Asian Lettuce Wraps, shown here with Bibb lettuce, savory pork filling, and optional vegetable additions of bean sprouts, mint and cilantro leaves. The wraps are perfect hot weather food. Photo by LINDA THOMPSON/Missoulian
By GREG PATENT for the Missoulian
The most popular item on the menu of the Asian restaurant chain P.F. Chang’s is Chicken Lettuce Wraps. It’s a seasoned mixture of cooked chicken you spoon into Iceberg lettuce cups, top with some hot or mild sauce, roll up, and scarf down. I keep wishing a franchise would open in Missoula just so that I could order them any day of the week. But in the event my hopes will be dashed, I decided to experiment, and I’ve come up with my own version that I must say is quite wonderful.
I’ve also expanded the flavor profile to include Southeast Asian and Japanese ingredients, giving the wraps a whole new dimension. If you’ve cooked Asian recipes much, you know how daunting the list of ingredients can be. So let me say at the outset that you’ll probably need to buy some bottles of sauces for your pantry. They keep indefinitely in the refrigerator, so you’ll have them the next time you decide to cook something Asian. Any well-stocked supermarket will carry canned bamboo shoots, canned water chestnuts, hoisin sauce, oyster sauce, fish sauce, soy sauce, toasted sesame oil. Dry sherry you buy at the liquor store, and it keeps forever. Do not, I repeat, do not use something called cooking sherry that you find in the supermarket. Fresh ingredients such as ginger, garlic, green onions, and fresh shiitake mushrooms, are available in just about every market I know.
A long list of ingredients does not necessarily mean a long prep time. On the contrary, in this recipe the ingredients are grouped into sections, and entire batches of them are cooked at the same time.
This is a perfect hot weather dish because the cooking is completed in about six minutes. You could even
cook the meat outside in a skillet on a hot grill. The wraps are terrific with ice-cold beer.
Asian Lettuce Wraps
This is fun food for everyone. Don’t be put off by the ingredients list because groups of them are added all at once during cooking. It’ll take about 15 minutes to prep everything and just a few minutes of cooking.
You can double or triple the recipe for an outdoor party. Just make sure you have a large enough pan to cook the meat.
Sauce
1 tablespoon hoisin sauce
1 tablespoon fish sauce
1 tablespoon soy sauce
1 tablespoon dry sherry
2 tablespoons oyster sauce
2 tablespoons fresh lime juice
2 teaspoons toasted sesame oil
1 teaspoon sugar
2 teaspoons cornstarch Seasonings and meat
1/4 pound fresh shiitake mushrooms, de-stemmed, caps cut into thin strips
1 tablespoon fresh minced ginger
2 cloves finely chopped garlic
2 thinly sliced green onions
1/2 cup chopped canned bamboo shoots
1/2 cup chopped canned water chestnuts
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1 pound ground pork, ground chicken, or ground turkey
Lettuce and other vegetables
12 large Bibb lettuce leaves or Iceberg lettuce leaves
Other vegetables (optional):
Fresh bean sprouts
Fresh mint sprigs
Fresh cilantro sprigs
3 tablespoons peanut oil or other vegetable oil
For the sauce, in a small bowl, whisk together the hoisin sauce, fish sauce, soy sauce, sherry, oyster sauce, lime juice, sesame oil, sugar, and cornstarch. Do this when you’re ready to cook, because if cornstarch is in contact with citrus juice for more than 10 minutes, it will lose its ability to thicken. Or, mix everything together ahead of time except the cornstarch. Whisk in the cornstarch just before adding the sauce in the recipe.
For the seasonings and meat, get everything together before cooking. Note that you can use ground pork, chicken or turkey with no change in seasonings.
Wash and dry the lettuce leaves and set them on a platter. Prepare small bowls with bean sprouts, mint, and cilantro, if desired, and set them on the table.
To cook, have all seasonings and meat nearby. Heat the oil in a wok or large skillet over high heat until very hot. Add all the seasonings and meat and cook and stir for 3 to 5 minutes, until meat loses its pink color and is cooked completely. Taste and add more salt and pepper, if necessary.
Whisk cooking sauce to combine well, remembering to add cornstarch if you didn’t a few minutes earlier. Add to wok or skillet and cook and stir about 1 minute until sauce boils and thickens. Remove from heat, taste carefully, and adjust seasoning as needed. Transfer to a bowl and serve as soon as possible.
