Foodland Security
by Mary Leonard

Has anyone noticed that security has reached our grocery stores? No, I don't mean a guard, although that could happen, but triple-wrapped jars that are impossible to open? First you need a knife to cut through the outer plastic around the lid. Then you need to cut some additional plastic just in case the poison terrorists got a drop of a toxic agent through that first layer. Then you unscrew the top to find a piece of cardboard that doesn't have a little tiny flip on the side, and out comes the knife again. Of course I haven't even mentioned the jars that take the 19-year-old muscle man to open. Okay, hot water, the beer opener trick, and then goshdarn where did I put those plastic grippers?

Forget cooking, it's easier to order from the Chinese restaurant around the street and have them deliver. Show some ID please! Who wants to cook anymore! Even those healthy greens—triple-washed and sealed in bags—were tainted. Maybe we should adapt the European model. Une baguette, s'il vous plait. And voilà—a loaf of bread is wrapped in just enough white paper that you don't have to get your dirty hands all over the crusty loaf. Vegetables? In no European country would the vendor let you select—they will give you a pound of peaches, some radicchio and arugula and yes, one pint of those fresh strawberries from the South. You do have to trust and establish a relationship with the owner. My daughter goes to the same man in the shouk in Tel Aviv (the open-air market), because he knows what she likes and will select the freshest.

Of course we do have the farmers' markets here where we can all paw and sniff. And I love those signs that explicitly say, don't strip the corn. The last time I was at Adams the customers were like vultures, stripping each ear and tossing it back in the center. What if their nails were unclean? Why isn't that considered taboo by disease-phobic Americans? I wanted to jump up and down and be the good teacher and point to the sign and say, Read this please. Everyone together: DO NOT STRIP THE CORN. Isn't it ironic that we have sealed packaged goods, but it's okay to strip the corn, squeeze the melons, examine the tomatoes? Isn't it possible we're the ones tainting the products? Or do the terrorists only work in factories. Ah, the illegal immigrants? What is it? What is our fear?

I once saw a child on a plane spend at least ten minutes trying to open his little bag of pretzels. In fact, maybe the manufacturers who triple-wrap their goods should open up business at the airports triple-wrapping our carry-ons. No one would be able to access those tweezers or lip gloss. I know we have to protect ourselves, but from what? Every time we think we are secure, something new poses a threat. As Woody Allen said in Sleeper, everything our mothers told us was good will turn out to be bad: sunshine, milk, spinach! What's the answer? . . . Move to Paris, get a drawer with every conceivable jar opener, live off the land, or just enjoy the moment. Give me that bottle. See, these new wines don't even have a cork.