Horse Meat Scandal: Is the Era of Cheap Food Over

LONDON â€" With Europe’s expanding horse meat scandal escalating from a drama to a crisis, consumers are being warned that the era of cheap food may be over.

In less than a month, the scandal has spread from Ireland, where prepared foods sold as beef products were found to contain horse, to Britain and much of the Continent.

As European officials called on Europol, the European police agency, to coordinate investigations into what could turn out to be extensive Continent-wide fraud by criminal gangs, supermarkets in Germany, Switzerland, Belgium and the Netherlands became thelatest to remove suspect products from their shelves.

Some are already blaming a low-cost food culture for a situation that may have allowed criminals to exploit ever longer and more complex food supply chains to dump cheap horse meat into the market.

The potential illicit profits could be huge. France’s Nouvel Observateur, tracing the possible itinerary of a horse meat lasagne, said that the route from a Romanian abattoir to a French or British supermarket shelf passed through numerous intermediaries with an opportunity to switch horse for beef.

With horse meat two or three times cheaper, the magazine wrote, “the profit from the switch is reckoned to be €300,000 [$400,000] for every 25 tonnes.”

In an era of affluence, Europeans became accustomed to spending a diminishing portion of their weekly household budgets on food. But with strapped families facing tighter budgets at a time of austerity and rising international food prices, the trend has reversed.

Supermarkets have responded by attempting to keep prices down at the expense, according to critics, of content and quality.

“In a highly competitive market our food industry has not changed its business model,” according to Laura Sandys, a Conservative legislator, writing in The Times of London on Thursday. “Instead it has tried to adapt to food inflation by fitting a more expensive product into a cheap price structure.”

Ms. Sandys, concluding that “the era of cheap food is, sadly, over,” said consumers were unwittingly absorbing the rising costs of meat and grain through reductions in quality and quantity.

“So the £1 [$1.55] cottage pie in your local freezer shop will e the same price that it has been for years,” she wrote, “but today will contain less meat and more artificial fillers such as high fructose corn syrup.”

Pamela Robinson, a supply chain expert at the University of Birmingham in Britain, told The Daily Telegraph, that pressure to sell food more and more cheaply had led to the horse meat scandal.

She said supermarkets were going to have to acknowledge food prices needed to go up if they were to guarantee quality. Families also needed to be educated on how to eat healthily on a budget, rather than relying on cheap processed foods that could no longer guarantee quality.

In the midst of the horse meat scandal, some consumers are already voting with their feet.

A poll for the Sky News broadcaster indicat! ed one-in! -five British shoppers had changed their buying habits since the scandal broke. And more than half of those had abandoned processed meat entirely.

Traditional butcher shops supplying well-sourced but more expensive meat have meanwhile reported a spike in sales of up to 30 percent.

In the spirit of the times, the BBC published a handy guide to healthy alternatives to pre-packaged, industrially processed foods.

The broadcaster’s Hannah Briggs quoted gastronomes who sang the praises of brined ox tongue and beef brisket, adding: “You could also try curing pig cheeks or chaps in salt and seasoning with Indonesian long pepper and herbs.”

But is the European public really ready to return to a mythical age in which a family of four could go for a week on a boiled cow heel or a pot of tripe Or will we have to adjust to spending more for our food and less on luxuries

Tell us if you think it’s inevitable, or even sensible,to spend more on our food. How much of your weekly budget goes to feeding the family And how about some useful alternatives to expensive cuts Cow heel recipes, anyone

Glimpses of Jean Arp\'s World

CLAMART, Franceâ€"The street is typical French suburbia, gray and peaceful, a far stretch from the narrow sidewalks, rooftops and, in early 20th century, artists’ studios of Montmartre, but only a few kilometers from Paris. Yet, in the 1930s, up this steep and curvy stretch, lived two members of the avant-garde â€" Jean Arp and Sophie Taueber. Joan Miro, Max Ernst, Marcel Duchamp and James Joyce were among their visitors.

Arp (1886-1966) was a pioneer of surrealism and a member of the Dada movement, the branch of surrealism that called for a return to childhood spirit and the destruction of all established rules. After working in Zurich and then in Paris in Montmartre, he and Taueber, another free thinker (they eventually married), bought a piece of land in Clamart and built a house at the edge of a forest. Taueber designed it, influenced by the Bauhaus, Le Corbusier and Charlotte Perriand.

More than 80 years later, the three-story “maison-atelier” still stands, and a decade-long renovaion has just been completed.

“It’s a house imbued with the serenity and simplicity of both artists,” said Claude Weil-Seigeot, the president of the Arp Foundation in France. “When I saw all of this might disappear if no one acted, I decided to give battle,” she said.

Keeping the building “modest and intimate” was a prerequisite for Ms. Weil-Seigeot when work began on the house in 2003. The renovations, including the construction of a little bookstore that opens onto the garden, were all done using the typical “meulière” stone of the Paris suburbs that Taueber had used in the ’30s. Ten years later, the work, done little by little so the house would not have to close to visitors, is finally finished, simultaneously with the publication of “Atelier Jean Arp et Sophie Taueber,” an art book, with text by Renaud Ego, on the history of the house and its occupants.