To eat, spoon meat mixture into lettuce leaf and top with a few bean sprouts, mint and cilantro sprigs. Roll up and eat.
- Makes 12 appetizer servings or 4 main dish servings.
Greg Patent is a food writer and columnist for the Missoulian and missoula.com magazine. Visit Greg’s website at www.gregpatent.com. You can write him at chefguymt@gregpatent.com.
By ALISON LADMAN
For The Associated Press
No need to travel to Hogsmeade (or to Universal Orlando) to get a taste of Harry Potter’s butterbeer. Universal isn’t giving out its recipe, but we’ve created an easy version of the formerly fictional drink made famous by the young wizard.
Start to finish: 1 hour (10 minutes active)
Servings: 4
1 cup light or dark brown sugar
2 tablespoons water
6 tablespoon butter
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon cider vinegar
3/4 cup heavy cream, divided
1/2 teaspoon rum extract
Four 12-ounce bottles cream soda
In a small saucepan over medium, combine the brown sugar and water. Bring to a gentle boil and cook, stirring often, until the mixture reads 240 F on a candy thermometer.
Stir in the butter, salt, vinegar and 1/4 heavy cream. Set aside to cool to room temperature.
Once the mixture has cooled, stir in the rum extract.
In a medium bowl, combine 2 tablespoons of the brown sugar mixture and the remaining 1/2 cup of heavy cream. Use an electric mixer to beat until just thickened, but not completely whipped, about 2 to 3 minutes.
To serve, divide the brown sugar mixture between 4 tall glasses (about 1/4 cup for each glass). Add 1/4 cup of cream soda to each glass, then stir to combine. Fill each glass nearly to the top with additional cream soda, then spoon the whipped topping over each.
Rhubarb-Strawberry Pie: The easy no-roll pie crust is a breeze to make and the crunchy and sweet streusel topping makes a great contrast to the soft, tart filling. Photo by MICHAEL GALLACHER/Missoulian
By GREG PATENT for the Missoulian
The long, cool, wet spring we seem to have emerged from has done wonders for certain garden plants, especially rhubarb. Bright red stalks catch the eye in area markets and at farmers markets, and now’s the time to bake a rhubarb pie. I like adding strawberries for their sweetness, and local berries are just beginning to show up at farmers markets, too.
Botanically, rhubarb’s a vegetable related to buckwheat, but we use it as a fruit in all sorts of cooking. Its sharp, acidic flavor evoked these words from former New York Times food writer, Molly O’Neill: “Rhubarb has a mean sharp bite that demands coaxing, seasoning, sweetening and simmering.”
Although we tend to use rhubarb in desserts, today’s adventurous chefs are including it in savory dishes such as Couscous with Rhubarb and Asparagus, Chicken Livers in Red Wine Rhubarb Sauce, Baked Ham with Rhubarb in Balsamic Vinegar Sauce, and Rhubarb-soy Marinated Duck.
My own repertoire includes rhubarb pies, cobblers, ice cream, turnovers and sauces. And recently I came across a recipe for a rhubarb pie in Relish magazine that’s so easy I felt I had to share with you. It’s made with a no-roll pastry you press into the pie plate, a flour-thickened filling, and a crunchy streusel topping. I substituted strawberries for some of the rhubarb and modified the original baking instructions.
If you’re gun-shy about making pastry, have no fear. This crust is foolproof.
Rhubarb-Strawberry Pie
This pie must be baked in a deep-dish 9-inch pie pan because the juices will bubble over during baking. I use one made by Pyrex. The pie is delicious as is, but it also pairs well with vanilla ice cream.
Preheat the oven to 400 degrees with a heavy baking sheet on an oven rack adjusted to the lowest position.
To prepare the pastry, mix the flour with the salt and sugar in a large bowl. Pour in the vegetable oil and milk and mix well with a fork until the dough gathers into large clumps. Transfer the dough to a deep-dish pie plate and press with fingertips to spread evenly over the bottom and up the sides right to the rim. Make sure the crust is not too thick where the bottom meets the side of the pie plate. The crust will be thin, about one-eighth-inch thick.
