Here's a new one for you: This is less a food question than it is a tax question, but the answer calls for food expertise. I have been buying prepackaged gnocchi, from a variety of manufacturers, for quite a while but only today noticed that I was charged Maine sales tax. Grocery "staples" (which, in Maine, incidentally, specifically include pasta sauce) are tax-exempt. Prepared foods, defined as ready to eat, are taxed; the general rule is that if something must be cooked before consumption, it isn't taxed. The basic ingredient of store-bought gnocchi is, of course, potatoes, which in this case are precooked. But in addition there are various raw flours and/or starches, such as rice, wheat, corn, and potato. These latter are inedible when uncooked from the standpoint of both digestibility and safety. It would no more occur to me to eat gnocchi right out of the package than any other pasta. I might, on the other hand, eat pasta sauce from the jar, especially if it contains truffles ;)
It is well known that the law is an a**, so I have no expectation that anyone here can sort out that aspect of my question--but you are all good cooks and have been eating food all your lives. Who eats uncooked gnocchi? Would anyone recommend it?
Note: my favorite brand's packaging says "Cook before eating."
3 Comments
Nancy April 21, 2023
Thanks for the story.
I think this is a political (as in horse-trading) question, or as you say, a tax question, not a food question. Somebody in the food industry got a tax deal.
But since you\re asking, never would I ever. Eat raw gnocchi, that is.
702551 April 20, 2023
I don't find the thought of cold gnocchi particularly appetizing but there are plenty of people (especially Americans) who have unusual food preferences.
The notion of eating cold cooked gnocchi isn't all that far from cold pizza or any manner of cold cooked potato dishes (including cold french fries or hash browns). For sure people eat cold noodles like pasta salads even instant ramen noodles (which are precooked, usually fried).
Heck, a lot of Americans enjoying eating raw starch (even though the human digestive tract cannot process it) to the point that bags of flour in the USA state to cook before eating. No other country really has to do this. Only Americans are dumb enough to eat raw cookie dough but there you have it. Hell, we even make ice cream flavors to replicate it, something not found elsewhere.
Just chalk it up to "(American) people are weird". Food manufacturers are likely to get sued if some idiot eats raw food (that should be cooked) and gets sick, "Why didn't you tell me it had to be cooked?!?" So manufacturers put that warning on the package for morons.
Medora V. April 20, 2023
"Cold" is not necessarily raw, though. I remember that when the song "Cold Pizza for Breakfast" came out, I had to plead guilty. But the pizza would have had to have spent some time in an oven previous to cooling off overnight. Thanks for weighing in, in any case.
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