Old-time flavors

By Jim Duncan CVFDude@aol.com

Iget a lot of mail from people looking for the lost tastes of childhood, or for validation of their suspicions that some foods aren't what they used to be. Usually they're right to be suspicious. Mass-market foods are constantly being refined to cut costs. Because our brains quickly adjust to new flavors, the general public doesn't usually complain about the changes, even when they don't like them at first. That is why, in the last 40 years, we have accepted significant downgrades of favorite foods: frozen French fries cooked in canola instead of fresh potatoes cooked in lard; pig meat injected with a double-digit percentage of chemical water instead of pure pork; and soft drinks made with corn instead of sugar.

People don't usually realize how badly they've been fooled until they try the real thing again and taste the difference. For instance, Dish's old-fashioned French fries have made standard frozen fries less acceptable in Des Moines. Recent "back to the future" food discoveries do the same thing for soft drinks, pork and the whole experience of buying meat.

For years, travelers South of the Border thought that soft drinks tasted better down there. Some have even said that Latin American soda tastes like American pop tasted when they were kids. They're right. Since the 1960s, the U.S.A. soft drink industry has converted from sugar to corn sweeteners, with one exception. ("Original recipe" Dr. Pepper is still made with cane sugar, but only at its Dublin, Texas plant; it is sold through www.olddocs.com).

In addition to the popular Jarritos sodas, several Des Moines' Mexican tiendas are now selling imported glass bottled Coca Cola that reminds older Iowans of the way Coke tasted before sugar was replaced in the recipe by cheaper, heavily subsidized high fructose corn syrups (HFCS). We found some of these Cokes last week at La Michoacana in Valley Junction and Palomino on East 14th. But this isn't a completely happy story.

In late July, U.S. trade negotiations with Mexico produced a deal that has nostalgic soda drinkers worried. The Bush administration persuaded Mexico's President Vicente Fox to drop Mexico's tax on soft drinks made with imported HFCS. Skeptics point out that Fox is a former Coca Cola truck driver who rose to head Coke's Latin American operations. While Midwest politicians were predicting this would raise Iowa corn prices by 30 percent, time travelers worried that Mexican soft drink makers will replace sugar with the cheaper stuff. Already some, mostly canned, Mexican Coke is made with HFCS, so read the labels.

The news is better for nostalgic foodies at Findlay's Old Time Butcher Shop & Deli. Dennis Findlay is cutting meat to order at his little joint south of Columbus Park. That means you can get quarters and sides of beef (cut and wrapped for free) in addition to your favorite steaks. And you can get pure, fresh pork, something that has disappeared from both Hy-Vee and the Dahl's where I shop. I found strip steaks of beef and pork loins chops at Findlay's that were better marbled than any I've seen all summer. Housemade sausage was excellent, too.

The biggest old-fashioned delight, though, is the personality of the little Mom and Pop shop, a throwback to the middle of the last century when there were dozens of such shops on the South Side. Dennis and wife Darlene also run a deli here, where $4 buys a generous hoagie-style sandwich. Cheeses and meats were Block & Barrel brand and similar deli standards. Some of the prices were serious bargains, like sliced ham for less than $2 a pound.

Food Skinny

Panera converted its store on University in West Des Moines to an artisan bakery with stone-deck ovens. Artisan pizza is now offered there, as well as at its Ankeny and Urbandale stores. The chain also opened an outlet in Jordan Creek Town Center's food court. CV

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