If you scramble the letters in the word artisan you can spell rants.

The current use of the world artisan by the corporate food factories is making me rant.

Twenty-five years ago, I remember having to look up artisan for the correct spelling.

We were beginning to serve America's own artisanal cheeses from Maytag and Shelburne Farms.

At the time America was serving the best lamb and beef and seafood in the world.

We not only had the best food product, we had more ice for better transport, and we had better refrigeration to keep it the best.

American chefs had travelled the world and had been trained in France, Italy and Asia, and they were boldly moving beyond classic preparations to develop our own American cookery with that best food product.

But 25 years ago, we were lagging a little behind in the exceptional cheese and charcouterie departments, but we were gaining ground.

Maytag Blue and Shelburne Farms cheeses were some of the best in the world. The cheeses were being prepared by true artisans, and I had to double check the spelling for our menus.

It was before Wikipedia – at least Wikipedia for me.

The Webster desk encyclopedia described an artisan as "one who hand crafts a superior creation at a high level of craftsmanship that approximates art."

Artisans were making Maytag Blue and Shelburne Cheddar.

At our restaurants we work with chef-artisans every day.

And they work with artisan-crafted sausages and cheeses and local Island honey crafted by a local beekeeper.

Our chefs craft sauces and flavored butters and charcouterie, and we carve meats, and we clean whole fresh fish, and we craft our own bread and desserts. In our conceit, we believe our preparation of foie gras on bread pudding approximates art.

And now begins my rant.

Macdonalds is marketing an "artisan" chicken sandwich.

No kidding.

That Macdonalds' fried-chicken-from-somewhere-in-Asia-sandwich is not a "superior creation made at a high level of craftsmanship that approximates art."

It just isn't.

And the lying marketing guy that made that line up should be forced to eat a great many of those sandwiches forever.

Like most rants, I can't stop here.

I have discovered a cracker company recently that names its cracker the "artisanal cracker."

It comes in a plastic wrapper that advises the cracker is produced in a factory in Ohio that also "manufactures food products that may contain nuts."

There is a chain salad outfit with local branches that promises "tomatoes picked from the vine within days".

How many days?

Where else are you going to get a tomato except from a vine?

How did they get it to taste like it escaped from a can?

A new chicken tender chain boasts a "homemade cookie."

My grandmother did not hermetically seal her homemade cookies in plastic wrap also printed with a warning that the cookies were made "in a factory in Ohio that also worked with peanuts."

The most abused word in restaurant land is now local.

My new favorite is the roast beef sandwich chain that boasts that its products are "locally served."

Read that one again.

But there is good news. I hear rumors that restaurant chain marketing is changing for the better – that its marketing is becoming more truthful.

The writers are all heading to Washington to work as speech writers.