To prepare the filling, combine the sugar, flour, salt, and nutmeg in a medium bowl. In a large bowl, gently combine the rhubarb and strawberries. Sprinkle one-third of the sugar mixture (2/3 cup) evenly onto the bottom of the pie crust. Scatter 2 cups of the rhubarb and strawberries over the sugar mixture. Repeat twice more, ending with the fruit.
To prepare the streusel topping, mix the butter, sugar and flour with a pastry blender or your hands or a food processor until crumbly. Sprinkle over the rhubarb and strawberries, leaving the streusel loose. Don’t pack it down. Pieces of fruit will poke through the topping, and the pan will be very full. Set the pie plate on the baking sheet in the oven.
Bake 30 minutes at 400 degrees. Reduce the temperature to 350 degrees and bake about 40 minutes more, or until the filling is very bubbly and the topping is golden brown. Pie juices will bubble over onto the baking sheet. Cool completely, 4 to 6 hours, before serving.
• Makes 8 servings.
Greg Patent is a food writer and columnist for the Missoulian and missoula.com magazine. Visit Greg’s website at www.gregpatent.com. You can write him at chefguymt@gregpatent.com.
Early season bok choy can be a greatly versatile food product. From wilting the greens to making kimchi or stir fry, it’s uses are many, and the fresh green stocks sitting on farmer’s market stands were too fun to pass up this past weekend. I figured with the rain still falling on Missoula, stir fry wouldn’t be a bad inside meal for this time of year.
The opportunities to pick up some really good meat to stir fry up with your bok choy abound at the Missoula Saturday Market, with bison, elk, deer and locally raised hormone-free beef available regularly throughout the summer. But I was looking for something a little more exotic. So I traveled to the Good Food Store and found some locally raised emu, as in from Wild Rose Emu Ranch in Hamilton.
I cut the emu steak into half-inch pieces and stir fried them in vegetable oil and a little sesame oil with a liberal sprinkle of crushed red peppers. I added a dash of shoyu for flavor and some cracked black pepper. Then I removed the meat from the wok with a slotted spoon.
To capture the tastes of the vegetables and the strong meatiness of the emu, I stir fried the veggie in a little vegetable oil with few drops of sesame oil. I added diced Thai ginger for flavor and stir fried the bok choy ribs first until they softened somewhat. Then I added the leafy greens and stir fried them just until wilted. Last I added the emu meat back to the wok until everything was just heated through.
While stir frying these ingredients, I made a pot full of jasmine rice, and I plated the dish with a large scoop of rice and a spoonful of stir fry with a sprinkle of blackened sesame seeds for color, flavor and texture.
The bok choy tasted crunchy and very fresh, while the strong emu meat cooked in the red chili peppers made the dish almost like a Sheshuan Beef dish in texture and taste.
Spicy Agave Cake is great to serve at breakfast, or a mid-day snack, or with afternoon tea. It is especially delicious with cream cheese. Photo by LINDA THOMPSON/Missoulian
Agave (pronounced ah-GAH-vay) is a sweet syrup from the same plant that tequila comes from. It’s just now making headway in Missoula, but when I can find bottles of organic blue agave in Costco, I know it’s become mainstream. Agave’s been known for thousands of years in Mexico, where it’s known as “aquamiel,” or honey water. Mexicans often use it as a substitute for honey. Agave comes in light, medium and dark varieties, and it’s the medium that has a special caramel-like deliciousness. I often drizzle some on yogurt to complement its tang. Although the syrup, or nectar, is produced by many varieties of agave plant, the most common is blue agave.
I first became acquainted with agave when I taught cooking classes at the spa Rancho La Puerta in Tecate, Mexico, last December. The cooks there use it in baking and as an all-purpose sweetener. I decided to give it a whirl as a substitute for honey in Honey Cake, a loaf that uses both honey and brown sugar, and it worked. I used just the blue agave syrup and left the sugar out. For taste and texture I included chopped crystallized ginger and candied orange peel, which do contain sugar.
Agave has been touted recently as a sort of health food because it has a low glycemic index, meaning that the syrup is digested slowly and doesn’t cause a glucose spike. This is true, but agave is composed mostly of fructose units, and fructose is metabolized differently than glucose. As is true with just about any sweetener, use it sparingly.
