At first, I took the alerts seriously. When the Food and Drug Administration announced that a multistate cyclospora outbreak was linked to a certain batch of iceberg lettuce from Mexico, I dutifully tossed my wedge salad. Then the recalls grew more sweeping, eventually implicating more items in my kitchen—a popular brand of potato chips, some diced chunks of cantaloupe, and a jar of pistachio-nut butter that a male Instacart shopper had confidently substituted for a single bag of Flamin’ Hot Cheetos. My compliance began to curdle into exasperation. Still, I’m a civic-minded person, and I have no desire for my gastrointestinal tract to be transformed into the River Styx. All I could do was sigh, throw out the compromised goods, and accept that dinner would be a handful of shredded cheese, eaten directly from the bag over the kitchen sink.
Lately, though, the push notifications alerting me to the recall du jour have taken on an unremitting, nagging tone. On the surface, this all looks like standard public-health advocacy. We’re now familiar with the boilerplate safety guidelines included in recall articles. But, all of a sudden, the math started to add up. I realized that I was getting reminders to properly heat raw meat with a frequency that rivalled that of Skyrizi commercials. Now I receive urgent, unsolicited dispatches about internal poultry temperatures apropos of absolutely nothing. For instance, the F.D.A. recommends bringing whole poultry, poultry breasts, and ground poultry to a safe minimum internal temperature of a hundred and sixty-five degrees Fahrenheit. You know who else recommends bringing whole poultry, poultry breasts, and ground poultry to a safe minimum internal temperature of a hundred and sixty-five degrees Fahrenheit? My mother.
The messaging has gotten harder to ignore. Two days ago, I received an emergency alert regarding “all ready-to-eat, shelf-stable, ambient-temperature convenience-store items nationwide.” Surely this must be an error, I thought—a matter of haphazard syntax! I tapped the notification, expecting the usual recall details, and discovered the reason for the alert: Potential risk of not engaging in mise en place. Under “Recommended Consumer Actions,” the agency didn’t instruct me to return the offending items for a refund. Instead, they provided a hyperlinked YouTube tutorial on how to properly deglaze a pan.
At this point, any pretense of subtext has been abandoned. Yesterday, a voluntary recall was issued for every major brand of frozen chicken nuggets because “they might contain small pieces of metal, or, worse, the crushing realization that you are a thirty-five-year-old adult who still eats like a kindergartner at a birthday party.” This morning, the agency urged me to immediately discard my store-bought rotisserie chicken and instead braise a lamb shank in a classic mirepoix.
This just in: the very concept of a deli counter is now under active federal investigation.
I tried to outsmart them. I stopped buying pre-cut fruit. I successfully ignored the siren song of the deli display that was luring me toward one of those pre-assembled charcuterie adult Lunchables. Thinking that maybe a team of professional chefs could help me evade agency scrutiny, I pivoted entirely to the hot-food bar at the gourmet market down the street. I believed that I’d finally beaten them, until I received a high-priority alert stating that any prepared mac and cheese consumed out of a cardboard container while watching “The Traitors” poses an immediate danger of “emotional rigor mortis.” So I drove three counties over to a tiny creamery and bought some artisanal, small-batch provisions, praying that a fancy goat cheese bisected by a line of vegetable ash wouldn’t trigger a warning. No sooner had I started my car than I was informed that every wedge had been recalled for “exhibiting unauthorized rustic charm.” They don’t want me to be safe; they want me to buy a Dutch oven.
It’s getting exhausting. I can’t even open a bag of tortilla chips anymore without being cautioned that my sodium levels are a “cry for help,” followed by the suggestion that I consider roasting my own chickpeas with a light dusting of organic cumin instead. So you know what? You win, Commissioner! I’ll get a cast-iron skillet. I’ll commit to using “roux” as a verb. I’ll finally figure out how to turn on my oven. I just have one non-negotiable, and it’s a deal-breaker: I refuse to eat the food I cook.
Actually, never mind. There’s already an alert regarding my meatloaf. ♦
