FOOD SCANDALS come and go. The pork debacle before Christmas will live with us for rather too long and undoubtedly will be replaced by some other horror story in the future. Modern food being what it is, these scenarios lie in wait, writes Hugo Arnold.
But not all food scares have such dire consequences or get quite so much coverage. This month sees a switch in our family away from European fodder as we head towards the refreshing, scant-protein delights of Asian food. Red and green Thai curries are top of the list along with stir-fries heady with chilli, ginger, lemongrass and coriander. And while noodles are ever popular, it is rice which soothes and comforts.
Basmati rice to be precise. The perfumed fluffy grains of snowy white deliciousness hail from the foothills of the Himalayas, or at least they should do. Concern some years ago in the UK over suspected adulteration - for which read bulking out - of basmati led the Food Safety Authority (FSA) there to look into the issue.
The results were alarming for devoted basmati lovers. Just over half of the samples tested turned out not to be pure basmati at all. Our demand for total certainty when it comes to buying food is not without its problems and this turned out to be the case with basmati. How, for a start, do you define the very ingredient you are trying to investigate?
Basmati means perfumed or fragrant in Hindi and, as a first step, the FSA tried to see if it could measure the smell of the rice's cooking water. Alas, the strains of basmati are many and the resulting fragrance varied too much. DNA detection proved useful in identifying strains of basmati but did not help to define any key properties of what is known as a customary name, something the public are said to recognise but which does not necessarily conform to any set parameters.
You may well wonder why this matters. Basmati rice sells for rather more than long grain rice (€5 a kilo compared with €3 a kilo) and in any case, it is reasonable to assume that not only do we want to eat safe pork, we also want to eat what it says on the label, even if it is a packet of rice. So are we buying the real thing?
Unfortunately, this king of rices is grown in both the Pakistan and Indian foothills of the Himalayas, two countries that have a sometimes difficult relationship. While India is rather purist about its basmati, insisting the rice must come from true-line strains, Pakistan recognises some of the more modern hybrids. In the end, the FSA decided to accept both countries' arguments as long as the rice contained at least one true-line parent.
Silent rectitude was the result of this useful piece of work and in the UK the industry largely cleaned itself up. Not only that but market leader Tilda was exonerated and its sales rightfully given a boost.
Now both Pakistan and India are working together to try and establish geographical indication (GI) status for basmati. Not only would this protect it, there is concern about the re-emergence of a challenge some 10 years ago when an American food technology company called RiceTec patented "Kasmati", a new type of basmati rice adapted to US conditions. The Indian government successfully challenged the patent but with basmati accounting for more than half of all rice sold in Europe and the Middle East, there is a lot to play for.
If you are bitten by the benefits of the basmati bug, then consider too the brown alternative. Alerted to this recently by a colleague, I have become a convert. While the white fluffy characteristics are replaced by something altogether more worthy, the pleasure is in the flavour and smell, both of which are heady and delightful. Tilda does brown and white basmati and both are also available from good health food stores.
harnold@irishtimes.com