"Illegal Eggs Taste Amazing"

Katherine Mangu-Ward | July 29, 2009

"Famously succulent" homemade summer sausage can only be had under the table in Toronto, reports Maclean's, in a great quick article about locavore black markets in Canada: 

The sausage is verboten because it’s made on the farm, and any kind of meat product must be prepared in a kitchen that adheres to provincial safety regulations, even if it uses meat slaughtered in a government-inspected facility.

The microbial risks taken by raw milk nuts are nothing compared to the legal risks faced by their suppliers.

The farmers who provide foodies with their fix are taking a risk. Last year, a man in eastern Ontario was fined $3,000 for selling un-graded eggs to restaurants. And the Saturday-morning farmer’s cows aren’t even part of the quota system. In Canada, dairy farmers must sell their milk through provincial marketing boards, not on the free market. If caught, she could face serious penalties.

A recent study found that $10 wine tastes better if the drinker thinks it's $90 wine ("with the higher priced wines, more blood and oxygen is sent to a part of the brain called the medial orbitofrontal cortex, whose activity reflects pleasure"). The same phenomenon is probably at least partically responsible for raptures over illegal duck eggs and summer sausage. The price is only part of the cost, and an egg custard that might land you in the pokey is bound to be more delicious than a legit dessert make from supermarket eggs.

Still, I tried (legal) duck eggs last summer on Long Island, and (controlling as well as I can for my own neurological quirks) I think they they were legitimately above average in their sapidity. It's shame Canadian farmers have to slip their best customers sausage on the sly.

Via Overlawyered

Comments

|7.29.09 @ 5:30PM|#

The microbial risks taken by raw milk nuts are nothing compared to the legal risks faced by their suppliers.

We aren't nuts.

Raw milk tastes better and produces better cheeses and yogurts and butters.

When you kill all the bacteria (good and bad) you degrade the character of the milk.

|7.29.09 @ 5:33PM|#

It's shame Canadian farmers have to slip their best customers sausage on the sly.

Katherine, you should be ashamed of yourself.

|7.29.09 @ 5:35PM|#

I'm a former canuck now living in Europe and I go to a speciality store where I can get (legally here) unpasteurized milk and cheeses.

For the milk, it's better, but you wouldn't notice the difference if you were just putting it in your coffee. The cheese though is amazing. For those that have never had unpasteurized cheese, the difference is like night and day. No cheese that is pasteurized can even compare, it's all like molten wax to me after eating 'real' cheese.

Fluffy|7.29.09 @ 5:50PM|#

Now, wait a second. Ron Bailey has PROVEN that preferring non-factory-farm-produced products is irrational and evil.

You better get with the program, Katherine.

|7.29.09 @ 5:58PM|#

Yeah, no way that wording was unintentional. J'accuse!

|7.29.09 @ 6:22PM|#

For those that have never had unpasteurized cheese, the difference is like night and day.

I got some raw milk Gorgonzola from Whole foods recently and that shit was off the scale. Really delicious, but fuck-all if you didn't have to let it breathe, otherwise it would kick your nasal passages' ass.

But I also have Beecher's down the street from me, so I have a lot of options.

kilroy|7.29.09 @ 6:24PM|#

"Ron Bailey has PROVEN that preferring non-factory-farm-produced products is irrational and evil."

Shut the fuck up Fluffy.

|7.29.09 @ 6:26PM|#

Silly me, I actually read that and thought that there are a species of nuts known as "raw milk". Reading FAIL.

hmm|7.29.09 @ 6:38PM|#

fresh eggs > *

So I guess they don't get to make their own deer sausage. That's bullshit.

A recent study found that $10 wine tastes better if the drinker thinks it's $90 wine ("with the higher priced wines, more blood and oxygen is sent to a part of the brain called the medial orbitofrontal cortex, whose activity reflects pleasure").

