Spicing Up Hearings on Frozen Chickens

Nothing like a little chicken bowling to cut the tedium of a congressional hearing. Bringing Wolfgang Puck, the L.A. culinary impresario, into the fray doesn’t hurt either.

Before his appearance, the atmosphere in the House Government Operations Committee hearing room had gotten mean. Intimations were flying about the chicken industry using its political muscle to bend federal policies to its liking, and the deputy secretary of agriculture was undergoing a fiery grilling.

Rep. John L. Mica (R-Fla.) demanded that Richard Rominger, the embattled deputy secretary, supply records for all meetings and phone calls he had with industry groups for periods stretching back two years.

Eyeing Rominger coldly, Mica asked: “Have you ever lied to or purposely misled a member of Congress?”

“No,” said Rominger, looking out of sorts. Former Gov. Edmund G. (Jerry) Brown Jr.’s director of food and agriculture said he’d be glad to supply the records and then beat a retreat.

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Into these somber proceedings arrived Puck, the impish creator of Spago and other must-go-to restaurants. Placing a seemingly rock-like chicken on the witness stand, the famed restaurateur mused: “It’s like a weapon. I’m surprised they let this through the security check.”

With one ad-lib--and a great prop--the jovial, world-famous chef cut to the heart of the issue for Californians.

Puck was visiting Capitol Hill on the side of the state’s poultry producers, who are trying to get the federal government to rethink a USDA policy that allows frozen chicken to be sold as fresh. In fact, to the feds, chicken is still “fresh” as long as it’s above zero.

Two House subcommittees, chaired by Reps. Gary A. Condit (D-Ceres) and Edolphus Towns (D-N.Y.), joined forces Thursday to air the matter and invited Puck to testify.

It was Puck’s second appearance before a House committee. A while back he fought a USDA rule that forced him to add tomato sauce to his famous packaged pizza.

“Maybe because the big tomato growers said that’s the way it should be . . . so in the end we wound up putting one expensive spoonful of sauce on the pizza,” he recalled.

The “fresh” issue is an old one that has been pushed into the forefront by allegations that Agriculture Secretary Mike Espy accepted illegal gifts and trips

from Tyson Foods, the poultry processing giant based in Springdale, Ark. Espy has said he reimbursed the company for sporting event tickets and a trip on a Tyson airplane.

Amid cries of “fraud,” California producers describe what they call a frozen-thaw-fresh scheme that allows producers to ship rock-hard broilers to the California market--the nation’s largest--yet still be allowed to label them as fresh.

State officials and consumer groups want the USDA to push the standard up to 26 degrees--near the point where chickens begin to freeze. Anything below that temperature could not bear the “fresh” imprimatur.

California enacted just such a law last year. But the National Broiler Council and the Arkansas Poultry Federation quickly filed a suit opposing it, and a federal judge in California struck it down because it conflicted with U.S. law.

The “chicken war” flows out of a larger issue. Towns’ subcommittee has been pondering whether the USDA can effectively regulate a food industry that it also promotes.

It seems clear that many subcommittee members have serious doubts.

“USDA’s policy amounts to outright consumer fraud and deception,” Towns said. “The Department of Agriculture has been guilty of deception,” Mica added.

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As the hearing ground to a midday halt for a series of floor votes, the action moved around the corner to the California Fresh Chicken Fest, a wingding put on by the California Poultry Industry Federation.

The luncheon pulled in scores of guests to graze on barbecued chicken and lemon oregano chicken and California jumbo asparagus.

But guests could also venture out to the balcony, where the fresh-chicken forces had set up bowling pins and invited revelers to “bowl” with the solid (but wrapped) carcasses of chickens chilled to about 20 degrees.

Rep. Michael Huffington (R-Santa Barbara), the U.S. Senate candidate, dropped by and issued his policy statement on the fresh-frozen controversy.

“It’s a relevant issue, but it doesn’t mean people who freeze their chicken can’t sell it in California. It just means the label has to say ‘frozen.’ ”

And then he went outside to go chicken bowling.