Food fighters
Jeffrey Denny
A D.C. woman was arrested and charged after she allegedly doused a Metrobus driver with a bottle of Sunny Delight orange drink Tuesday, Metro Transit Police said. — Washington Post, Sept. 27, 2017
In other food incidents:
· A Lima, Ohio, boy, 10, was transported by medevac to St. Rita’s Medical Center Wednesday with severe lacerations to the roof of his mouth when his older brother forced him to eat an entire box of Captain Crunch with no milk to soften it, the hospital said.
· A San Francisco couple visiting parents in Adamsville, Tenn., was arrested Thursday at the E. Main St. Piggly Wiggly for suspicion of soliciting minors when they asked a clerk if the store carried baby bok choy, police said. The couple also was charged with violating a local ordinance banning the “pretentious naming of vegetables we are not familiar with in these parts.”
· Anti-Nazi protestors in Scranton, Pa., were detained Friday for allegedly dumping 30,000 pounds of bananas on Main Street to disrupt a “Unite the Right” march, police said. The over-ripened fruit resulted in major pratfalls and hilarity as the goose-stepping white supremacists slipped, flailed, dropped their tiki-torches and appeared “sillier than usual,” according to one observer.
· Oberlin College graduates filed suit in federal court in Chicago today charging Sean M. Connolly, President and CEO of Conagra Brands, with cultural appropriation. The suit alleges that Conagra produces La Choy chop suey, Frontera Mexican-style salsa, Bertolli pasta and Marie Callender’s pasta sauce, Hebrew National hot dogs, and Odom’s Tennessee Pride Real Country Sausage among other “Americanized” misrepresentations of culturally significant foods. “Our parents didn’t spend $300,000 for our degrees in critical theory and social justice just so we could go back home and do nothing,” said one graduate who asked to remain anonymous in case “zie” someday tried to get a job. A Conagra spokesperson said, “We like to think of our products more as cultural appreciation.”
· Five people are now dead, 27 are still missing and 53 remain in critical condition in the wake of last month’s trampling disaster at the flagship Whole Foods store in Austin, Tex. The deaths and injuries were caused when at least 1,000 shoppers rushed the store as doors opened following reports that Amazon’s purchase of the upscale food chain would result in deep discounts starting the first day following completion of the deal. One victim died after another shopper struck him on the head with an unripe avocado as they fought over a six-pack of 16 oz. probiotic asparagus water marked down from $36 to $32.
· New York City police reported one in critical condition, and one in custody, following an incident Saturday at the Le Coucou restaurant at 138 Lafayette St., in Soho. Witnesses say a sous chef at the 2017 James Beard award-winning restaurant stabbed a patron with a boning knife after the diner, a young hedge fund millionaire, ordered the starter of joues de boeuf en gelee au fois gras, the gourmandises of ris de veau a l’estragon, and main course of cote d’agneau grille, collier braise a la tomate, and then asked, “Dude, got any salsa?” Related to the incident, a waiter was rushed to the nearby New York Eye and Ear Infirmary of Mount Sinai for severe extraocular muscle injury due to exaggerated eye roll in response to the diner’s attempt to pronounce his order and select from the wine list.
· A new Washington Post-ABC poll today found that in spite of the “internet firestorm” last spring over reports that President Trump gets two scoops of ice cream with his chocolate cream pie while his guests get one, on top of his comment about the “beautiful piece of chocolate cake” at the state dinner with the Chinese president while he ordered air strikes on Syria, 0.00% of sane Americans remember or care especially given the real Trump disasters that have occurred virtually every day.
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In his Slate blog about language, John Kelly wrote last year that the term “weaponized” used to mean turning uranium into nuclear warheads. “Now, we’ve weaponized: women, architecture, black suffering, anthropology, the facts, texting, femininity, marketing, secularism, religion, ideology, traditional forms of dress, virtue, sadness, social constructions, iWatches, and fictional experiences in video games.”
Why not weaponize food? Sure, Sunny Delight sounds nice. But watch out!
Jeffrey Denny is a Washington writer