God I must be more fucked up than I originally thought. I drink a $90 bottle of wine and the whole time I will be thinking (yelling in my head), "JESUS CHRIST. $90 FUCKING DOLLARS. THIS SHIT BETTER BLOW MY MIND. I CAN MAKE 6 GALLONS FOR $90. FUCK ME THIS IS RETARDED. Did I say any of that out loud? Quick check the wife for angry face."

max hats|7.29.09 @ 6:51PM|#

Still, I tried (legal) duck eggs last summer on Long Island, and (controlling as well as I can for my own neurological quirks) I think they they were legitimately above average in their sapidity. It's shame Canadian farmers have to slip their best customers sausage on the sly.

I think you should talk with your colleagues, who apparently have very different opinions about any claims of superiority from alternative forms of agriculture.

max hats|7.29.09 @ 6:52PM|#

It is pretty funny that if this guy ever got his operation legalized, Reason would immediately turn full bore on him as just another hippie asshole making unproven claims about his organic produce.

Fluffy|7.29.09 @ 6:56PM|#

It is pretty funny that if this guy ever got his operation legalized, Reason would immediately turn full bore on him as just another hippie asshole making unproven claims about his organic produce.

That's because legalization would transform him from "outsider renegade defying bogus bureaucratic restrictions" into "dangerous Luddite who doesn't believe in progress and might get the legislature to hurt Monsanto".

Paul|7.29.09 @ 7:06PM|#

A recent study found that $10 wine tastes better if the drinker thinks it's $90 wine

See "organic" thread below and $6.00 a pound organic cherries hand-picked by Al Gore.

dfd|7.29.09 @ 7:25PM|#

Now, wait a second. Ron Bailey has PROVEN that preferring non-factory-farm-produced products is irrational and evil.

Jesus, the fact that more than one of you can't see that there is nothing even remotely contradictory, hell even related, about criticizing state prohibition of an activity, and criticizing private citizens for making unjustified claims about their products, is really telling. Have you all joined the misreading, misunderstanding and mischaracterizing stupid brigade?

Here's some help. Nobody is claiming organic farming should be outlawed. If it were, I'll bet you'd see this exact kind of post lamenting the inappropriateness of such a law and claiming that the state has no business telling people how to farm or preventing consenting adults from buying and selling the products of that farm.

Neither is anybody saying these sausage makers, any more than organic farmers, would be free from criticism if they start clamining their product are healthier or more nutritious without justification and against the overwhelming scientific evidence. If they did that I'll bet you'd see the same kind of post you see about organics aimed at the misleading claims of the sausage makers.

These two issues are not related. It is not that hard to grasp the distinction. Failing to do so seriously undermines your credibility.

hmm|7.29.09 @ 7:30PM|#

I wouldn't assume farm raised and organic to be the same thing. The difference between eggs from hens that roam around and eat everything is huge compared to the regular store bought eggs. The same goes for beef. Beef from smaller farmers that aren't in the production for mass production, usually part time farmers, is far superior. Neither of those two examples would be organic and often use enhanced feed or use antibiotics for steers.

It might seem like spliting hairs, but I urge anyone to test the idea. Go to Whole Paycheck and pick up some eggs from what ever organic selection and then head out to the country and find someone selling eggs off a farm. Cook some up side by side and you will notice a difference. Hell you can tell the difference by size alone. Jumbo or super extra jumbo eggs in markets are small in comparison to what I used to have to go gather.

|7.29.09 @ 7:34PM|#

Wow, "sapidity"! I had to look that up. Did Katherine just get a Word-of-the-Day calendar? (Just kidding, good post.)

Vines & Cattle|7.29.09 @ 7:44PM|#

On a related note, HR 2749, which would require $500 permits for anyone looking to prepare food, and go after gardens and farmer's markets, ran into trouble today in the House.

Fluffy|7.29.09 @ 7:44PM|#

If they did that I'll bet you'd see the same kind of post you see about organics aimed at the misleading claims of the sausage makers.

I simply don't believe that.

Reason saves its powder for marketing claims that might some day be used by leftists to make political demands.

Another example:

If liberal groups were threatening to ban fluorescent light bulbs because they contain mercury, Reason would piss all over any claims that incandescent light bulbs are easier to see by. "This is a myth! Consumers are fooling themselves! These claims are not borne out by science!" But because the opposite is happening - the government is trying to mandate the use of fluorescent light bulbs - consumer claims to have trouble seeing in the slight blue tint of the fluorescent bulbs are given all credence.

