Sacred Pieces of My History
Feb. 3rd, 2007 10:10 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ladyspriteI've discovered, in the past year or so, a fondness for cultural history anecdotes - especially when they pertain to food, and cooking. So when I found a book titled 'Fashionable Food: Seven Decades of Food Fads,' I had to buy a copy.
It's an adorably fun book, and it's got a lot of.... interesting recipes. The writer does seem a bit more sarcastic and condescending than I might have chosen, but overall it's a good read. And I can understand the urge to scoff at the apparent craze for gelatin salads that appeared to have a deathgrip on America for forty years or so. Or the trend for Authentic Chinese Chop Suey, or Banana-Popcorn Salad with mayonnaise. And I'm sure that, forty years from now, people will be laughing at our current psychotic love-hate relationship with eating, and the disturbing trend towards non-food.
However, the author went too far, and crossed a line that I don't know if I can ever forgive her for crossing. She had the nerve to mock fluffernutters. Not just for being bad food, either - she made fun of them for having a stupid name. This is inexcusable.
Mock someone else's sacred food of childhood, if you must, but do not touch my comfort food. Fluffernutters may not be sophisticated (her personal criteria for 'good food,') or expensive, or difficult to make, but.... okay, they're not even technically that good. But they're sweet, and sticky, and along with the equally unsophisticated, white-trash special bologna-and-cheese sandwich, they made up the vast and overwhelming majority of my lunches while I was in elementary school. I can't remember the last time I ever actually ate a fluffernutter, but I have enough fond memories of them to get quite irate when someone who thinks that peasant cuisine is the pinnacle of American culinary accomplishment because it happened to be trendy when she published refers to them as inedible.
On the other hand, I really can't take myself too seriously, either. I suppose I'm just as bad as the author in my irrational defense of the Food I Like as better than the Food Someone Else Liked. And the name is kind of silly, though for me that's part of the appeal.
At least she didn't attack macaroni and cheese as uncouth and ridiculous. That might just be grounds for an honest-to-goodness feud.....
It's an adorably fun book, and it's got a lot of.... interesting recipes. The writer does seem a bit more sarcastic and condescending than I might have chosen, but overall it's a good read. And I can understand the urge to scoff at the apparent craze for gelatin salads that appeared to have a deathgrip on America for forty years or so. Or the trend for Authentic Chinese Chop Suey, or Banana-Popcorn Salad with mayonnaise. And I'm sure that, forty years from now, people will be laughing at our current psychotic love-hate relationship with eating, and the disturbing trend towards non-food.
However, the author went too far, and crossed a line that I don't know if I can ever forgive her for crossing. She had the nerve to mock fluffernutters. Not just for being bad food, either - she made fun of them for having a stupid name. This is inexcusable.
Mock someone else's sacred food of childhood, if you must, but do not touch my comfort food. Fluffernutters may not be sophisticated (her personal criteria for 'good food,') or expensive, or difficult to make, but.... okay, they're not even technically that good. But they're sweet, and sticky, and along with the equally unsophisticated, white-trash special bologna-and-cheese sandwich, they made up the vast and overwhelming majority of my lunches while I was in elementary school. I can't remember the last time I ever actually ate a fluffernutter, but I have enough fond memories of them to get quite irate when someone who thinks that peasant cuisine is the pinnacle of American culinary accomplishment because it happened to be trendy when she published refers to them as inedible.
On the other hand, I really can't take myself too seriously, either. I suppose I'm just as bad as the author in my irrational defense of the Food I Like as better than the Food Someone Else Liked. And the name is kind of silly, though for me that's part of the appeal.
At least she didn't attack macaroni and cheese as uncouth and ridiculous. That might just be grounds for an honest-to-goodness feud.....
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Date: 2007-02-07 05:43 am (UTC)