Last night, I was working on some new curtains for a guest room in our house, folding over one hemmed edge to create a pocket for the curtain rod and sealing it with Liquid Stitch. And, oddly enough, that chore made me think of FSIS’s recent proposal to declare salmonella as an adulterant in raw, frozen, stuffed chicken products.

They’re related, at least in a “butterfly flaps its wings in Thailand and causes a hurricane in Florida” kind of way. Here’s what I mean:

The new curtains are technically shower curtains, but they’re heavy duty cotton (not plastic), with a colorful pattern, and all they need is that curtain rod pocket to gracefully transform whatever corner they’re put in. Using fabric glue, though, caused me a brief pang of self-recrimination: Shouldn’t I be sewing the darn things? I do know how, and the handcraft of needle and thread seems like an investment in old-school quality and pride of workmanship.

“Mom would have sewn these,” I thought, followed by, “but if she had access to a product like Liquid Stitch, she’d have used it, instead.”

My parents appreciated antiques and “the old ways,” but they were day-to-day consumers of mid-century convenience. They drove only cars with automatic transmissions, heavily shopped the canned and frozen foods sections, and embraced polyester in all its magical forms.

With the exception of my sister, who’s a self-taught chef of considerable skill, my parents’ progeny also embrace the quick-and-easy over the better-but-more-time-consuming path. Believe me, those curtain rod pockets ain’t my first Liquid Stitch rodeo.

In fact, 20th and 21^st century American ingenuity has blazed more trails into sheer convenience and ease than in any other area of scientific advancement. Convenience is so central to modern American culture that, on average, we spend less than 20 minutes making the evening meal. Our average attention span has been measured at 8 seconds — about the same length of time as a goldfish. This development, unfolding over generations, has far-reaching and potentially dire implications.

It means most of us can’t fix our own modern cars, even if we wanted to. It means that our elegant but fussy linen work attire has given way to chicly cut jersey separates (or cashmere, if you’re a lawyer). And it means that most consumers in this market don’t know squat about real cooking and even less about food safety — but aren’t going to take the time to, ahem, read the instructions so clearly printed on the label.

And so we get the unwelcome development of an FSIS regulation that declares salmonella an adulterant, for one type of product at least, with all the extra testing and bureaucracy that entails.

Processors can argue, and in fact I anticipate a pitched battle over the regulations in the months to come. But the push for convenience above all else is integral to American culture, and the meat industry is going to have to come to terms with the implications of that — from health issues related to ready-made but highly processed foods to ignorant consumers who don’t, and likely never will, “just cook it.”

The butterfly flaps its wings

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