The Food Scout

You may have heard in recent news that Spain is now producing "ethical" fois gras to help sidestep some of the controversy that caused fois gras to be banned in Chicago restaurants a couple of years ago. Times have obviously changed, as this is one of the many concerns that has fallen to the very bottom of the priority list, now that consumers and restaurants alike have gone on an "eating out diet." Foodservice was growing in recent years on the assumption that eating out had become a way of life--not just a special occasion--for consumers living in a time-crunched, convenience-driven world. But as gas prices rose and the stock market fell, ...

Raise your hand if you weren't eating at least a bagel a day in the early 1990s. If you lived or worked in an urban area, chances are you bought that bagel from a specialty bagel shop, where bagels were made fresh (gasp) daily. And you had numerous varieties to choose from, like chocolate chip, spinach asiago, blueberry, multigrain, cinnamon sugar, etc. Bagels were a DESTINATION, and bagel shops proliferated around the country. But it wasn't long before every restaurant from Burger King to Pancake House was selling bagels, and bagels stopped being the gourmet, fresh-baked delicacy they started as, and instead became more of a mass-produced bread staple to accompany ...