USDA reports 406,000 pounds of "cattle heads containing prohibited materials recalled"
USDA News Release: "Elkhorn Valley Packing LLC, a Harper, Kan., establishment, is voluntarily recalling approximately 406,000 pounds of frozen cattle heads with tonsils not completely removed, which is not compliant with regulations that require the removal of tonsils from cattle of all ages, the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Food Safety and Inspection Service announced today." Link (Thanks,Eric!)
the latest
latest episodes
Mmmm... cattle heads.
Is this regulation because the tonsils are a good harbor for bacteria, or...?
Once when I was in college we lived in a house across the street from the delivery entrance of one of the dining halls. We saw a delivery truck unloading boxes labeled "edible meat" and we considered what the next lowest grade might be. Now maybe I have a better idea of what was inside the boxes.
What are cattle heads used for?
This is not wonderful... yuck!
eat hot dogs?
Consumers with food safety questions can "Ask Karen," the FSIS virtual representative available 24 hours a day at AskKaren.gov.
I asked Karen: Who eats cow heads?
Karen replied, " ... Deer live in woodlands all over Europe, Asia, northern Africa and America. There are many deer species of various sizes but all the males grow antlers. The meat is lean and has a gamey flavor that can be made milder if soaked overnight. ... "
Boy, this looks like a great business opportunity. Get in on the ground floor of the fast growing field of Contaminated Meat Disposal. Make big bucks getting rid of recalled slaughterhouse products. See? a silver lining...
USDA is pronounced used-da. as in "I used da eat meat."
cow heads.... how do you say "cow nose" in Spanish?
Business opportunity: selling posthumous ice cream to all those cow heads that are having their tonsils removed... mmmmmm... delicious, soothing posthumous ice cream. (I've gotta get more sleep.)
This is not wonderful... yuck!
Oh, and lets cut the deer some slack. Shoot a cow, tie it to the hood of your station wagon and drive it across Nebraska. That'll taste 'gamey' as well.
Risk: Class II
"This is a health hazard situation where there is a remote probability of adverse health consequences from the use of the product."
My guess is BSE. Remember, this administration thinks a little mercury or arsenic is ok. My further guess is that this admin has been allowing a lot more BSE into the food supply than we know. After all, if it will only affect poor people ten years from now it doesn't exist.
prions eat the rich too. Lots of "first class" hotels and "high end" restaurants serve the same cheap meat. Food and Beverage Manager has long been code for "thief".
Surrounded by a thin, thin 16mm shell. And inside? It's delicious. That's "Arnie's Whole Beef Halves" We Deliver!
Thirsty?
Big light in sky slated to appear in east; sonic booms scare minority groups in sector F; and there's hamburger all over the highway in Mystic, Connecticut.
okay, wrong... not that i really need to or should ask, but what do you make out of beef heads? no, really...
also i love the great meat and blood-proof cardboard boxes these things come in, damn...
I'm reminded of that episode of The Simpsons where Lunch Lady Doris complains about the quality of the cafeteria supplies, pointing to a box labelled:
GRADE F MEAT
Ingredients: Mostly circus animals, some filler
I would be SO ANGRY if I got home from a long days work, sat down to a freshly baked cow head, and find out that there are tonsils in it.
I mean, yuck, right?
I would be SO ANGRY if I got home from a long days work, sat down to a freshly baked cow head, and find out that there are tonsils in it.
I mean, yuck, right?
Naw, the regulation is there just because the tonsils taste kind of nasty...
For the record, the US is almost entirely BSE free. Only about three infected animals have been found, ever. And none in years. The UK had 10's of thousands of cases, and while it has largely contained the problem, still has dozens of cases per year.
Damn. They never come up into the hills.
Utterly bizarre.
@21, ?
http://www.best-horror-movies.com/images/Hills-have-eyes-movie-poster-small.jpg
I make that about 5 or 6 truck loads of the stuff (if I've not got a decimal place wrong) I find it helps to get my head round figures like 406,000lbs by turning it into approx truckloads.
And he said the word, and we... ATE IT!
HOT DOG!
A mighty hot dog is our Lord.
Takuan@23
A number of the comments here (15, 16, 21, 25,26) are from Firesign theatre routines. The "Arnie's All Beef Halves" was a commerical during the "Howl of the Wolf Movie" , which came with a disclaimer at the end of "No deliveries after curfew in sectors N and R." At which point the person watching the movie complains that they never deliver up in the hills.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don't_Crush_That_Dwarf,_Hand_Me_the_Pliers
(Any mangling of the routine is my memory's fault.)
When I saw "cattle heads containing prohibited materials", my first thought was that the cows had knowledge of classified information.
Tete de veau. Beef cheeks. I've seen them both on menus. It's better than prairie oysters.
Tonsils? My guess is that it's a similar reason as to why the "head table" workers got sick.
http://www.boston.com/business/articles/2007/12/07/11_minn_slaughterhouse_workers_fall_ill/
December 7, 2007
ST. PAUL, Minn.—On the slaughterhouse floor at Quality Pork Processors Inc. is an area known as the "head table," but not because it is the place of honor. It is where workers cut up pigs' heads and then shoot compressed air into the skulls until the brains come spilling out.
more stories like this
But now the grisly practice has come under suspicion from health authorities.
Over eight months from last December through July, 11 workers at the plant in Austin, Minn. -- all of them employed at the head table -- developed numbness, tingling or other neurological symptoms, and some scientists suspect inhaled airborne brain matter may have somehow triggered the illnesses.
The use of compressed air to remove pig brains was suspended at Quality Pork earlier this week while authorities try to get to the bottom of the mystery.
I suddenly have a hankering for a bologna sandwich.
And I believe, although my Spanish is rusty, that cow nose would be "nariz de vaca".
Dear Eevee:
Shamed I am, shamed, humiliated and disgraced. Me who has called for a Firesign revival (OK, a revival revival then) not getting that one.... I put it down to the horrors of drugs.
on a happier note, I can still recite much of the Giant Rat of Sumatra
I need some very bad doggie latation, (Sp/It?to Eng?) have to get a tortuous derivation of "cow nose"{ to "vaca naso" . "You'a see thatta guy? he's a vaca naso!"
Ahh, Gainclone/Arttoys - you=bestest...thanks for the Firesign Theater moment. ;) More sugar!
certainly the FDA recall could've meshed nicely w/ Beat the Reaper...
`...sweating, profusely...heart...palpating...vision..dimming...i've eaten...tainted-tonsil beefhead.` x-)
"I would be SO ANGRY if I got home from a long days work, sat down to a freshly baked cow head"
Man! I'm sure glad I didn't marry Cow Pie Patty after all!