#423 Bells of Coli

It’s always a surprise when I read about a restaurant getting in the E coli contamination news again. E coli always sounds like some kind of internet virus doesn’t it? I mean, you’d think they’d have this stuff under control by now. This time it was Taco Bell. Now first off, let me say that a Mexican restaurant that uses the slogan “Run for the Border” is already pushing the envelope. Invoking border crossings is bad enough considering our illegal immigrant issue, but using any permutation of the word “run” in conjunction with food legendary for causing gas, bloating, and, yes, loosened fecal matter, is probably not the smartest of marketing decisions. That and using a talking ratdog as a corporate spokes-animal and you can tell they’re thinking out of the box, or thinking “outside the bun,” as they put it. Does someone thinking inside the bun have their head up their, um, hamburger? In any event, the E coli bug was inside the Taco Bells. I thought I heard one news story say one of the afflicted Taco Bells was in Bellevue. Hmm, Taco Bellevue—do you have to eat burritos with a cloth napkin? And tacos with your pinky finger extended? The Taco Bells with the problem have traced it to the green onions they got. Perfect institutional American cooking irony. Probably the only fresh, uncooked, healthy ingredient in Taco Bell is the green onion. And that’s what caused the E coli outbreak. Worse, the onions came from the same place that caused the recent spinach scare, an industrial plant-processing plant in New Jersey. Who got, they think, the onions and spinach from the same farms in California. Industrial sabotage? Disgruntled migrant worker with an asinine ax to grind? More likely inadequate porta-potties in the field. When I was a teenager, I worked in the fields with migrant laborers. You had to hike a mile to take a load off. And since you were paid piecework that meant a load off your wallet as well. And the handwashing facilities were nowhere close to that lean-to over a hole in the ground. Close being defined as within a 5-mile radius. Let’s just say the incentive to just squat and go was high. Green onions are hard to clean because they grow in layers and any layer can be contaminated at any stage of the growing period. The E coli will just lurk there until the next unsuspecting taco. What’s really weird to me though, is that produce from California, the real garden state, gets shipped all the way to New Jersey, the pretend garden state, to get processed and is then shipped out to fast food restaurant in every other state. A whole shipload of shipping if you ask me. And yet, that still makes things economical enough to put out a burrito for 99 cents. Is this a great country or what? Kinda makes you not want to run for the border. Quiero Montezuma’s Value Meal?
America, ya gotta love it.