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Why Is There a Bucatini Shortage in America?

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Re: Why Is There a Bucatini Shortage in America?

#301

Post by ThePowerOfFuet »

sam_goody wrote: post #97

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 taxes on sugar were to prop up the (heavily subsidized) US corn industry. Why do you think they even water down the gasoline with it? There's so much of it, and it's so artificially cheap, and they want to keep demand high to keep the farmers happy.

Re: Why Is There a Bucatini Shortage in America?

#303

Post by milesvp »

veilrap wrote: post #297
sunpar wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This food regulation is not really based on health or nutrients or anything like that, nor is it pointless. It stems from an effort to define what can be marketed as a pasta noodle vs. other similar yet different products, like ramen noodles. There are similar regulations that define, for example, what is a whiskey and what isn't. Sure X amount of Y substance vs. X-epsilon amount will always look ridiculous on the fa…

I don't find this argument particularly convincing. Am I drinking "sparkling wine" or "champagne"? Honestly, why should I care, I just care about how much I like the product and how much it costs. I'm for regulation around areas about product safety, but this seems to not be what's going on here.

I tend to agree with you but you might find this more common than you realize. I’ve noticed in my lifetime products I like change their recipes. I’ve also seen products once labeled as ice cream now labeled as frozen dairy dessert. I’ve seen this type of thing in lots of different products. Not just ice cream. And I’m not convinced anything changed legally in many cases. Usually I suspect it was to reduce costs.

It’s now something I actively look for on packaging when a product gets a new look.

Re: Why Is There a Bucatini Shortage in America?

#304

Post by arduanika »

api wrote: post #151
pkos98 wrote: post #103

Hey folks, European chiming in here. If you are serious about bucatini, shoot me a DM and we can discuss importing that precious golden Ambrosia into the US of A, maybe declared as 'alimentary paste', drinking straw - or even use 'the Mexican route' to import it, if you know what I mean. I have to go now, my pasta is ready.

Set up a vendor on the dark web. “Top notch buca. Excellent stealth.”

Next time someone asks me what is cryptocurrency even good for, this is my new go-to response

Re: Why Is There a Bucatini Shortage in America?

#305

Post by arduanika »

JackFr wrote: post #226
pkos98 wrote: post #103

Hey folks, European chiming in here. If you are serious about bucatini, shoot me a DM and we can discuss importing that precious golden Ambrosia into the US of A, maybe declared as 'alimentary paste', drinking straw - or even use 'the Mexican route' to import it, if you know what I mean. I have to go now, my pasta is ready.

To be clear, when I say 'bucatini pipeline' I am referring to the elaborate method of import, rather than a pipeline made of bucatini.

Why not both? Transport a thinner bucatino inside a wider one

Re: Why Is There a Bucatini Shortage in America?

#306

Post by arduanika »

Scoundreller wrote: post #20

> “FDA is quite slow to take action involving standards violations. I’m speculating that a competitor put some heavy pressure on FDA,” Or the enrichment material supplier that the pasta-maker cut back on. Or pasta-maker switched flour suppliers to a cheaper under-enriched source.

Whatever the source, clearly someone along the line was looking to get enriched

Re: Why Is There a Bucatini Shortage in America?

#307

Post by mullingitover »

sunpar wrote: post #119
mullingitover wrote: post #50

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? We don't need to wonder! They explain it right in the article: protectionism. It's not really that surprising that a lot of regulations have nothing to do with protecting the consumer and are all about protecting the parties that really matter to governments: big domestic industries. > Around World War II, Ca…

“Standards of Identity” are not in and of themselves a bad thing. If a product comes to market claiming to be one thing but it is not, it may damage the market for all other products. Imagine a tv manufacturer claiming to sell a HD tv that is not HD, for example. In this case, the pasta industry did not want their product confused with the new noodles coming from Nissin; this was back in the days when many Americans…

> Now those rules might be perverted to suit protectionist goals, but that’s the whole art of effective hopefully minimalist regulation: it’s very hard to do.

Agreed. I'm not saying there's no rational underpinning to regulation, just that it's frequently gamed by bad actors, almost to the point that the original intent is forgotten.

Re: Why Is There a Bucatini Shortage in America?

#308

Post by throwaway5752 »

dfxm12 wrote: post #212
post_break wrote: post #16

I have never had bucatini, but of course thanks to this article now it's all I want.

If you get it, try a cacio e pepe recipe. Also, to temper expectations, the article really oversells it.

Yeah, it is a tube form of the same old pasta that's in spaghetti. I don't understand the fuss. It's actually not great. Try getting cooking water out of them. I would go with rotini or radiatore if I really needed the surface area otherwise a ribbon pasta like fettucine or tagliatelle, almost every time. Not a fan.

Re: Why Is There a Bucatini Shortage in America?

#310

Post by objectivetruth »

fennecfoxen wrote: post #283
sunpar wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> I actually think most of the governmental functions in this article worked quite well. Permit me indulge in a minor rant. Not against you, just generally. A specialty pasta manufacturer in Italy (home of pasta, but what do they know?) can no longer export a specialty pasta (which they sell legally in Italy), because it's marginally under-enriched by US government standards for pasta, and so the consumers in the US,…

Yep, the world's gotten more complicated, and so have the rules.

Compare the instructions that come with Monopoly to an AD&D Monster Manual and associated handbooks.

Or in software terms: if you don't want to comply with HIPPA, maybe US enterprise healthcare development isn't for you.

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