed based on what bar patrons, and possibly children, reportedly called out when they didn’t want salted peanuts: “hey bartender, how about some more of those corn nuts”.

Lastly, after all that history being said, the appeal of Corn Nuts lies in what reporters called a “pure and simple” concept. Something that seems very well-known around the world – oily corn with salt is delicious, and sustaining on long journeys. No wonder it’s in every gas station.

White men in California wearing suits wrote themselves into history as being the “capitol” of fried corn snacks. Click to enlarge. Source: Chicago Tribune, 12 Jun 1972, Page 73

The perplexing part of the story is how a single brand with a single product came to dominate the American market to such an extent, given such obvious potential for numerous producers of salted fried corn to emerge.

However, dominance might be linked to the obscure politics of its origin story. It benefited from a hard turn away from the common snack associated with drinking and starving, into a conveniently packaged snack for kids… if they could pay.

By distancing from America’s controversial yet widely recognized Civil War, Brown Jug and Dust Bowl history (let’s face it, who today knows those lyrics), Corn Nuts successfully fabricated a strangely abrupt “pure and simple” origin story to build a dominant position in the convenience snack market.

Interestingly, this mirrors an abrupt and controversial racist origin to Doritos corn chips.

It begs a question of how and where the mostly forgotten Olin Huntington came upon his recipe that was then purchased and repurposed into a Corn Nuts empire. So far, I’ve found no evidence of Olin’s major influences, perhaps by design. It’s almost impossible to find any mention of Olin himself.

Related:

  • Cancha is the word used in Peru and Ecuador for corn that has been soaked and then toasted in a pan with oil and salt. There tend to be different sizes, textures and regional variations.
  • Cancha Chulpi is harvested young and tender, then toasted with seasoning and salt until it pops, emphasizing crunch.
  • Cancha Pescorunto is a smaller corn often toasted with seasoning and salt until it pops, again emphasizing crunch.
  • Cancha Serrana, or Andean corn, is found in Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, and Colombia. Very large kernels are known for more of a starchy texture, frequently found in soups, stews, and side dishes. Like Cancha Chulpi and Pescorunto it can be toasted with salt.