PrintSeptember 21, 2010
Michelle Obama's Futile Fat Food Fatwa
Thank God we have Michelle Obama delivering us from the evils of salt, sugar, and fat. Otherwise, how would any of us uneducated, grotesque peasants make any smart lifestyle choices without such expert pontification from the White House?
Pay no heed as her husband wolfs down another cheesesteak and a fistful of fried chicken with impunity and sneaks a smoke out behind the Secret Service security shack. Michelle, the scolding Dietician-in-Chief, will try to shame the rest of us into enduring another serving of bean sprouts, boiled turnips, and kitty litter with raisins.
While Mrs. Obama was lecturing restaurateurs on offering healthier but boring menu choices, restaurant CFOs were burning up their calculators fretting over evaporating profit margins if Mrs. Obama's acolytes tighten up a few more belt notches.
Not to worry. Michelle Obama's food police met their match at the Indiana State Fair last month. The biggest hit at the food pavilions, where fairgoers could catch a ride on John Deere tractor-drawn wagons sponsored by the Clarion Health Cardiovascular Centers, was the Krispy Kreme bacon cheddar cheeseburger.
The serving lines were four abreast, stretching nearly a quarter mile. And if that thousand-calorie artery-stuffer wasn't enough, at the next pavilion there was the chocolate-dipped bacon and the deep-fried frozen butter and cinnamon balls.
This tasty extravaganza wasn't unique to the Indiana State Fair. The Krispy Kreme cheeseburger was on the top of the menu at state fairs from New York to Kentucky to Minnesota. Woe to the hapless FDA and Health and Human Services food inspectors or hyperventilating legislators trampled by fairgoing gourmands hoofing it to the booths serving up the foot-high five-cheese reubens and ten-pound stromboli.
State fairs have long been sanctuaries for food fugitives who would otherwise be rounded up as enemies of the state if they were on the streets of San Francisco or dared serve their delights at a public school cafeteria. Of course, San Francisco has declared Dr. Pepper soda contraband while publicizing the best recipes for hashish-laced brownies and marijuana cum bayleaf and oregano tomato sauce. What a tragedy that San Fran street vendors can't deliver up another State Fair favorite: deep-fried Cola (frozen classic Coke battered and deep fried in pork fat topped off with whipped cream and Red Dye #3 cherries).
I suppose the gastronomic Gestapo have reluctantly ignored state fairs -- after all, the fast food underground is confined to fifty locations for durations of only five to ten days in August and early September. Moreover, State Fairs can even get special one-week gambling, night club, and fireworks permits. So why spoil the fun for such isolated spectacles?
Even PETA has surrendered the state and county fair high ground to Southern-style barbecuing and pig-roasting. What better way to celebrate the circle of farm life than by setting up the pulled pork BBQ tent alongside the 4H Blue Ribbon Swine Pavilion?
But outside the fairgrounds where food liberty is under assault, the KGB-style food minders are now being overwhelmed by defiant fast food cooks all across the country. The cable Travel Channel catalogs the victories of food libertarians every week. Man vs. Food has showcased the triumphs of American ingenuity with cast-iron-stomach host Adam Richman devouring a 48 ounce steak in Miami, a 3½-pound cinnamon roll in San Antonio, and the pig pen platter in Fort Ann, NY. My personal favorite is the multi-stacked triple bypass burger, with four one-pound patties interspersed with four cheeses, mustard, ketchup, hot sauce, sautéed mushrooms, and caramelized onions, topped off with a pound of bacon -- all liberally coated with salt and seasonings stuffed between two enormous buns grilled on a pound of butter. Regulate that!
Let's face it: The federal agencies are too busy designing labels for light bulbs and conducting airport security strip searches on 80-year-old grandmothers to man up against food freedom-fighters. Food independence is just too widespread and embedded in the American psyche to succumb to food tyranny. Unless the FDA and HHS can match the IRS agent for agent.
As the Tea Partiers are showing, when everyday Americans are fed up with the Washington, D.C. ruling class, they take matters into their own hands. Of course, you need more than two hands to eat some of these scale-bustin' treats.
As Mark Twain said, "eat what you like and let the food fight it out inside." Are you paying attention, Michelle?
