The Crisis We Should Be Panicking About: Bacon Prices. (CNBC)

But this year, just as the U.S. is worrying about its own debt crisis and a possible “double-dip” recession, the price of bacon —that sizzling, smoky comfort food we most need during tough times — is expected to surge.

Italian ham slice dispute lands four in hospital. (Yahoo! News)

Finally, something worth fighting for.

I recently watched an episode of Oregon Public Broadcasting’s “Oregon Experience” titled “The Oystermen” which recounted our state’s colorful and surprising bivalves history.

For instance, did you know the Pacific variety, which I commonly associated with Oregon oysters, are not indigenous to Oregon at all but rather were introduced from Japan “seeds” (oyster shells rich with oyster larvae) a century ago? Did you? Huh? Can you handle the truth?

I can handle the delicious, meaty truth. Especially with a squeeze of lemon and a dash of Tabasco.

With Mermaid’s Oysterpedia App, the World Is Your …. (Grub Street).

Not only does it give you tasting notes on 200 North American oysters, but it lets you rate them — a great thing if you’re always forgetting which types you do or don’t like.

Tastes Like Chicken: The Quest for Fake Meat.

This spring, scientists at the University of Missouri announced that after more than a decade of research, they had created the first soy product that not only can be flavored to taste like chicken but also breaks apart in your mouth the way chicken does: not too soft, not too hard, but with that ineffable chew of real flesh. When you pull apart the Missouri invention, it disjoins the way chicken does, with a few random strands of “meat” hanging loosely.

Salty, sweet: study says fat is the sixth “taste”. (Yahoo! News)

People sensitive to the taste of fat tend to eat less of it and are less likely to be overweight, according to Australian research that found human tongues can detect fatty tastes.

Researchers at Deakin University, working with colleagues at the University of Adelaide among others, found that fat was the sixth taste people can identify in addition to the five others — sweet, sour, salty, bitter and protein-rich.

Science.

One Noodle at a Time in Tokyo. (NY Times)

From then on there is only one sound — the slurping of noodles. Oh, it’s punctuated by the occasional happy hum of a diner chewing pork or guzzling the fat-flecked broth, or even by the faint chatter of the chef’s radio, but it’s the slurps that take center stage, long and loud and enthusiastic, showing appreciation for the chef’s métier even as they cool the noodles down to edible temperature.

A Nutria Trap Line by Bicycle. (Some awesome guy’s blog via Blogtown)

We then returned with our catch and skinned them, prepared the hides for tanning and butchered the carcass and cooked up a bit of the meat. Most folks seemed pleasantly surprised at the “chicken- like” taste of the meat. I have been asked, and often wondered myself, whether the meat from these critters is clean enough to eat being that they are semi-aquatic and spend much time in Johnson Creek, which isn’t known for being clean. My opinion is this: Eating a bit of this now and then can’t be too harmful because the nutria are feeding mainly on clean organic crops and grasses at the farm where they reside. They are not eating fish and so, I assume, are not bioaccumulating toxins the way tuna, salmon and other seafood (that folks pay top dollar for) does.

I have long wondered about the possibility of eating this noble beast. I imagine it would provide the makings for a fine taco.

Chinatown

It’s in San Francisco. Be on the lookout for a lot of Chinese people. If the older ones angrily berate you for taking photos you’re in the right place.

Street food: Is it what’s next?. (WaPo)

Doing street food better is the goal of the CIA’s 12th Worlds of Flavor conference. More than 700 corporate chefs, restaurateurs and writers are here to learn from 75 cooks, hawkers, barbecue masters and authors about street snacks and global comfort foods. Many hope to turn a few of the recipes into the next culinary big thing.

At last night’s welcome session, more than a dozen chefs strutted their stuff. Roberto Santibanez, owner of food New York consulting firm Truly Mexican, made tortas, a Mexican ham-and-cheese sandwich that you can easily imagine popping up on the menu at Panera Bread or Cosi. Bobby Chinn took his five minutes to throw together a fragrant bowl of bun bo xoa, a Vietnamese beef noodle soup. If you haven’t heard of Chinn yet, my bet is it won’t be long before you do. The owner of Restaurant Bobby Chinn in Hanoi is fun, funny and oh-so telegenic.

