Thursday, December 18, 2008

Foie Gras

by Paul Giacobbe

Several viewers didn’t think there was much class displayed in the Johnson & Wales Cooking with Class segment that aired last week, and which featured a recipe for Foie Gras Toast Sauternes Gelee.  Fur, veal and foie gras, it seems, have something in common.

“I am very disappointed that your station would support Foie Gras,” wrote Elizabeth Castigliego. “If you only knew how much pain and suffering these birds endured for your eating pleasure. I am so upset, I am not sure I will watch your show anymore. To me, your episode today on Cooking with Class showed NO CLASS.”
Ms. Castigliego included with her email a video produced by the Humane Society of the United States. http://www.hsus.org/video_clips/foie_gras_.html

Foie gras, according to Wikipedia, is produced through the force feeding of geese, a procedure known as gavage.  The Humane Society website depicts the geese being force fed with a metal tube inserted into their throats.

Cindy Benevides also emailed about the cooking segment, and included the same link to the Humane Society.:

“I am very surprised that you would support Foie Gras in your cooking.  Maybe you don’t
know how much suffering goes into the production of this “delicacy”?  There
is a LOT of pan and suffering endured by the birds for this.  I hope you
will have more class in the future and not encourage items that are produced
out of such misery for any animal.”

In response to the viewer complaints a spokesman for Johnson & Wales offered the following:

“Johnson & Wales University offers its apologies to any viewers offended by the use of foie gras in a recent “Cooking with Class” segment.  We will not be using foie gras again in any future “Cooking with Class” episodes.”
The Wikipedia site, for more information about foie gras, is http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foie_gras
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NBC10 provides the space for this blog, but any opinions are mine alone. – Paul Giacobbe.

Wednesday, December 03, 2008

Spam

by Paul Giacobbe

“Spam,“  I recall my father, a World War II vet, saying “is ham that flunked it’s physical.”

For one viewer, the on-air comments of the 5 p.m. news team, following a story about the resurgence in popularity of the Hormel meat-in-a-can (ham, pork, sugar, salt, water, potato starch and “just a hint” of sodium nitrate, according to the website, http://www.spam.com), flunked the test of journalistic good taste.

The banter between the anchors and weatherman at the end of the Spam story was, according to the viewer, insensitive.

After the story:

Anchor #1:  “That’s what Gary had for breakfast today.”

Anchor #2:  “. . . Thanksgiving with a big old Spam.”

Anchor #1. “I guess it’s cheap though, I don’t know.”

Anchor #2.  “It’s tasty too.  I don’t know, I’ve never had one.”

Only the one viewer complained, but in keeping with this space’s attempt to present as much viewer input as possible, here’s what she said:

“It’s obvious that some people eat it,” the viewer said, and in this economy, with so many people homeless, such comments are “inappropriate.”

“There are some people who buy it because they can’t afford meat,” the viewer said, “and these kinds of comments from people with six figure incomes are not funny.”

As has occasionally been noted, many of the complaints which find their way here result from the casual, unscripted chat among anchors and reporters.  Segues and time fillers can be live television minefields, sprinkled with the occasional faux pas and the thankfully rare career killer.

But, Spam?? Even the company appears to make fun of itself with the kitschy website and the invitation to join the Spam fan club.  Notwithstanding that the bi-generational anchor team insisted they had never had Spam, it is an American institution, and we always poke fun at our institutions.  This viewer thought that the butt (considering where the Spam probably comes from there is, I swear, no pun intended) of the banter was the people who eat the Spam.  I’m not so sure.

In any case, now that the elections over there has to be something in the news that annoys us.
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NBC10 provides the space for this blog, but the opinions are mine alone. – Paul Giacobbe