If you want a terrific loaf that keeps well for days at room temperature, then try this Spicy Agave Cake. Stale cake makes terrific toast and is delicious with cream cheese.
***
Spicy Agave Cake
This cake takes just minutes to put together.
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour (spooned into the cups and leveled)
3/4 teaspoon baking powder
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon allspice
1 cup chopped toasted walnuts
1/4 cup chopped candied ginger
1/4 cup chopped candied orange rind
3 large eggs
4 tablespoons butter, melted
1 cup agave syrup
1/2 cup cold strong coffee
Finely grated zest of 2 large oranges
Adjust an oven rack to the lower third position and preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Grease a 9 x 5 x 3 inch loaf pan and dust all over with fine dry bread crumbs.
Whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon and allspice in a medium bowl. In a small bowl toss the walnuts, ginger, and orange rind with a spoonful of the flour mixture.
In a large bowl, whisk the eggs to combine well. Add the butter and agave syrup and whisk well. Add half the dry ingredients and stir in with the whisk. Add all the coffee and whisk in gently. Whisk remaining dry ingredients in gently. Stir in the orange zest and walnut mixture.
Scrape into prepared pan and place in the oven.
Bake 60 to 70 minutes, until cake is well-browned, the top springs back when pressed in the center, and a wooden skewer comes out clean. Cool the cake in its pan on a rack 20 minutes. Remove from pan and cool completely on wire rack. Wrap airtight and let stand overnight. Cut into thin slices with a serrated knife, two slices to a serving.
• Makes 1 loaf cake.
Greg Patent is a food writer and columnist for the Missoulian and missoula.com magazine. Visit Greg’s website at www.gregpatent.com and his blog at www.gregpatentgetsyoucooking.blogspot.com. You can write him at chefguymt@gregpatent.com.
You can grill anything if you want to. Bread, pizza, beer-can chicken, you name it, I can grill it. The barbecue is a phenomenal tool for cooking food a variety of ways, so when I discovered that you can make a traditional Spanish Paella on the grill, we started eating Paella more often.
If you don’t know what Paella is, here’s an introduction. Think short-grain rice cooked in seafood stock and saffron with some vegetables and mounded high with all kinds of seafood. There are as many variations for Paella as there are ways to cook it, but for this weekend’s Spanish wine party and tapas, I decided to try something slightly different. One of our friends doesn’t eat chicken, pork or beef, and I’d normally sear some chicken in the pan to get things started. Instead, I took some mahi mahi that I purchased on sale at Rosauers and pan seared it just until it turned opaque. I did the same with a pound of shrimp. I added a half cup of fish stock to the juice I extracted from the shrimp and fish and a pinch of saffron. Then I added in three cups of arborio rice and stirred to coat it with accumulated juices and stock. I added in a tomato puree and minced a half-dozen cloves of garlic to toss into the mixture. At this point, I also added a teaspoon of Spanish smoked paprika to create a slightly smoky and meaty taste. You can use smoked paprika in place of strong meats like chorizo. I stirred this on the stove top until about a third of the liquid was soaked up into the rice or about 15 minutes.
With the grill at 375, I added the fish, shrimp, petite frozen peas and bay scallops to the mix. I like to poke the meat and shrimp down into the rice along with the peas, while leaving the scallops on top so they get a little dry heat. I put the Paella in the grill for 20 minutes and proceed to cook the clams and mussels in white wine and garlic broth until they open up. I used the remaining liquid from steaming the clams and mussels to add to the Paella as it cooks on the grill. When the Paella has been on the grill for about 20 minutes or so, I remove it and add the clams and mussels to the top along with fresh lemon wedges, and then I tent the whole deal with aluminum foil and let it rest for another 15 minutes or so.
The whole process is fairly easy if you have a good Paella pan. A 14-incher is a good size for the grill. Any larger, and you’d want to use one of the big charcoal grills instead of a gas grill.
Basic Seafood-Only Paella Recipe for the grill
three cups arborio rice
one pound firm fish like mahi mahi, shark or swordfish
one pound bay scallops
one pound shrimp
one pound clams
one pound mussels
one cup seafood stock
teaspoon of Spanish paprika
teaspoon of saffron threads
one cup of frozen petite peas
six cloves of garlic minced
one cup of tomato puree (can diced tomatoes can substitute)
three cups white wine with minced garlic and parsley to cook the clams and mussels
I read this article about making sushi at home in the New York Times. And it brings up a really good point, especially if you live here in the seafood deprived part of the Great Northwest. Namely that you can make really great sushi without having a Pike’s Place Market in your back yard.