Food blogging raconteur Eat Drink & Be Merry recently showed Vendr TV a few the finer points of the Los Angeles taco scene.

Tacos are great. They really are.

The AHT Guide to Hamburger and Cheeseburger Styles. (A Hamburger Today)

Excellent compendium from Mr. Kuban.

In Praise of the All-American Mexican Hot Dog. (NY Times)

“A ketchup-and-mustard hot dog is boring,” continued Ms. Murillo, a high school senior. “They’re not colorful enough. You’ve got to make them colorful, and pile on the stuff. The best hot dogs come from Sonora,” the Mexican state immediately to the south. “Everybody knows that.”

In Tucson more than 100 vendors, known as hotdogueros, peddle Sonoran-style hot dogs — candy cane-wrapped in bacon, griddled until dog and bacon fuse, garnished with a kitchen sink of taco truck condiments and stuffed into split-top rolls that owe a debt to both Mexican bolillo loaves and grocery store hot dog buns.

Many, like Ruiz Hot-Dogs on Sixth Avenue, work step-side carts with two-item menus of Sonoran hot dogs and soft drinks. Set in dirt and gravel parking lots, beneath makeshift shelters, under mesquite tree arbors, these peripatetic vendors serve fast food for day laborers, craftsmen and policemen, the typical patrons of traditional hot dog stands in any town.

Cheesesteak not Philly’s best sandwich?. (Philly.com)

“I may never eat another Philly cheesesteak – not, at least, when I can have a roast pork sandwich,” a writer opined some weeks ago in the Washington Post.

Tim Warren, who lives in Maryland, was such a big cheesesteak fan that he often made food runs to Philadelphia and found he “wasn’t the only idiot who had driven 100 miles for a $7 sandwich.”

He sided with Pat’s in the Pat’s vs. Geno’s debate.

Now he’s siding with the roast pork vs. cheesesteak.

Because he fell in love.

“The subtle interplay between the pork and the tart greens, between the provolone and the spices in the juices, is heaven compared with the sledgehammer-like cheesesteak.”

Heaven!

“Going from cheesesteaks to roast pork sandwiches was like listening to whatever pop music was on the radio, and one day discovering a station that played Sinatra and Duke Ellington,” he gushed.

Cambodian Sandwich Shop Num Pang Now Open in Union Square. (Serious Eats)

Never had a Cambodian sandwich, and obviously it’s a very close relative to the Vietnamese banh mi, but this little shop in NYC .

Crabs and clams at a premium on the Oregon Coast (HT eMSG@PFG.org)

OREGON COAST – For those who love crabbing and clamming, the Oregon coast is smokin’ hot right now.

On the north coast, clams are at a record number, enabling folks to hit the tide line and snag their daily limit for weeks on end. Meanwhile, on the central coast – where crabs tend to be more abundant than up north – this is the time of year that crabmeat is at its best.

Presently, the little critters have gone through their molting process and filled out their shells. It’s an annual occurrence this time of year, and it means crabbing will be loads of fun through the spring at the resort town of Newport – which actually trademarked the title “Dungeness Crab Capital of the World.”

This year, Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife (ODFW) found that Oregon coast crabs had filled out a little earlier than the usual late November, which meant good things for meaty catches. The thick meat stays full until early summer.

Catching the coveted crustaceans is open year round in the numerous Oregon coast bays and estuaries, but open ocean crabbing season started on December 1 this year, along with commercial crabbing season.

Rare “Prehistoric” Shark Photographed Alive. (Buzzfeed)

Red meat, Down Under. (Culinate)

The kangaroo’s move from the outback to the dinner table has been touted as an environmental coup, since the animals don’t produce atmosphere-clogging methane gas like cows do. In fact, ’roos neither burp nor fart. And their big soft feet are suited to Australia’s terrain and do far less damage to the fragile topsoil than do the hooves of cattle and pigs. Two different studies at the University of New South Wales have even suggested farming — and eating — kangaroo instead of sheep or cattle as a way to lower Australia’s total carbon output.

