Pollan would say I don’t, since I grew up in mid-20th century America. Except that my mid-20th century American experience was in a small (and I mean really small) town in a rural county in the South.
Back then, was I more connected to my food?
We ate a lot of store-bought big name brands of processed food: Heinz tomato ketchup; Jell-O; Tang; Kool-Aid; Hormel bacon; Aunt Jemima pancake mix; Log Cabin maple-flavored syrup; Hershey’s chocolate-flavored syrup; Kelloggs’ and Post cereals (Sugar Frosted Flakes, Sugar Smacks, Sugar Pops -- notice a pattern here?); Minute Rice; Duncan Hines and Betty Crocker cake mixes; Lipton tea bags; Rice-A-Roni (the San Francisco treat!); Lay’s potato chips; Campbell’s soup; Gerber’s baby food; Bluebonnet margarine; Wesson corn oil; Crisco shortening; Libbey’s fruit cocktail; French’s mustard; Van Camp’s pork and beans; Karo syrup; Bird’s Eye concentrated orange juice; Oscar Meyer wieners; ReaLemon; Borden’s Eagle Brand sweetened condensed milk; Kraft Miracle Whip, mayonnaise and Cracker Barrel cheese; La Choy (makes Chinese food SWING American!) chow mein noodles; Nestle’s chocolate chips; Carnation evaporated milk; Star-Kist tuna; Bisquick; Wishbone dressing; Jolly Time pop corn; Quaker oats; Nabisco everything (Premium Saltines, Ritz crackers, Cream of Wheat, Barnum’s Animal Crackers, Oreos, Fig Newtons, Lorna Dunes); Chef Boy-Ar-Dee spaghetti sauce and Beefaroni; Morton’s salt; McCormick’s ground spices; Underwood Deviled Ham; Armour Vienna Sausage; Spam......
Many of these foods, margarine, corn oil and shortening for example, were supposed to be vastly better, health-wise, than the butter, grease and lard they were replacing. And we did have our “local” brands for some staples. Coffee was JFG or Maxwell House, but now I realize both were pretty bad. Flour was White Lily, Martha White, Southern or Red Band, but of course it was then, as now, processed into absolute whiteness. Even our corn meal mostly came from these companies. Sugar was Dixie Crystals or Domino. Bread, wonderfully, was Kern’s ("Kern's is good bread'); sliced or buns, all-white-all-the-time. And anything milk related (milk, buttermilk, ice cream, cottage cheese) was Mayfield’s.
But I didn’t mean for this to turn into just another nostalgic list; more to my point, there are probably some reasons why I can recall all these food brands so easily.
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| Grandma putting cornbread dressing into the oven |
1. My mom cooked. She made breakfast every morning and supper almost every night. And on weekends and in the summer (my mom was a high school English teacher) she made lunch. Or we walked across the street to eat at my grandmother’s house. No, I can’t claim I had any real notion about where flour came from, but I watched it being made into lots of biscuits and pie crusts. I knew even less about restaurants. There were no chain eateries within my realm of experience. Maybe a “steak house” out on the highway or a drive-in grill with burgers, fries and milkshakes, but that’s about it and those were frequented only rarely.
2. Frozen food was just getting started. Our refrigerators weren’t frost-free and only had very small freezer compartments. Preserved foods we bought or put by were mostly canned or dried.
3. My dad’s family (those grandparents who lived across the street with my unmarried aunt) had been share-croppers since the Depression, but my grandmother no longer made a garden. My grandfather was diabetic (I guess I should have listed some brand of saccharin tablets above) and in a wheelchair and Grandma was 71 years old when I was born. No one else in the family was interested in making a garden for her. All those wonderful, convenient foods listed above meant no one had to.
4. My own family (Dad, Mom and my older brother, Bill) got a television when I was born. I’ve never lived a day without the presence of TV and its accompanying waves of advertisements. Brands were BIG business. Advertising worked.
BUT, we lived in a rural county where farming was still a way of life for many people we knew. So I did understand from early days that corn picked from the stalk only 30 minutes ago tastes so much better than anything bought from a store. Tomatoes ripened on the vine and still warm from the sun need only a little salt to satisfy a mid-day hunger. We spent summer days and evenings stringing beans, shelling peas, shucking corn, peeling tomatoes, drying fruit and making pickles and jelly. My aunt always complained that she never got to eat fresh fruit because Grandma would have it made into jelly before anyone got the chance to eat it.
There was always a jar of sorghum syrup (not molasses) on the table.
I’ve picked and eaten poke salad.
I’ve picked blackberries and scratched the chiggers afterwards. But not many. There were always less-wealthy kids who needed and enjoyed the extra money peddling buckets of berries in town could bring their families.
Fishing, and even hunting, were still normal activities, but venison or bear were uncommon meats at our tables. I’ve never been fishing myself and I’ve never cleaned fish or even seen anyone dress game. I’ve never seen a hog killing or cattle slaughtered. Grandma did keep chickens for several years however, so I know where eggs come from and I’ve seen her ring a chicken’s neck for Sunday dinner. I’m positive the resulting fried chicken was great, but I bet it was made in an electric skillet instead of an iron frying pan (her wood-burning kitchen stove had been removed by the time I came along). Would I really have appreciated yesterday’s barbequed pork more if I’d watched the pig die? I wouldn't object to seeing that, but it really doesn’t feel necessary to me.
I’ve never successfully raised a tomato plant. I’m ashamed of that. But at least now, after years of suburban living, I enjoy the freshness of basil, parsley, oregano, sage and thyme from our own little herb plot.
I’m really not panning food origin consciousness. I think it is good to know where my coffee beans are coming from and what it takes for someone to provide them for me. I like the thought of supporting people around me who want to produce and share wonderful, locally grown meat and vegetables. The more I’m introduced to “heirloom” varieties, the more I know that they taste better (more like the food I knew growing up)! And even a Southerner can learn that maple syrup tastes better than maple-flavored sugar syrup.
So I do get it, but I still won’t capitulate that, as a mid-20th century American, I do not have a food culture. But as this particular food memory has gone on long enough, I’ll address that here again on another day and in another entry.
In the meantime, Edward and Hunt will be back from the golf course in a few minutes so we’ll be having Coca-Colas and Hebrew National hotdogs with Patterson’s Hot Dog Chili and chopped Vidalia onions on Colonial Bread hotdog buns for lunch. Oh, and some chopped, locally grown cabbage!
And the post golf hot dog lunch was delightful as usual.
ReplyDeleteThis was a wonderfully written piece.
I love Michael Pollan. I consider him THE finest modern naturalists. That being said, I rate 'Omnivore’s Dilemma' as my least favorite of his works. I recommend you put it down and read 'The Botany of Desire' instead. That book absolutely changed my whole perspective on the natural world.
ReplyDeleteAs far as a food culture-- I think it is over rated. I cringe when I hear children speculate that onions grow from on a tree- or when they freak out if they discover that vegetables grow in dirt. Otherwise, I don't get too worried about food miles, local eating, food culture, slow cooking or any other theme de jour.
I do, respectfully, think you would benefit from participating in the death of one animal that you eat. I think it makes you eternally more grateful, and more aware, that a living thing died so you can eat.
I'll be happy to take you fishing. :)
Brea, the essay you wrote about the egg-laden fish was great. If I don't ever experience directly the death of my meat, that article explained it to me wonderfully. But please take me fishing anyway.
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