The Ones That Got Away

Making pasta tonight I found myself thinking, as I always do, about Howard McGee’s radical 2009 article in which he asked “How much water does pasta really need?” His answer: very little. Here’s what he said:

“After some experiments, I’ve found that we can indeed make pasta in just a few cups of water and save a good deal of energy. Not that much in your kitchen or mine….just the amount needed to keep a burner on high for a few more minutes. But Americans cook something like a billion pounds of pasta a year, so those minutes could add up.

My rough figuring indicates an energy savings at the stove top of several trillion B.T.U.s. At the power plant, that would mean saving 250,000 to 500,000 barrels of oil, or $10 million to $20 million at current prices. Significant numbers, though these days they sound like small drops in a very large pot.”

Still, I don’t know anyone (myself included) who now cooks pasta in a thimble-full of water. And I’m betting that you don’t either. Which got me to wondering if this is a disappointment to Mr. McGee.

As I was considering that I began thinking about some of the stories I’ve worked on over the years that seemed enormously consequential to me - but ended up having very little impact on the public.

Consider, for example, the article Barry Estabrook wrote about Kobe beef for Gourmet Magazine in 2007, Raising the Steaks. He begins with this: “Like many people, I am familiar with Kobe lore: These supremely pampered bovines pass their days in almost Zen-like bliss, getting regular massages and subsisting on all the grain they can eat, washed down with cold Kirin beer. “Imagine a life completely free of stress, with as much tender-loving-care you could ever want” is how the website of an American importer of Kobe beef puts it. “Sound too good to be true?”

As Barry discovered, it is indeed too good to be true. His story spoiled my appetite: I have not eaten a single bite of Japanese Wagyu beef since reading it. The animals are confined for their entire lives. They are fed beer to keep them from being too depressed to eat. The massages? That’s to clean them up because their confinement leaves them covered in their own excrement.

When we published the article I expected it ...