Reason sometimes tailors its response to "science" based on political considerations.

|7.29.09 @ 8:29PM|#

Reason saves its powder for marketing claims that might some day be used by leftists to make political demands.

Really? There's a big political movement to ban non-organic farming? Where?

Your claim doesn't hold water even in the particular case that you're invoking it.

I also haven't seen a big Reason article on how fruit juice isn't any better for you than sodas, trying to ward off a soda tax, but maybe I missed it or it's forthcoming.

|7.29.09 @ 8:37PM|#

It is pretty funny that if this guy ever got his operation legalized, Reason would immediately turn full bore on him as just another hippie asshole making unproven claims about his organic produce.

Dude, taste is subjective, healthier is not. The guy can make whatever claims he wants about how his sausage is the "Best tasting sausage in Toronto". But if he promotes the myth that other people's sausages are full of poison and his will keep you from getting colorectal cancer, then he's up for some puncturing.

hmm|7.29.09 @ 8:42PM|#

The guy can make whatever claims he wants about how his sausage is...

Such a wasted opportunity.

|7.29.09 @ 8:43PM|#

Such a wasted opportunity.

Proving once and for all that I'm a girl.

SIV|7.29.09 @ 9:22PM|#

Have you all joined the misreading, misunderstanding and mischaracterizing stupid brigade?

New here?
Welcome aboard.

max hats|7.29.09 @ 9:27PM|#

Dude, taste is subjective, healthier is not. The guy can make whatever claims he wants about how his sausage is the "Best tasting sausage in Toronto". But if he promotes the myth that other people's sausages are full of poison and his will keep you from getting colorectal cancer, then he's up for some puncturing.

If you look in the comments for the article, you will see exactly the same snobbery that drove you up the wall regarding these 'purer' eggs and the same ascientific claims that launched so many blog posts here on H & R. I don't recall a lot of citations of actual organic farmers making misleading claims, it was all "some say." Well, some say on this case too.

It's not about being elite, it's about nourishing your body and sold with nutrient-dense foods produced locally with care. - Jeanmarie Todd · 1 week ago

It doesn't take a college education to know when something works for you, you feel better, illnesses disappear, and your health is restored and when it all started and why.
We live in a constant pool of pollutants, and are fed an endless diet of phony, artificially flavored, colored and enhanced garbage that is labeled and packaged as food. Cheryl Hadden · 1 week ago

The difference is exactly as fluffy says - this farmer is still a lone voice struggling against government oppression. Should he become legal, he will instantaneously become a dirty snobby hippie who must be countered in your eyes and in the eyes of most of the staff here.

|7.29.09 @ 9:53PM|#

The difference is exactly as fluffy says - this farmer is still a lone voice struggling against government oppression. Should he become legal, he will instantaneously become a dirty snobby hippie who must be countered in your eyes and in the eyes of most of the staff here.

Actually I think this is more illustrative of the effort by libertarians to enlist liberal elites in the cause of limited government. We're pointing out how food safety regulation affects trendy progressives at least as much as big evil agribusiness. If anything the centralized quota systems and uniform safety regulations bias the market towards large companies that can easily standardize processing. Small producers will always necessarily have a tougher time converting their personal kitchen into a space that meets government regs.

|7.29.09 @ 10:10PM|#

Oh man I'm f'd now. I like organic food because i thought it tasted better, I didn't believe it was healthier. But now I find out even my sense of taste that I thought was subjective and up to me, is influenced on a genetic level by marketing?

crap,

how do I know if i truly like anything now?

The Mythical Canadian Libertar|7.29.09 @ 10:36PM|#

Considering someone a dirty hippie and respecting (or even applauding) their endeavours to earn a living by selling people products they want are not mutually exclusive. Just tonight, I was admiring the ambition of a young woman who teaches hula-hoop lessons and sells her own hoops that are apparently better than the dollar store ones in some way I'm too hoop-ignorant to understand, while simultaneously casting aspersions on her sanctimonious lifestyle. Neither position refutes the other.

