Stop Shittin in My Spinach!!!

OK, first of all, I know that I was a little slow reacting on this one but trust me, it's been in the back of my mind for a while. In light of the recent "Tomato Plague" I felt that I needed to go ahead and address the subject.
To refresh your memory or to enlighten those who may not have been aware, here is a VERY brief synopsis of recent years food contamination events:
-2003 hepatitis outbreak linked to contaminated scallions (green onions) which I believe resulted in a few deaths, mainly in the elderly or very young children.
-2004 (or very close to then) E.coli outbreak linked to spinach, resulted in a lot of very sick people and I believe a few deaths, again only in the very young or very old.
-2006 Yet another E.coli outbreak in spinach again, with the same results, only this time I believe it resulted in far more incidents of illness and more deaths, NOT all in the very young or very old this time.
- 2008 This time the big scare is an outbreak of some rare form of Salmonella in tomatoes, particularly Roma/Plum, and round tomatoes (probably the most common types used in restaurants). I haven't checked on the confirmed reports of illness or death yet but the problem hasn't been resolved yet either.
Keep in mind, these are just the high profile mainstream occurrences that have made the news, there have been numerous other recalls on fresh produce due to contamination of some sort, they just stayed within the confines of the food service industry communications.
I could use this as an opportunity to promote Organics over conventional but that would be futile since one of the outbreaks was in Organic spinach. The solution to these types of problems isn't just Organics or just Locally grown foods, the solution is going to be in more responsible farming practices, stricter regulations for feedlot animal waste disposal, stricter regulations on packaging inspection and food testing, and greater accountability for the large scale farms, packaging companies and distributors who are transporting our foods across the country and across the seas.
Unfortunately this would likely mean a considerable increase in the cost of food in this country, which I have to say, I'm not exactly opposed to. Don't get me wrong, I'm not wealthy (not even close to rich), but I do believe that an increase in the cost of food could do one of two things, 1) drive out the production of so many overly processed low nutrition-low cost foods that are leading to a new health epidemic, OR 2) drive the food system even further towards overly processed low nutrition-low cost foods so much that the health of the general public plummets even more drastically, thus solving, in some morbid sense, the problem of over population since most children won't live nearly as long as their parents. But that is the cost of eating so much corn, so chow down! ;)

The "C" Word

I'd like to thank Food Network (to some extent), Top Chef, Hell's Kitchen and any of the other overly dramatic, pseudorealistic "Chef" shows that I may have missed. These shows, along with growing investment in "value added" products as well as an increase in lazy culinary degree students has seemed to strip the title Chef of it's original dignity.
Keep in mind that I am not from the "old country", nor was I trained by anyone from there, in fact there were a number of the old world culinary "rules" that I enjoyed disregarding in my formal education and beyond. However, there always seemed to be a certain respect and reverence given to someone who was the Chef, especially the Head Chef or Executive Chef, because it was presumed that they knew their stuff, that they had put in their time and paid-their-dues, typically working their way up through the ranks, from the lowly dishwasher, eventually to the Sous Chef and so on. This produces (in a dedicated person) a true Chef, someone who knows a his way around a kitchen whether it's his or not, this produces a Chef that knows how to properly use a knife whether it's on a piece of fruit or a side of beef.
This is what I was taught to believe that a Chef is, not merely a cook (they of course deserve their own respect), but someone who was a cook, artist, businessman, expediter, scientist, mentor, antagonist, protagonist, miracle-worker, butcher, fish monger, farmer, sociopath, madman, pirate, scholar, glutton, asshole and friend.
These television "personalities" that we enjoy watching so much (I'm guilty too) don't represent what it really is to be a Chef, some of the attributes are there, especially the ones that make for good TV, but the true reverence has been lost. We refer to any hack with a French knife or a skillet in his hand or a chef coat on her shoulders as a Chef even though they likely couldn't tell you the difference between a carrot and a parsnip or a loin and a tenderloin, hell they probably still try and saute food in a luke-warm skillet!
Unfortunately this may be the "Chef's" that we have created by our own recklessness. Now all you need to become a Chef is tuition money and time, sure you have to learn something in order to graduate and receive your "certification", but hell, a number of these schools and programs have such minimal requirements for on the job experience that you can become a Chef and barely lay foot in a real working restaurant kitchen.
I guess on the bright side, the drop-out rate for culinary school is still higher than the divorce rate, 50-75%. So it's good to know that some of these "I'm too good to do that" or "I'm not paid enough to have to do this" whining gringos are still getting sifted out. If we're really lucky, eventually (and I really doubt this) there will be more honest representation of what Chef's do and what restaurant work really is like.