Attn Bakers - don't try to carry 5lbs of sugar through TSA security

[housewolf]

They'll confiscate it, claim it's an "accelerant"

From a tweet this afternoon from Dorie Greenspan, she was on her way to Paris and wanted to take US flour & sugar. They let the flour through, but not the sugar. Would have been okay if checked through but not as a carry-on.

Just thought you should know, in case you ever.... you know...

P.S. Twitter is really fun for these little personal tidbits!

[EFerrari]

1. My grandmother tried to smuggle pineapple filled Salvadoran pastry

on the way home once. I was about 11 and we were traveling alone. They didn't find it in Guatemala but they got it in L.A. When they took it away from her, she got really angry with me. She understood but didn't speak English and couldn't dicker with them herself. She didn't speak to me all the way back to San Francisco, and it was the longest 40 minutes of my life. I felt soooooooo bad that I couldn't save her semita. It was a whole sheet, too. Gad, nowadays, they might have tased her over pastry so I guess 1967 wasn't as bad as it could have been. lol

[housewolf]

9. Oh that's too bad!

Think I'd have been tempted to sit down and eat it and then try to go through!

Sad that your grandmother took it out on you, how unfair! Sadly, we humans have a tendency to need to blame someone and often choose the "other" closest to us.

[EFerrari]

11. She was just frustrated -- it was really good pastry!

lol

:)

[canetoad]

2. Isn't taking food to France

Like carrying coals to Newcastle?

[Glassunion]

3. That's odd.

We carried on 2 pounds once coming back from Colorado. It did happen to be natural raw sugar. Not sure if that makes a difference.

They did however confiscate the all-too-deadly huckleberry jam though. :(

[housewolf]

8. Sometimes it seems as though what they confiscate depends on which particular agent scans your stuf

On one flight, they missed or ignore a bigger-than-3-oz tube of toothpaste. On my return flight, they rejected it and I had to throw it away (to my dismay).

It may have had to do with the quantity of sugar (a 5 lb bag). Maybe 2 lbs is okay but 5 lbs isn't? Who knows, with them. Sometimes it seems they make up the rules as they go along.

[Warpy]

4. I discovered substituting sugar for pure carbon in gunpowder when I was a kid

It produces a billowing white cloud of not too awful smelling smoke, great for touching off lines across the street and scaring the crap out of drivers.

Yes, I was a precocious brat from hell, why do you ask?

[EFerrari]

5. LOL!

[silverweb]

7. Joe, is that you?

Was that before or after you got into my junior chemistry set and nearly blew up the house? :rofl:

[housewolf]

10. Thata's so funny, Warpy

Wish I'd known you back in those days!

[Coyote_Bandit]

6. I know somene who tried to carry

some vanilla protein powder in her carry-on. She packed a small ziplock bag with just enough powder to mix a drink on a layover. This young genius missed her flight and spent considerable time explaining that the white powder was not an illegal drug.