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Sunday, March 11, 2012

Isn't the term for this "local-washing"?

Craig Giesecke tells about the checkout line at Restaurant Depot.
They’re standing there in line and wearing their chef attire with the names of where they worked, fergodsakes. I was amazed at some of the stuff they’d have on their flatbed carts.

Fancy Italian joint? Canned Alfredo sauce. Big-name steak house? Frozen ribeyes by the case from a giant packing house in the Midwest. Highly-regarded Cajun place? Two dozen cases of swai (a catfish from the Mekong Delta in Vietnam). Don’t even get me started on the shrimp and crawfish I saw being scooped up by the cartload — in many cases being sold as “locally caught” if “local” means a written language not based on the Roman and Greek alphabets.


Craig goes on to enumerate the many reasons any place that typically sells local product might have to substitute in a temporary pinch. But one does wonder how often it occurs that the restaurant isn't up front with its customers about this. The problem isn't necessarily one of quality control as it is truth in labeling.

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