And the best sausage in Toronto is in my pants.

some dude|7.29.09 @ 10:40PM|#

$90 FUCKING DOLLARS. THIS SHIT BETTER BLOW MY MIND. I CAN MAKE 6 GALLONS FOR $90. FUCK ME THIS IS RETARDED.

I've got three or four hundred gallons of home made stuff in bottles and carboys that I really enjoy drinking. And I also have $10K worth of wine that I have collected. As good as I am (and I'm pretty good) I still don't have access to the grapes and equipment to make a really fine Barolo in my own basement.

kinnath|7.29.09 @ 10:45PM|#

Please note: the axis for boutique operations versus factory farming and the axis for organic versus non-organic farming run orthogonally.

Stating the boutique operators should not be regulated out of business and stating the organic farmers should not be able to make unsubstantiated claims are not contradictions.

hmm|7.29.09 @ 11:10PM|#

I've got three or four hundred gallons of home made stuff in bottles and carboys that I really enjoy drinking.

Cornie keg

Please note: the axis for boutique operations versus factory farming and the axis for organic versus non-organic farming run orthogonally.

Massive points for kool word usage. I think one nipple actually got a little hard.

=|7.30.09 @ 6:49AM|#

max hats | July 29, 2009, 6:52pm | #

Reason would immediately turn full bore on him as just another hippie asshole

Sometimes mothers eat their young.

kilroy|7.30.09 @ 8:35AM|#

"Ron Bailey has PROVEN that preferring non-factory-farm-produced products is irrational and evil."

Here's the article Fluffy is spewing his bullshit about. I defy you to cite one statement from that article from Bailey that supports the statement quoted above. Otherwise, quit being a disingenuous asshat and shut the fuck up as instructed above.

Take your time, I'll be right here....

Tim|7.30.09 @ 9:07AM|#

A recent study found that $10 wine tastes better if the drinker thinks it's $90 wine ("with the higher priced wines, more blood and oxygen is sent to a part of the brain called the medial orbitofrontal cortex, whose activity reflects pleasure"). The same phenomenon is probably at least partically responsible for raptures over illegal duck eggs and summer sausage.

Maybe it also applies somewhat to Cuban cigars?

Frank|7.30.09 @ 9:11AM|#

The guy can make whatever claims he wants about how his sausage is...

Such a wasted opportunity.

I wouldn't be too hard on him, maybe he does have the biggest sausage.

max hats|7.30.09 @ 9:18AM|#

I don't like big sausages. It hurts when I poop.

pistoffnick|7.30.09 @ 9:47AM|#

Thanks, max hats, you made my (w)hole weak!

Fluffy|7.30.09 @ 9:50AM|#

Here's the article Fluffy is spewing his bullshit about. I defy you to cite one statement from that article from Bailey that supports the statement quoted above. Otherwise, quit being a disingenuous asshat and shut the fuck up as instructed above.

Take your time, I'll be right here....

If you read enough of the discussion to know what I'm bitching about, you know that I'm not complaining about any individual article.

I'm complaining about the fact that Bailey now is on a jihad against organic products that seems to have gone far beyond supporting free minds and free markets.

And the torturous defenses I've read here from commenters - "Bailey would do this for any product that people preferred without scientific proof of its objective superiority" and "Well, since the consumer preference here isn't perfectly rational [unlike all other consumer preferences, which are apparently all perfectly rational] that means that attacking it advances 'reason'," just haven't impressed me.

I also have another question. When Reason posts things on Hit and Run defending people arrested for obscenity, it is always carefully disclosed if any of those people is a contributor to the foundation. But Bailey's articles don't include any disclosure of whether or not any of the foundation's sponsors have a business interest in advancing the cause of non-organic farming.

I'm not saying that it should be disclosed, actually, because I don't accept that standards of transparency we apply to government should be applied to private associations. And I also don't immediately assume that foundation sponsorship affects the editorial content here - after all, Reason would oppose most environmental regulation [and obscenity laws] whether the foundation contributors wanted them to or not. I'd just like to know the basis for disclosing in one case but not the other. What's the thought process behind the discrepancy?

