When you buy a bottle of Coca-Cola, you
expect it to be bottled at a Coca-Cola distributor and not a rinsed-out
“genuine Coca-Cola bottle” filled with a “cola-like carbonated beverage”
(United States v. Petrosian). The International Trademark Association’s 2004
report on counterfeiting detailed at least 10 food and beverage counterfeiting
operations across 8 states, including the 45,000 pounds of counterfeit baby
formula in California that the FDA uncovered in 1995. An estimated $18 million in “counterfeit
wine” was sold around the world annually in 2004. No wonder scientists from the University of
Seville in Spain developed a process for “fingerprinting” champagne and other
wines, which when run against a sample of 35 sparkling wines was 100 percent
accurate in distinguishing champagne from cava.
At the benign end of the spectrum is a phenomenon one might call
associative packaging—the way a book publisher will mimic a best-seller’s
jacket design to suggest a new book has similar appeal. If a product is popular but there’s not enough
of it, some retailers may try to create a substitute. For instance, a high-end
national gourmet shop might pick up an item like Alziari
olive oil, produced in Nice, France. But Alziari is a small operation. “So that national shop will outsource it and
try to come up with something comparable in taste and packaging,” with oils
from various nearby regions, says Joe Macaluso of Chefs Warehouse. It’s not exactly mislabeled, as it doesn’t
claim to be Alziari. But the label is
reminiscent enough of the Alziari label for a consumer to make the association. Sly substitution is another variation. Most
grocery store “saffron,” for
example, is actually safflower—similar in color, sort of similar in taste. Then there’s the “Rolflex” phenomenon: the fake item with the slightly different
name. Kraft makes a product called
parmesan cheese that’s definitively not parmigiano-reggiano. Primo taglio turns out prosciutto that was
never air dried by Apennine breezes. But
to any sophisticated consumer, this is not deception but choice: Do you need to drop $25 per pound for
prosciutto di Parma, or will the primo taglio suffice at half that price? Moving up the deceit scale, some products are
altered to be perceived as more valuable. Porcini mushrooms are a wonderful delicacy,
provided they haven’t been soaked in water to add to their weight (and thus
their cost). They should also be small,
and when you slice into them, their meat should be white and dry. The big ones are past their flavor, says Mario
Ascione, executive chef and owner of San Francisco’s Caffè Macaroni. When prices get higher,
though, it becomes outright fraud. When you pay $50 an ounce for a truffle, you
expect to be buying a black Périgord truffle (Tuber melanosporum) or a white
truffle from Alba. But the heat wave of 2004 cut Périgord’s harvest down from
50 tons to 9 tons, and as the dollar stays weak against the euro, some
restaurants and gourmet shops are passing off Chinese truffles (Tuber indicum)
as French. But while the Chinese black
truffle looks just like its French cousin, it tastes nothing like it. France is
conducting random DNA testing on truffles, with a $1,300 fine for anyone caught
trying to deceive consumers with Chinese truffles. Italy’s Consorzio, a government group that
regulates the quality of agricultural products, has agents who travel to
importers to ensure that truffles from Italy are actually what’s being sold
(and assess fines if they’re not). Coldiretti, the Italian farmers’ association,
claims that 7 out of 10 Italian products in the United States are not the real
deal—translating to $1.4 billion in true Italian exports and $3.5 billion for
the fakes, including wine, olive oil, balsamic vinegar, cheese, tomato sauce,
and ham. “A lot of olive oil, especially
extra virgin, is expensive to sell in the U.S. and worldwide market. So a company will bring in oil from different
parts of Europe, package it in Italy, and ship it to those markets where
customers are looking for Italian olive oil,” says Ascione. “But bottled or packaged in Italy doesn’t mean
that it’s from there. If you don’t see
the DOC or DOCG labeling, it’s not going to be what you think you’re getting. Look at its origin, not where it’s bottled.” http://www.chow.com/food-news/53481/which-one-of-these-is-fake/
The
adjective regretful refers to people and means full
of regret. Regrettable applies
to incidents or situations and means causing or deserving regret. http://grammar.about.com/od/alightersideofwriting/a/regretgloss.htm
Rayon was the first manufactured
fiber developed, it was
made from wood or cotton pulp and first