There are three Arp foundations in Europe: The one in Cl! amart, which preserves the atelier where Arp lived and worked for most of his life; one in Locarno, Switzerland, founded by Arp’s second wife, Marguerite Arp-Hagenbach, and the Stiftung Arp eV, a German organization, which holds the rights of reproduction of Arp’s work and owns most of the artist’s sculptures.

Relationships among the three foundations were problematic in the past, according to the German foundation’s curator, Maike Steinkamp.

“Now the aim is that we cooperate; when there are problems with authenticity, we talk,” she said. A publication released last year, “Hans Arp. Sculpturesâ€" A Critical Survey,” by Kai Fischer and Arie Hartog, took note of all known sculptural objects related to Arp including posthumous and unauthorized casts, causing some controversy with its revelations.

Its aim was to create transparncy in Arp’s work, said Ms. Steinkamp. “We are happy with that objective and will now not be casting any new sculptures because of all the problems the survey revealed about the past.”

The German and French foundations wrangled over some of Arp’s work; some of it had been moved to Germany. Once it had been established that it was Arp’s wish that they remain in his atelier, they were returned. Most of the sculptures are now back on view in Clamart. “When I’m asked who picked the sculptures to be on show here, I like to joke and say ‘it was all work of the bailiff.’” Ms. Weil-Seigeot said, smiling. “It’s the bailiff’s collection.”

Only about 2,000 visitors tour the house each year, she said, by necessity. “It’s so intimate, when there are more than 30 people in the house at once, it’s panic!”

Through the w! indows, u! p the stairs, you can peer into the artists’ workspace. There you see drawings, collages, words and sculptures. Even in deep winter, Arp’s sculptures reflect the garden’s afternoon light.

“He was very attached to the dialogue between nature and his art,” Ms. Weil-Seigeot said.

Trees tower above the studio with only natural light filtering in. In his definition of Dada, Arp introduces nature:

“Dada is direct like nature and tries to give essential room to every thing. Dada is for infinite meaning and definite media,” he wrote.

His sculptures have the shapes of curvaceous bodies, old sinuous trees or seashells that stayed underwater so long that their surfaces have eroded.

“We try to let visitors approach the artwork freely, we don’t want to impose any cultural filter on them,” Ms. Weil-Seigeot explains, following the artist’s desire to let art speak to the senses.

“One has to create like nature,” Arp once said.

When schoolchildren come for roup visits, they are given gloves and are allowed to touch the sculptures in the garden to feel their smooth surface. No words are needed.

“They are the ones who understand it the best,” says Ms. Weil-Seigeot. “Because they have no filter yet.”

The Fondation Arp is at 21 rue des Chataigniers in Clamart. Visiting hours are Friday, Saturday and Sunday from 2 p.m. to 6 p.m. by appointment. More information at www.fondationarp.org

IHT Quick Read: Feb. 14

NEWS President Obama’s call for a free-trade agreement between the United States and the European Union has unleashed a wave of optimism on both sides that a breakthrough can be achieved that would lift trans-Atlantic fortunes, not just economically but politically. Nicholas Kulish reports from Berlin, and Jackie Calmes from Washington.

A former Tibetan Buddhist monk protested Chinese rule by killing himself through self-immolation this month, becoming the 100th person to do so inside Chinese-governed Tibet, according to reports on Wednesday by Tibet advocacy groups. Edward Wong and Jim Yardley report.

Europol, the European police agency, aid Wednesday that it had dismantled one of the most efficient cybercrime organizations to date, led by Russians who had managed to extort millions of euros from online users across more than 30 countries. Raphael Minder reports from Madrid.

Following the murder of a leading opposition politician, Tunisians are asking whether the Arab Spring, which began in their country, has accomplished much of anything. Aida Alami reports from Tunis.

Japan is renowned for its robots and bullet trains, and has some of the world’s fastest broadband networks. But it also remains firmly wedded to a pre-Internet technology â€" the fax machine â€" that in most other developed nations has joined answeri! ng machines, eight-tracks and cassette tapes in the dustbin of outmoded technologies. Martin Fackler reports from Tokyo.

Alarmed by the speed at which the steel industry is becoming a symbol of Europe’s economic decline, a top European Union official has called for the world’s biggest steel maker to postpone planned job cuts and factory closings. The company, ArcelorMittal, has said no. Stanley Reed reports from London.

Minimum wage policies vary widely across the European continent, offering examples for both sides of the argument over whether wages should be increased in the United States. Liz Alderman reports from Paris.

France is still wine country, but there are signs of changing tastes. Brooklyn Brewery’s strategy is to start small and offer its specialty beers in carefully chosen outlets. Linda Hervieux reports from Paris.

ARTSThe closest thing to a unanimous critical hit at the Berlin International Film Festival is “Before Midnight,” shown out of competition on the occasion of a career award for its director, Richard Linklater. Dennis Lim reports from Berlin.

FASHION John Galliano made a brief appearance as Osca! r de la R! enta’s “artist in residence.” Suzy Menkes reviews the New York shows.

SPORTS Authorities in Europe are homing in on a Singaporean man as they examine a scandal that could involve hundreds of fixed soccer games. Gaia Pianigiani and Thomas Fuller report.