Food

An airplane mechanic from Auburn has won the top prize in the Great American SPAM Championship.

41-year old Jason Munson's Mini Maple SPAM Doughnuts won a blue ribbon last September at the Puyallup Fair. His recipe went on to the national competition, where this week it beat out 800 other entries for the top honors.

Sushi seems like the perfect modern food: Light, healthful and available at seemingly every supermarket in the nation. But is it sustainable?

That's the question behind "The Story of Sushi," a new video that's been pulling a lot of clicks in the past week. Maybe that's because its adorable format, with tiny, handcrafted figures used to tell the tale, stands in stark contrast to its depressing message: Most of the sushi we snarf up is harvested using unsustainable methods.

If you're a regular reader of The Salt, you've probably noticed our interest in foraging. From San Francisco to Maryland, we've met wild food experts, nature guides and chefs passionate about picking foods growing in their backyards.

No, not  about Cracker the p(t)et pterodactyl in Captain Underpants. He'd snack on you. Nor do I refer to the Hamadryas  genus of brush-footed butterflies commonly called The Cracker. This is about the kind of crackers you eat. And eat. And eat.

A New York federal court today dismissed a lawsuit against agribusiness giant Monsanto brought by thousands of certified organic farmers. The farmers hoped the suit would protect them against infringing on the company's crop patents in the future.

The Organic Seed Growers and Trade Association and several other growers and organizations do not use Monsanto seeds. But they were betting that the judge would agree that Monsanto should not be allowed to sue them if pollen from the company's patented crops happened to drift into their fields.

I think so.  Just look at it: Yogurt. Call it a typographical phobia but I'm not eatin' anything that looks like that word.   Even its etymology is not encouraging. 

If you buy organic products, your options may be about to expand. The U.S. and the European Union are announcing that they will soon treat each other's organic standards as equivalent. In other words, if it's organic here, it's also organic in Europe, and vice versa. Organic food companies are cheering because their potential markets just doubled.

When my Food for Thought pard Nancy Leson confided to me that she was taking a six-month leave of absence from The Times I predicted that she'd be climbing the walls within a month.  How wrong I was.

It happened to KPLU's Grooveyard and Weekend Edition host Kevin Kniestedt. Assaulted by a deranged woman in an electric shopping cart at a local supermarket.  Click "listen" to hear him describe his harrowing ordeal.

My heart says "No" but my head says "They make 'em better." Probably... I think.  

Although it's true that my kitchen stove, new just four years ago, began emitting un-ignited gas in a near-death fashion, I still think that today's appliances must be more reliable than those of decades past. Aren't they? 

My Food for Thought pard, Seattle Times food writer Nancy Leson isn't so sure.