Oh, the fresh-squeezed horror

(Writing a newspaper column is great because you get to take up whatever topic you want. Occasionally  friends will approach you, suggesting you might write about the upcoming Winterfest activities. Or the dogsled race. And you think, hmmm . . . no, I think I'm going to go with the orange juice. Yep, definitely the orange juice. Because that's what was on my mind. And it worked. I got it out of my system, no longer dwelling on OJ. Good for me, but the reaction to this column was pretty much crickets. There was some positive feedback, but for the most part I got kind of a "what the hell?" response. Which is exactly what I think about the OJ process, specifically the labeling: What the hell?  

Check out the book Squeezed: what you don't know about orange juice, by Alissa Hamilton for more.)

'And Furthermore', Wallowa County Chieftain January 4, 2012

I go into 2012 concerned about how we complicate things in this world. Specifically orange juice and pasta. Not the usual canaries in the coal mine, but hear me out.

The worst Christmas gift I know of was given to my mother. By me. My sisters got on board too, but to their credit they were skeptical. Mom took a vacation to Italy with friends. They attended a cooking class and the homemade pasta, Mom said, was amazing. She’d make us some when we were home for Christmas. 

So when it came to choosing a gift, I figured a pasta maker was ideal. I was proud of myself for having such a swell idea. Mom unwrapped it and did a good job pretending to like it. Later we assembled the thing, plugged it in, fought with it, unclogged it, called it names, abandoned it and then Mom rolled out the dough with a wooden rolling pin and sliced it with a knife like the Italian guy showed her and it was fantastic. No attachments, no electricity. The fancy pasta maker was idiotic and unnecessary, but at least it was expensive so she knew the intention was good.

This long way around to something straightforward brings me to orange juice. I like it. I think OJ is good. I gladly buy the premium stuff. Not-from-concentrate, pure, fresh-squeezed 100% all-natural juice. I know something’s going on since it’s available year-round and doesn’t spoil. But there’s an awful lot of somethings going on. 

I wish I’d never laid eyes on the articles that made me think about orange juice. I’ve got much better things to be bothered by. I’m mainly appalled at how the words used to sell juice have been put on the rack and tortured until Webster wouldn’t recognize them.

  

Here are two recipes for 100% fresh-squeezed all-natural pure juice:

Squeeze oranges. Recipe #1 stops here. Just drink it.  

Recipe #2 is a tad more involved. Heat the juice to pasteurize it, remove oxygen, store deaerated (that’s a word) juice aseptically (also a real word) in a tank for up to one year. One OJ processing plant boasts of their one-million-gallon indoor storage tanks. They have 56 of them. That’s a lot of deaerated, aseptic pure and natural. Not exactly straight from the grove, but technically it was fresh-squeezed at one point. Good enough for marketing departments and the FDA.

The taste disappears when the oxygen is removed, so the next step is to hire yourself a fragrance and flavor engineering firm to mix up a custom, proprietary “flavor pack” – basically perfume for the tongue – to revive the blah liquid back to what you would recognize as something that came out of oranges. Throw in some ethyl butyrate and other things that don’t sound right. Check with the FDA about mentioning your flavor pack, they say don’t worry about it. Charge a lot because storage tanks are expensive. Pour and enjoy. Mmmm. Delicious. 

  

I’m not opposed to pasteurization, additives, preservatives or chemistry projects. They have their place. But terms like 100%, pure, all-natural and fresh also have their place and it’s not on the label for something that’s been sucked of its being, suspended for a year and then artificially resuscitated. That sounds more like a zombie movie and I don’t condone those either.

To review: the people in charge of breakfast have kidnapped familiar words and used them for a process that is the reverse. What next, breakfast industry? Peanut margarine? I don’t know what to believe anymore.

  

So my resolutions for 2012 include not reading things on the internet anymore ever again. I also plan to find an old-fashioned juice squeezer with a handle you lean into. I will now and then press fresh fruit and drink the results. I will also, on special occasions, make pasta from Mom’s recipe: a few cups of flour, a couple eggs, dash of olive oil, pinch of salt, dribble of water, roll out, cut into little strips, make al dente, eat.

Simple. Honest.
  
Happy New Year. And thanks for reading these pure, natural, 100% freshly-typed words which have never been stored in a tank. Though I did add a flavor pack to bring out the citrus undertones.