My sisters used to have these crazy white trash sushi parties a few years ago. They’d make a ton of sushi rice, the making of which is explained nicely in the above article, and they’d invite friends over who brought toppings. Now the toppings for a white trash sushi party are technically canned seafoods like clams, crab, tuna and pretty much anything that comes in a can. But the NYT article brought up some interesting ideas that might work out well here in Missoula.
First of all, you can get good, sushi-grade rice at The Good Food Store. You can also find a variety of Asian spices and nori (seaweed) to make your sushi authentic. And coming into spring, the fresh vegetables at the Saturday Market under the Higgins bridge are perfect to slice up and dress up for sushi.
One of my favorite salads could easily make a great topping for sushi. I like to take several carrots and grate them into small curls in a bowl. To which I add a teaspoon of rice wine vinegar, a sprinkle of brown sugar and some sriracha and blend it all up until the carrots are glazed with the mix. Normally, this could be a salad by itself, but I think paired with a thin strip of prosciutto or speck or perhaps even a thin anchovy over a nigiri-formed roll. I could also see some micro greens or baby greens sautéed in sesame oil with shitake mushroom bits as a great topper for homemade sushi.
The point is that good sushi isn’t always a matter of seafood, though I do love that preparation. A great way to enjoy sushi is to turn it into a party where your friends help provide two or three of the toppings to take the burden of the host.
After a long day judging at the Garden City BrewFest, I had an invitation to join friends at a benefit for Community Restorative Justice, a great local non profit geared toward helping youth offenders face their victims in order to lower the rates of secondary offenses.
Knowing my palate was completely blown from tasting through like 30 beers, I decided to focus on the food at the event. The dishes were created by Dominic Glenna.
Besides some standard finger foods and fine desserts paired with delicious wines and a phenomenal deconstructed shepherds pie with bison, they had something that rather stood out to me. It was a Spicy Tuna Tartare in Chocolate Sauce.
The overwhelmingly awesome texture and flavor of raw tuna mixed with red peppers and what tasted like green onions is one my favorite appetizers. When I lived in Hawaii, I’d often go down to the boat docks in Kona and pick up some filets and tuna belly from the ships coming in with the catch of the day. I’d cut up a little fresh onion and add some poke spices made up of seaweed and a little red Hawaiian sea salt, and I’d cut the raw tuna into tiny, pea-sized morsels. I like to add just a bit of sesame oil and a splash of shoyu and let the mixture marinate for several hours before serving it up with taro chips prior to dinner.
But this dish added a very interesting twist. Dark chocolate.
The intensity and flavor of the raw tuna with the spices is big and expansive with some complicated branching roads. The texture of the fish is tight and springy, along with the crunch and green taste of vegetables. Good Ahi should have very little fish taste, and this definitely retained that fresh, sushi-esque flavor that is as close to I can imagine high-end steak tartare must be.
By itself, it was delicious. But plated up in a Chinese soup spoon with a pool of dark, smooth chocolate around it, it was a very intense and provocative experience on the tongue. I love dark chocolate with chilis, but paired with an almost salad of spicy tuna tartare, the chocolate added a cream-sauce consistency in the mouth. Washed down with an exceptional 2005 Roessler Pinot Noir from the Hein Family Vineyard, the bite-size dish was the unexpected delight of the evening. I tried a few of them for consistency and found every bite to hold the same perfect balance of spicy sweetness and firm, steak-like texture.
My compliments to the chef,
Big Foodie
Spicy Tuna Tartare with Chocolate Sauce
Spicy Tuna Tartare in Chocolate sauce with a 2005 Roessler Pinot Noir from the Hein Family Vineyard
This is an oldy but a goody. I was perusing my YouTube collection and found this old video I shot when I worked in the newsroom. Thought you might enjoy a peak at a University of Montana cookoff staged Iron Chef style.
