Live data from Hacker News

Why Is There a Bucatini Shortage in America?

grubstreet.com

121–130 of 333 posts

Re: Why Is There a Bucatini Shortage in America?

#121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All new EU models have daytime running lights and yellow turn lights. What ever is a requirement in Sweden is basically an EU one as well. Thanks to standardized EU certifications. Which is a good thing, mostly!

It’s true that EU regulation on this topic was harmonized in 2011. However, the harmonization actually loosened the Swedish requirements in several ways, particularly with regard to rear lights, which previously were required to be always on.

Which would make sense in general, wouldn't it? The thing with the rear lights being on.

Re: Why Is There a Bucatini Shortage in America?

#122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> enriched macaroni That must be the lamest way of defining pasta I've ever heard. Whoever named it like that doesn't deserve italian pasta (/s)

And awkward as hell too. Maccheroni is a shape of pasta, but apparently all pasta is "enriched macaroni" in the US?

Kiełbasa and Pierogi are whole classes of products but in US kiełbasa is a particular kind of Polish sousage and pierogi basically means ruskie pierogi.

That's how foreign languages work. In Polish "rower" means "a bicycle" because british company Rover sold them here first :) In Russian and Ukrainian vogzal means "train station" because there was a famous train station in Vauxhal :)

Re: Why Is There a Bucatini Shortage in America?

#123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In this particular case it's not even a matter of safety: pasta with 13 mg/lb, and as far as I can tell (read: Wikipedia) iron deficiency does not appear to be a serious health problem for most Americans (or Europeans). If anything, mandatory enrichment seems like an arbitrary trade barrier imposed on the US side to protect what the article calls "Big Pasta" from foreign interlopers.

> as far as I can tell (read: Wikipedia) iron deficiency does not appear to be a serious health problem for most Americans (or Europeans) "Iron deficiency isn't an issue, probably because there's lots of enriched foods, so let's stop enriching food!" I think regulatory analysis requires a little more thought than that.

I'm not even opposed to iron enrichment for the basic flour used to make Wonderbread-type cheap staples, but mandating it for fancy imported bucatini seems more than a little ridiculous.

Re: Why Is There a Bucatini Shortage in America?

#124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Very good stealth marketing

It’s hard to imagine any writer who pitched doing a piece like this to the marketing department of a pasta company not just being told to fuck off. If it was possible to make money writing articles like this, there would be a lot more of them.

Though it's hard to write this well

Re: Why Is There a Bucatini Shortage in America?

#125
post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The curse-blessing of getting to the top of HN has jumped the digital-physical barrier. Which is more likely: Error 404: Bucatini not found. MySQL Error: cannot get connection to deliver Bucatini. /me shows self out

...or Http 420 / 429 slow down consumption requests for bucatini

We might repurpose "418 I'm a teapot", now with bucatini power.

Re: Why Is There a Bucatini Shortage in America?

#127

The writing style is awesome, I literally laughed out loud. Beyond that, the article reminds us that in every industry there are powerful actors that protect their monopoly, and will coerce the government into helping them. I read an article about import taxes on sugar that were created to keep out competition, and as a result everything uses corn syrup. Other examples abound. Unfortunately, the solution of governmen…

If you like this writing style, food critic Jay Rayner writes in a way I find pretty similar: https://www.theguardian.com/food/series/jay-rayner-on-restau...

Re: Why Is There a Bucatini Shortage in America?

#128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a good point though. Why/how is something unsafe for an American, but safe for an Italian or Spaniard? Differing regulations and standards between countries usually makes no sense and just harms the consumer. How is a Volvo made for the Swedish market unsafe on Canadian roads? EU and Canada recently signed a trade agreement so that they won't tariff eachothers' cars, but consumers still can't buy a car from a Eu…

That's the importance of regulatory harmonisation. Eg your laptop charger is probably covered in 20 different indecipherable logos showing compliance with every countries regulators, all of whom have standards at least 99.9% identical. The EU has harmonised regulations internally in order to make completely free trade work, so a single 'CE' logo is enough to show compliance for the entire EU. Regulatory harmonisation…

I’m really looking forward to a pile of reduced-safety standards from the people who gave us the Grenfell disaster...

Re: Why Is There a Bucatini Shortage in America?

#129

The writing style is awesome, I literally laughed out loud. Beyond that, the article reminds us that in every industry there are powerful actors that protect their monopoly, and will coerce the government into helping them. I read an article about import taxes on sugar that were created to keep out competition, and as a result everything uses corn syrup. Other examples abound. Unfortunately, the solution of governmen…

I actually think most of the governmental functions in this article worked quite well. Told another way, a firm in the marketplace for pasta found that a competitor was out of regulation with their product, and they found a person in congress who could press a slow-moving and ineffective agency to do better at doing their job: enforcing said regulations.

That's exactly what you want your elected representatives to do: listen to their constituents and act accordingly to ensure a fair outcome according to the law. Note that no laws were changed in this to favor one company over another, if anything the previous state was one in which the company in question was profiting from shipping out-of-regulation product, perhaps at decreased cost compared to in-compliance firms.

The rule itself can be debated, but in general I find that a law specifying in exact numbers what a product should contain in order to qualify for a label to be a very good law. It's exact, it's measurable, and it's achievable by all. Fair and equal enforcement should make it a good regulation.

If you say "well you don't need this law, it's over-regulation", that's a good argument -- I'm not sure I have an opinion on that. On one hand, I think Standard of Identification make a lot of sense, but I also know that drawing the lines can be a very delicate art form (what makes a pasta noodle vs. a ramen noodle? What makes champagne vs. sparkling wine? And so on)

Edit: Also, I think a lot of this could be dealt with better by an FDA that has a good communication arm. "We found this company to not be compliance with existing law and took it off the shelves" sounds a lot better than having the company get to print saying "Seems like a hold up by the FDA"

Re: Why Is There a Bucatini Shortage in America?

#130

The writing style is awesome, I literally laughed out loud. Beyond that, the article reminds us that in every industry there are powerful actors that protect their monopoly, and will coerce the government into helping them. I read an article about import taxes on sugar that were created to keep out competition, and as a result everything uses corn syrup. Other examples abound. Unfortunately, the solution of governmen…

The writing was brilliant. Reading it was like quenching a long thirst. It reminds of me reading the New York Times or Financial Times 10 or more years ago.
Post reply on HN