Salmonella Outbreak – Don’t Forget the Chickens!

The recent outbreaks of salmonella linked to contaminated eggs has many people concerned with potential hazards to their personal health – over 1000 people have fallen ill due to contaminated eggs that have now been recalled. However, not many people are pausing to think of the conditions in which the chickens producing the eggs are subject to living… cramped into long rows of tiny wire cages stacked upon each other, lack of hygiene, no access to fresh air or ventilation, pumped with antibiotics as a preventative measure instead of a treatment… it’s no wonder disease spreads quickly and grocery store eggs become contaminated with salmonella. We can’t stop hurting ourselves until we stop hurting the hens.

This week’s Morning Call opinion page featured three different editorial cartoons about the egg recall. The last one, “Hurt” (drawn by Matt Davies), spoke to this very point – showing hens crammed into cages and obviously suffering, while one quotes “our eggs are hurting humans.” This is our chance to bring to light the fact that we hurt them so much… the salmonella outbreaks are nothing when compared to the suffering that billions of animals are put through on factory farms each year. So what I ask of you is to please visit The Morning Call’s website and vote for this cartoon as your favorite for the week… if it wins it will be featured again in next week’s opinion page, and we need to show readers of this paper that people care about animals. The opinion page is the second most commonly read after the first page – so let’s make sure our opinion gets heard, even if it be a little thing.

Visit www.mcall.com/opinion/whodrew to vote for Matt Davies’ “Hurt” cartoon as your favorite. When I voted there were only 3 votes for this cartoon, “Tainted Eggs & Ham” winning with five times that amount… I hope that by the time the poll closes Friday, the cartoon reminding people of the plight of egg-laying hens will be winning by a landslide.

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Wet Bottom Shoofly Pie

This is recipe #2 in my attempt to veganize Pennsylvania Dutch food (see #1). I’ve been meaning to make shoofly pie for a while now, and no one on the farm knew what it was so I decided it was time to show them what it’s all about.

Shoofly pie is, as I’ve said, a PA Dutch food, and PA Dutch foods are often laden with more unvegan ingredients than you care to know (who’s heard of scrapple??).  In fact, the Amish Dutch cookbook where I got the basis for this recipe instructs that “success in these recipes lies in a light hand with the pastry and unstinting use of cream and butter and more butter, and, eggs which are plentiful in most Pennsylvania Dutch farm households.” Guess I’ll have to prove them wrong.

For those of you who have never heard of wet bottom shoofly pie, it’s a dessert pie with a gooey molasses filling and a crumb topping. There is also the less common dry bottom shoofly pie, which has a more cake-like consistency.

Wet Bottom Pennsylvania Dutch Shoofly Pie

Crumb Topping:
2 cups flour
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/8 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon cinnamon
Large pinch each nutmeg, ginger, cloves
1/3 cup shortening

Syrup Filling:
1/2 cup dark molasses
1/2 cup hot water
1/2 teaspoon baking soda

Preheat oven to 350.

Boil the water and dissolve the soda in it. Stir in the molasses and let cool.

Combine topping ingredients with your fingers or a pastry cutter to form crumb mixture. Set aside.

Have ready a 9-inch unbaked pie shell. Pour syrup filling into crust. Sprinkle crumb topping over syrup mixture. Bake 60 to 70 minutes.

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