Thursday, January 27, 2011

Another trip down Nostalgia Lane

The current fuss about Taco Bell's mystery meat reminded me of a brouhaha back in the early '80s -- we were living in California then, right in the cross hairs of the San Fernando Valley (we were about two blocks from the intersection of Roscoe and Sepulveda), and Jack In The Box got hit with a scandal:  their "beef" hamburgers were actually kangaroo meat.  To this day, the S.O. and I refer to that chain as "Jack in the Pouch."

Considering how cheap Taco Bell's products are, and how minuscule the amount of "meat" is that's on any one item, I'm not sure why anyone is shocked that the teaspoon of ground meat product is actually mostly something other than beef.  What were customers expecting? 100% ground sirloin?  After the Jack in the Pouch incident, some innocuous filler made from soy or seaweed is fine with me.

And, yes, I know kangaroo is a common menu item in Australia, and maybe if I'd known what was actually in the Jack in the Pouch burgers it wouldn't have fazed me at all. . . but they really shouldn't have tried sneaking it in.

4 comments:

  1. In 1967 at the Expo in Montreal, there was a tainted meat scandal. Turned out it was ground gangster. In those days the mob ran the wholesale meat market in Quebec. maybe still do, I don't know.

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  2. I think that's what they should be called now..jack in the pouch.
    who is crazy enough to eat at taco bell anyhow..gak.

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  3. A Taco Bell brouhaha? I must come out of my rabbit hole.

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  4. I recall years ago that there was a brouhaha about McDonald's burgers having worms in them.

    Get real folks, most meats cost more than beef, including worms. They may grind up a stray dog once in a while but that's about the extent of other meat replacements in fast food burgers. :-)

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