Fluffy|7.30.09 @ 10:04AM|#

It is pretty funny that if this guy ever got his operation legalized, Reason would immediately turn full bore on him as just another hippie asshole making unproven claims about his organic produce.

I think another good example of this is alternative medicines and dietary supplements.

Right now, Reason is on their side, because they are unregulated and are [rightly and justly] fighting the imposition of FDA-style regulation over their products.

Reason regularly supports them, and supports Ron Paul's efforts to protect the dietary supplement industry from being subjected to the abuse of the FDA.

But the firms in that industry advance their businesses by playing on the exact same public "irrationality" that the organic food producers play on. They know that many people have a deep-seeded irrational mistrust of "chemical" medicine, and they supply an alternative "natural" choice with limited proof of superiority over the mainstream medical product. Hell, forget superiority, most of them have no proof of plain old effectiveness. So where's the Ron Bailey jihad opposing dietary supplements as irrational, and standing up for the business practices of FDA-regulated mainstream medicine?

|7.30.09 @ 10:26AM|#

Fluffy, perhaps its a matter of priorities.

Reason's first priority is opposing excessive and irrational regulation, hence, their opposition to laws against allowing farmers to sell directly to the public.

Reason's second priority is exposing wacked out and irrational claims of product efficacy, hence, their opposition to claims that organic food is actually healthier for you.

Where the people making unsupported claims of product efficacy are also, on the side, pushing for more state intervention in the market, well, Reason gets a two-fer.

Where the people making unsupported claims of product efficacy are threatened by more state intervention in the market, Reason issues a pass.

|7.30.09 @ 11:04AM|#

So I guess they don't get to make their own deer sausage. That's bullshit.

Ummm...as near as I can tell the law is against selling farm-made sausage, not making it.

And furthermore, as near as I can tell, laws like this are damn near universal in the industrialized world. Such laws are a combination of restraint of trade by established market players and a legitimate concern for food safety.

So this isn't something to provoke a Canadian-bashing or Toronto-bashing session. Not that Canadian-bashing and Toronto-bashing aren't perfectly legitimate activities. :)

And Fluffy and max hats, you are both as full of shit as a free-range goose.

|7.30.09 @ 11:04AM|#

It's about choice bozos.

kilroy|7.30.09 @ 11:28AM|#

"If you read enough of the discussion to know what I'm bitching about, you know that I'm not complaining about any individual article."


Ok. I'll bite.

"Ron Bailey has PROVEN that preferring non-factory-farm-produced products is irrational and evil."

Here's the article Fluffy is spewing his bullshit about. I defy you to cite one statement from that article the discussion from Bailey that supports the statement quoted above. Otherwise, quit being a disingenuous asshat and shut the fuck up as instructed above.

"I'm complaining about the fact that Bailey now is on a jihad against organic products that seems to have gone far beyond supporting free minds and free markets."

I don't see any advocacy for restraining free markets. I do see an attempt to highlight information that makes for free(er) minds.

Fluffy|7.30.09 @ 11:43AM|#

I do see an attempt to highlight information that makes for free(er) minds.

And I'm saying that it's obvious that this "attempt to make minds more free" is starting to look like it's offered in bad faith and with another agenda.

Bailey doesn't gleefully spring on every study doubting the efficacy of dietary supplements, now do he?

Frankly, organic food might not offer any nutritional or safety benefit over non-organically-produced food. My question is why Bailey cares about this so very, very much.

You think he cares because he wants to "help people have free minds" or to "serve reason" or whatever. And I'm sorry, he's a little too obsessed about it for that to seem very plausible to me any more.

|7.30.09 @ 5:58PM|#

And I'm sorry, he's a little too obsessed about it for that to seem very plausible to me any more.

Why are you so obbsessed about making sure people don't criticize organic food.

I know it's all fluffy and cool to be pro-organic right now, but that doesn't mean you have to suppress dissent from people who aren't as 'hip' as you are to the popular currents.