known as artificial silk. The Swiss chemist, Georges Audemars invented the
first crude artificial silk around 1855, by dipping a needle into liquid
mulberry bark pulp and gummy rubber to make threads. The method was too slow to
be practical. In 1884, a French chemist, Hilaire de Charbonnet,
Comte de Chardonnay, patented an artificial silk that was a cellulose-based
fabric known as Chardonnay silk." Pretty
but very flammable, it was removed from the market. In 1894, British
inventors, Charles Cross, Edward Bevan, and Clayton Beadle, patented a safe a
practical method of making artificial silk that came to be known as viscose
rayon. Avtex Fibers Incorporated first
commercially produced artificial silk or rayon in 1910 in the United States. The term "rayon" was first used in
1924. Find more information on
manufactured fabrics, including kevlar, ultrasuede and polyester at: http://inventors.about.com/library/inventors/blfabric.htm
B2B usually means business to
business, exchange
of products, services, or information between businesses. Find many other definitions at: http://www.acronymfinder.com/B2B.html
The Grass Crown or Blockade Crown (Latin: corona
graminea or corona obsidionalis) was the highest and rarest of all military decorations in the Roman
Republic and early Roman empire. It
was presented only to a general, commander, or officer whose actions saved the legion
or the entire army. One example of
actions leading to awarding of a grass crown would be a general who broke the blockade around
a beleaguered Roman army. The crown
was made from plant materials taken from the battlefield, including grasses, flowers, and
various cereals
such as wheat; it
was presented to the general by the army he had saved. Pliny
wrote about the grass crown at some length in his Natural History. The
crown of grass was never conferred except at a crisis of extreme desperation,
never voted except by the acclamation of the whole army, and never to any one
but to him who had been its preserver. Other crowns were awarded by the generals to
the soldiers, this alone by the soldiers, and to the general. This crown is
known also as the "obsidional" crown, from the circumstance of a
beleaguered army being delivered, and so preserved from fearful disaster. If we are to regard as a glorious and a
hallowed reward the civic crown, presented for preserving the life of a
single citizen, and him, perhaps, of the very humblest rank, what, pray, ought
to be thought of a whole army being saved, and indebted for its preservation to
the valour of a single individual? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grass_Crown
For The Grass Crown, second historical
novel in Colleen McCullough's Masters
of Rome series, see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Grass_Crown_(novel)
Keret House is a structure and art installation in Warsaw, Poland. It was designed by the architect Jakub
Szczęsny through the architecture firm Centrala. The two story art installation was named after
Israeli writer and filmmaker Etgar Keret, who was the building's first tenant. Keret
plans to give the house to a colleague after he moves out. The building measures 92 centimetres (3.02 ft)
at its narrowest point and 152 centimetres (4.99 ft) at its widest point.
Daniel Day-Lewis, who plays the 16th President of the United States in the coming
Steven Spielberg film “Lincoln,” is donating the papers of his parents to the Bodleian Libraries at Oxford
University. Mr. Day-Lewis, a two-time
Academy Award-winner (for “My Left Foot” and “There Will Be Blood”), comes from
estimable stock: his father, the poet Cecil Day-Lewis, was an Oxford
University alumnus who was elected its professor of poetry in 1951 and named
the poet laureate of the United Kingdom in 1968; his mother, the actress Jill Balcon, was a star of film,
television, radio and theater. Among the
papers that Mr. Day-Lewis and his sister, Tamasin Day-Lewis, are donating to
Oxford include correspondence between their parents and notable figures like W.
H. Auden, Kingsley Amis, Peggy Ashcroft, John Gielgud, Robert Graves, Alec
Guinness and Christopher Isherwood. The
Bodleian Libraries said it will host a special one-day event on Tuesday to
celebrate the gift of the papers, at which Tamasin Day-Lewis will discuss her
father’s work and recordings of Jill Balcon’s readings of Cecil Day-Lewis’s
poetry will be played. The documents
that will be displayed during the event include a portion of “The Newborn,” a
poem written by Cecil Day-Lewis to honor his son’s birth. http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/10/29/day-lewis-gives-parents-papers-to-oxford/?ref=todayspaper
