April 12, 2009, - 2:47 pm
Happy Easter?: State of Pennsylvania Plays Grinch on Catholic Church Pies
By Debbie Schlussel
You’ll remember my post, back in December, about how California’s Shasta County cavalierly shut down 86-year-old disabled World War II veteran Jack Melton and his modest fruitcake business, meant to supplement a very modest income.
Now the grinch that stole Christmas is stealing Easter–or at least Lent preceding it, and for the same absurd reasons.
While many of my Christian readers are out celebrating Easter, the Pennsylvania big government grinch made it a little tougher for some of that State’s religious Catholics to sell home-made pies in the period leading up to the holiday.
On the first Friday of Lent, an elderly female parishioner of St. Cecilia Catholic Church began unwrapping pies at the church. That’s when the trouble started.
A state inspector, there for an annual checkup on the church’s kitchen, spied the desserts. After it was determined that the pies were home-baked, the inspector decreed they couldn’t be sold.
“Everyone was devastated,” says Josie Reed, a 69-year-old former teacher known for her pumpkin and berry pies.
Sold for $1 a slice, homemade pies have always been part of the Lenten fish-fry dinners at St. Cecilia’s, located in this tiny city near Pittsburgh. Similar dinners are held in church basements and other venues across the country this time of year.
After a state crackdown forbidding the sale of homemade pies, members of St. Cecilia Catholic Church in Rochester, Pa., proceeded with their annual Lenten fish fries anyway. The pie flap helped draw healthy crowds.
The problem is the pies are illegal in Pennsylvania. Under the state’s food-safety code, facilities that provide food at four or more events in a year require at least a temporary eating and drinking license, and food has to be prepared in a state-inspected kitchen. Many churches have six fish fries a year, on Fridays during Lent. St. Cecilia’s has always complied with having its kitchen licensed, so food made there is fine to serve. But homemade goods don’t make the cut. . . .
The Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture declined to make the inspector available for comment.
As I said when I wrote about Jack Melton’s fruitcakes, the fact remains that many “licensed” kitchens are not even a fraction as clean as those of many homes. The whole thing is a bunch of bunk. The nanny state worrying about pies, you know, for your own good. Bah, Humbug. (Not sure what the Easter equivalent for Humbug is or whether there is one.)
St. Cecilia Catholic Church today, my synagogue tomorrow. (Someone else’s mosque . . . never–they don’t enforce the rules on Muslims the way they do on everyone else).
We’re from the government, and we’re here to help you.
Are they freaking kidding me? What church hasen’t had homemade goodies at some point? Do people usually get sick from them? Sheesh
mindy1 on April 12, 2009 at 8:41 pm