All the Ingredients

Out for a Drive

I live in the Midwest. I am used to driving behind trunks carrying pigs, or cows, an occasional horse trailer, or even a turkey truck, feathers flying out the slatted sides. But the other day I followed something new. It was a large, bright red semi pulling a large flatbed with an enormous chrome  tanker on top. It reminded me of the large white milk tankers I see occasionally. The chrome was polished to a high shine that any new Cadillac would have envied.

As I pulled out onto to the interstate behind this tanker, I noticed that it had large black block lettering on the back:

INEDIBLE

NOT MEANT FOR HUMAN CONSUMPTION

                                                                PORK PLASMA

Pork plasma? I was following a huge tanker of pork plasma?

I was at once revolted and intrigued. Obviously it had come from a pork processing plant. But where was  it going? What would anyone want with that much pork blood? What could you do with it? Were they afraid someone would try to consume what was inside? The truck pulled off on a cross highway, leaving me to my musing.

When I got home, I did some research. Of course someone has found a use for leftover pork blood. In fact, there is an entire industry built on it. I learned that there are companies that manufacture "spray-dried plasma proteins" to use as performance enhancers in animal diets. These companies make nutritional health supplements "from these functional proteins" for cattle, sheep, poultry, and swine. (Isn't that how mad cow disease started?)

It gives a new meaning to the expression, "blood on the highway."

Stalking the Not-So-Wild Asparagus

My daughter and I just spent four days in Raleigh, North Carolina.  I spent much-needed down time awash in the Southern hospitality of family and new friends, while also entertaining my daughter who had to make sure that all the clothes in the local mall's Hollister, American, Eagle, and Aero Postal were the same as ours in Iowa (they were). I didn't have much time to explore, but did manage to visit one local grocery store--one my sister-in-law pegged as more upscale than the other market I drove by every day on the way back and forth to her house.

First, I wandered down the aisle where the condiments were. I collect barbecue sauces and was intrigued by several--especially "Yam Good Sauce," a sauce that has a yam base: http://carolinasauce.stores.yahoo.net/1360000-1088026312.html . I really wanted to take a jar home with me, but couldn't take it on the plane, and didn't really want to risk putting a glass jar of red sauce in my suitcase.

Next,  I wandered up and down the aisles of packaged goods. Most of these looked similar to their Midwest counterparts with a few more style of grits to choose from. Iowa grocery stores assume you don't have the patience to make slow grits, and stock  mostly the quick version. One of the pleasures of our trip was that I got to eat grits every day. My daughter pronounced them "bland," but I think grits serve as a nice counterpoint to the various breakfast meats, egg renditions, and fruit platters I was offered daily. Kinda like toast. Plus I grew up eating grits--they are a comfort food.

Finally, I wandered up and down the produce aisles of Upscale FoodStore. I was intrigued to see that every display of produce was tagged with a bright green sign stating the country of origin: "Asparagus. Grown in the USA," and "Strawberries. Grown in Mexico." Although most of the produce was from the United States, close examination showed that none of it was local. For example, the asparagus came from California. In fact, it was the same brand of asparagus I found in my MidWest Mart a few days later when I was looking over its produce section for locally grown items (none to be found).  I don't know that you can grow asparagus in Raleigh, but I know it grows where I live, and I don't really want to go to the grocery store to buy a local spring crop grown roughly 1500 miles away. 

For four days in this kind and distant city, as I drove back and forth to my brother's house, I passed a fruit stand set up on wooden displays in the small parking lot of a closed gas station. They had huge piles of tomatoes and strawberries visible from the road. I didn't get a chance to stop, but I would have liked to have checked there for asparagus.