Rice cake madness

Somehow, Korean civilization managed to survive for thousands of years without the Los Angeles County Department of Health Services. And all the while Koreans ate rice cakes -- without catastrophe. But last July, the bureaucracy decided that its wisdom transcended the ages. It issued new food inspection guidelines ordering vendors to refrigerate traditional Korean rice cakes immediately after baking them.

The only problem is that refrigerating rice cakes causes them to harden and become almost indigestible.

And there are no documented cases of food poisoning from Korean rice cakes in L.A. County.

The county's regulation is a classic case of government overreach, with bureaucrats thinking they alone know what's in your best interest.

A bill in the state Legislature would protect the rice cake from the county's meddling. Let's hope it passes quickly, and that county bureaucrats get the message: they're public servants, not kitchen cops.

-- (leftists@popp.in), June 27, 2001

Answers

Perhaps if the rice cakes were refrigerated and made almost indigestible, people wouldn't feel hungry again thirty minutes after eating them.

-- Kim Chee (in@a.jar), June 27, 2001.

As long as there's a government that doesn't force us to smell Kim Chee there will be no revolution.

-- Carlos (riffraff@cybertime.net), June 28, 2001.