A county in California is cracking down, Officer Big Mac-style, on childhood obesity by banning the cheap toys that drew countless children such as myself to pester their mothers into the McDonald’s drive-through. The Associated Press notes that the ordinance doesn’t cover many restaurants, so kids will no doubt be driven farther to get their movie tie-in merchandise. If the ban is effective, however, these tots may be saved from both health problems and cheap toys that smell like french fries long after mealtime is over.
California county trims toys in meals to cut fat
By BROOKE DONALD
Associated Press
SAN JOSE, Calif. — County officials in Silicon Valley trying to curb childhood obesity voted Tuesday to ban restaurants from giving away toys and other freebies that often come with high-calorie meals aimed at kids.
The ordinance is largely symbolic as it would only cover unincorporated areas of Santa Clara County, meaning only about a dozen fast-food outlets and several other family-owned restaurants would be affected.
But its chief sponsor says it’s still important because it paves the way for other areas to act, may spur action by fast-food chains to offer healthier choices and can help parents by taking away a child’s incentive for wanting less healthy food.
“This ordinance does not attack toys. Obviously, toys, in and of themselves, do not make children obese,” said county Supervisor Ken Yeager, who pushed for the ban. “But it is unfair to parents and children to use toys to capture the tastes of children when they are young to get them hooked on eating high-sugar, high-fat foods early in life.”
The ban, which faces a final vote next month, would prohibit restaurants from giving away an incentive item, like a toy, with a meal that contains more than 485 calories, more than 600 milligrams of sodium and excessive amounts of fat and sugars.
Efforts to trim high calorie food from children’s plates have been made all over the nation, most recently in a campaign led by first lady Michelle Obama. One in three American children is overweight or obese.
County supervisors said restaurants encourage children to choose specific menu items by linking them with free toys and other incentives. The Federal Trade Commission estimated that about $360 million was spent in 2006 on toys that were included in kids’ meals.
A 2008 study by the Center for Science in the Public Interest showed that 10 out of 12 meals that came with toys exceeded the recommended caloric limits for children, Yeager said.
The California Restaurant Association lobbied against the ordinance saying it was misguided and another example of government overreaching. The organization placed ads in local newspapers against the ordinance and conducted a poll they said showed that an overwhelmingly number of county residents opposed such a measure.
“The people of Santa Clara County believe they are in a better position to make decisions about what to feed their kids than politicians are,” said Daniel Conway, a spokesman for the organization that represents 22,000 restaurants in California.
Conway said fast-food chains already offer healthy options for children, including milk, carrot sticks, apple slices and whole grains. He said the ordinance looked like a simplistic attention-grabbing move rather than a comprehensive, thoughtful effort to curb a serious problem.
He also worried that such an ordinance would create safety issues in restaurants where children want a toy but can’t have one because the combination of food items they’ve chosen doesn’t meet the regulations.
“We don’t want to have incidents in restaurants where an employee has to enforce these laws and parents get mad and children get upset,” he said.
A spokesman for McDonald’s Corp. said the company was disappointed in the ordinance but it does not affect any of its stores in Santa Clara County.
“Concerning this ordinance, parents tell us they want to have the right to make their own decisions. Our customers are smart, and they will continue to make choices that are right for them,” said Walt Riker, a McDonald’s spokesman.
Miguel Piedra, a spokesman for Burger King, referred all questions to the restaurant association and said he believed the company did not have any stores in the affected area but wasn’t sure. According to a list from the county, there is one Burger King in the unincorporated area that would be affected.
The county public health department would be responsible for enforcing the ordinance. A restaurant would face fines of $250 for a first offense, $500 for a second and up to $1,000 for subsequent violations.
Yeager said the aim is to help direct parents to more healthy choices. He said the government has a responsibility to keep kids safe, and cited rules on car seats, cribs and other baby items as examples where the policymakers step in to regulate products.
If passed on the second reading May 11, it would take effect 90 days later. Restaurants can still modify the proposal by suggesting alternatives that would need supervisor approval.
A county in California is cracking down, Officer Big Mac-style, on childhood obesity by banning the cheap toys that drew countless children such as myself to pester their mothers into the McDonald’s drive-through. The Associated Press notes that the ordinance doesn’t cover many restaurants, so kids will no doubt be driven farther to get their movie tie-in merchandise. If the ban is effective, however, these tots may be saved from both health problems and cheap toys that smell like french fries long after mealtime is over.