Eat This Newsletter 259: Ring out the old
Hello
Just a few things from the between times.
Gildas
From a far-flung correspondent comes news of a “a bar here in Sydney called Gilda’s in Surry Hills, serving them!!” Intrigued I had to take a look at the website, and it’s true. Although … the bar is actually called Gildas, no apostrophe, which I could make a case for on the grounds that it serves lots of Gildas, and is not actually possessed by Gilda. But that’s minor, compared to this claim:
Gildas is a homage to the original pintxo created in San Sebastian of three simple ingredients; a guindilla pepper, an olive, and an anchovy – a creation which coincided with the screening of the eponymous film starring the stunning Rita Hayworth, Gilda, at the San Sebastian Film Festival in 1946.
Nobody else mentions the San Sebastián Film Festival or the date of 1946. Marcela Garcés said specifically that it opened in 1947 in Spain. And Diana Norton, whom Marcela mentioned, specifically refers to “the 1947 Gilda Premiere in Spain” in the title of her paper analysing the impact of the film on Spanish culture. Could they both be wrong?
No. Wikipedia is clear: “The festival was founded on September 21, 1953,” with foreign language films admitted only after 1955.
Makes me wonder. Do the gildas at Gildas use Cantabrian anchovies? And are those really guindilla peppers?
Ukraine’s Grain; Everyone Gains
Perhaps you noticed news stories earlier this year about EU countries complaining that food exports from Ukraine are hurting domestic farmers and food producers. I don’t get that myself; if the EU wishes to support Ukraine against Russia, that support should go beyond money and matériel. Nevertheless, five neighbours unilaterally banned imports from Ukraine. Now comes an article from Koval Vitalii, Ukraine’s minister of Agrarian Policy and Food, putting the case that his country “is not a threat – we provide an opportunity with the products that will solidify Europe’s agricultural sector once Ukraine joins the EU”.
Vitalii focusses on the efficiency and productivity of Ukraine’s commodity agriculture to justify costs that are lower than much of the EU. Those lower costs, he points out, enabled agricultural exports from neighbouring countries to rise.
Overall, the five countries that initiated unilateral trade restrictions on Ukrainian agricultural supplies to their markets imported €7 billion worth of agricultural goods from Ukraine in 2022 [i.e. before the ban, JC].
Meanwhile, their agri-food exports increased by €18 billion. And when these countries claim that Ukrainian grain or other Ukrainian agri-food products adversely affect their markets, something does not match at all.
There’s a lot more in this vein, but the overall thrust is that EU trade with Ukraine is good for both parties, and that the belief that Ukrainian exports undermine other countries’ markets is founded on Russian disinformation.
Merriment and diversion and the price of meat
“People of the same trade seldom meet together even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public or contrivance to raise prices”
That Adam Smith quote is a favourite among a wide range of people, some of whom use it to point out that free-market competition naturally undermines conspiracies. Sadly (or realistically), even when the market appears to be free, conspiracies abound.
Most meat companies in the US subscribe to an enterprise that analyses all manner of meat production data and shares the results with subscribers. The shared information, along with “off the books” meetings and unrecorded phone calls, enabled companies to raise prices and curb wages in concert without fear of competition.
All this is coming to a head because the Department of Justice in 2023 sued the data company, Agri Stat, for antitrust violations. That case is still going on. But a couple of days ago another lawsuit, brought on behalf of workers against poultry processors and two consulting companies, was granted a preliminary settlement.
The poultry processors agreed to pay $175.8 million, bringing the total settlement agreed by producers to almost $400 million — “the second-largest recovery ever in a labor antitrust class action”. They also agreed to cooperate with the unions by providing information that may be useful against the lone defendant in the original case who has not yet settled, Agri Stats. The union believes that this cooperation “will materially strengthen their claims against Agri Stats”. One to keep an eye on.
High-altitude Sacred Hams
Atlas Obscura really does find the most obscure stories. Like this one, about the town of Saint-Flour in France, home to the highest cathedral in Europe. When the organ needed repairs, and with no cash to pay for them, the rector at the time hit on the brilliant wheeze of aging the local Jambon d’Auvergne hams in the cathedral’s north tower. The hams were a big hit, the organ was repaired and more.
So far so good; the story also illuminates the bureaucracy surrounding state-owned church buildings in France. It isn’t pretty.
Bread and Circuses
You’ve heard the phrase countless times, maybe even used it yourself, but what does “bread and circuses” really mean? Often it suggests that the people were bribed to give up their votes and usher in autocracy. Is that correct? Here is a long and very thorough discussion of “the place of ‘bread and circuses’ in the narrative of Roman decadence and decline”.
So, not really about food, as such, although there is a good long passage on the importance of the annonna, the dole of grain or bread given to many people in Rome. In the end, having demonstrated to his own satisfaction that “the Roman people didn’t give up their votes for the sake of bread,” Bret Devereaux concludes that the real reason they welcomed emperors was that they were sick and tired of endless civil wars.
They didn’t give up their votes for panem et circenses, but for pax – peace. … [I]t was for peace, not bread, that the Romans sold their votes. We can disapprove of that choice, perhaps, but we shouldn’t reduce it to a simple moral story.
That seems like a good note on which to end the year. Here’s to 2025.
Take care
p.s. Photo of Saint-Pierre cathedral in Saint-Flour by B. Navez