As Australia’s harsh scrublands have been transformed into grassy cultivated fields for sheep-raising, the kangaroo population has boomed. Tender green grass ripe for the grazing is easier pickings than foraging for rare vegetation in the outback. The population explosion needs to be checked, and the lean, healthy meat of the kangaroo seems like the ideal dinner fare for Australia’s meat-loving yet increasingly health-conscious citizens.

It really is a travesty that Outback Steakhouse has co-opted Of Montreal for their theme song AND they do not serve kangaroo.

Bear Grylls is about to eat a 20 foot boa constrictor. As soon, of course, he gets rid of the parasites and feces.

Any suggestions on what to do with this? I was thinking something perfunctory like chili.

A new low for lobster. (APP.com)

The price of Maine lobster, which accounts for 80 percent of the U.S. catch, is tanking.

The primary factor, a drop-off in demand by penny-pinching diners, has been in place since summer.

…

The industry has scrambled to move product, but with Maine lobstermen alone hauling around 400,000 pounds a day, that’s no easy feat.

Along the Portland waterfront, seafood shops are selling lobsters for as cheap as $3.89 a pound, which is about the price of bologna at the deli counter.

With Goat, a Rancher Breaks Away From the Herd. (NY Times)

BILL NIMAN is not the rancher he once was.

Last year Mr. Niman walked away from the meat company he started in the 1970s with not much more than a handful of cattle and a political philosophy built on self-sufficiency.

Niman Ranch, which takes in annual sales of $85 million, was founded on the notion that the better an animal is treated, the better the meat will be. His beef was so good that in the early 1980s Alice Waters made it the first proper-noun meat on the menu at her Berkeley restaurant, Chez Panisse. His pigs, raised humanely by 600 family farms in Iowa, provide pork for the Chipotle chain’s carnitas. Niman Ranch bacon, hot dogs and sausage fill grocery cases around the country.

But Mr. Niman is no longer a part of the company. Angry and discouraged after prolonged battles with a new management team over money and animal protocols, he left in August 2007 with a modest severance check and a small amount of stock.

He can’t use his surname to sell meat, and he had to surrender the small herd of breeding cattle that lived on his ranch here, about an hour’s drive north of San Francisco. The cattle were direct descendants of the ones he tended back in the days of counterculture, not profit margin.

But Mr. Niman, 63, is done licking his wounds. With a herd of goats and a young vegetarian wife he nicknamed Porkchop by his side, he is jumping back into the meat game.

“I think I am returning to my original roots,” said Mr. Niman, who still lives in the little house he built on ranchland that kisses the Pacific Ocean.

The story behind Philippe’s and its famous French dip. (LA Times)

You can’t go back in time to ask Philippe “Frenchy” Mathieu, the founder of Philippe’s. But you can journey to that era, price-wise, on Monday when the North Alameda Street restaurant throws a centennial bash.

From 4 to 8 p.m., sandwiches (normally $5.35 to $6.50) will sell for 10 cents, and coffee (normally 9 cents) will be reduced to a nickel. (Tips of more than 20% for the servers might be in order this day.)

Why Pepperoni Pizza Sucks. (Slice)

Fuck that noise.

I’m wondering—out of sheer sociological and metallurgical curiosity—if I should eat a McRib today?

Bittman on the simple pleasures of a poached chicken. (NYTimes)

In Paris, Burgers Turn Chic . (NY Times)

Beginning a few years ago but picking up momentum in the past nine months, hamburgers and cheeseburgers have invaded the city. Anywhere tourists are likely to go this summer — in St.-Germain cafes, in fashion-world hangouts, even in restaurants run by three-star chefs — they are likely to find a juicy beef patty, almost invariably on a sesame seed bun.

“It has the taste of the forbidden, the illicit — the subversive, even,” said Hélène Samuel, a restaurant consultant here. “Eating with your hands, it’s pure regression. Naturally, everyone wants it.”

We’ve heard this before. (In-N-Out to PDX? thread @PortlandFood.org)