Taste That Old Fashioned Racism

Came across these when doing some research. Okay class, discuss...

Slow Food Recipes

A little section I'm very proud of from my thesis proposal. I need to whittle this down a lot, probably to just one paragraph. Still, there are ideas here I can't wait to expand upon.

My last chapter will focus on the rhetoric of Slow Food’s recipes. At first glance they appear warm and welcoming and, indeed, they are. However, a second look reveals them to be somewhat dichotomous. The ways recipes are written have been discussed by other authors usually portrays them as belletristic nonfiction, able to “[cut] across gender, class, religion, age, education, and background” (Bloom, Consuming Prose, 347). These authors suggest that recipes are one of the few instances of utopia, a genre of text that can unite all people regardless of how they identify themselves. Susan Leonardi in her essay Recipes for Reading notes that recipes act as a literary discourse that reproduces a social context of recipe sharing and embraces communal relations (342).

Leonardi is correct is her idea that a recipe acts as a social context and encouraging social relations. However, Slow Food’s rhetoric is always, even if not stated implicitly, politically charged. Local California farmers from a wide variety of backgrounds write the recipes in the book Come to the Table. Through Slow Food these recipes offer a social connection to the farmer, an intercultural exchange, by recreating the farmer’s recipe in question the cook is assured that they are politically and culturally aware. By looking at a few recipes in particular utilizing Bloom’s and Leonardi’s theories I hope to demonstrate my theories on how Slow Food utilizes the recipe as a tangible means of communicating their rhetoric advocating the Slow Food lifestyle.

In addition to this aspect of recipes, one must realize that the ethos of a recipe relies on abundance, appetite and indulgence according to Bloom (351). If this be the case then this only furthers the argument that the recipes Slow Food prints are divisive; those with no access to education, who are lower class, or in urban areas are unable to participate in the making of these recipes. California Cloverleaf Farms organic cheesecake, roast pig on a spit, and sweet pumpkin leaf soup do not cut across boundaries but rather enforces them, only the select may have positive dialogue with the recipe which undercuts Slow Food’s utopian, all-inclusive rhetoric. I plan to analyze this division and how Slow Food’s rhetoric in the recipe functions to exclude parts of society (intentionally and otherwise) as well as how it embodies some of Bloom’s more hopeful ideas.

Vampire Pumpkins and Watermelons

I ripped this straight from wikipedia, but I had to share it.

Vampire pumpkins and watermelons are a folk legend from the Balkans, in southeastern Europe, described by ethnologist Tatomir Vukanović. The story is associated with the Roma people of the region, from whom much of traditional vampire folklore, among other unusual legends, originated.

The belief in vampire fruit is similar to the belief that any inanimate object left outside during the night of a full moon will become a vampire. According to tradition, watermelons or any kind of pumpkin kept more than ten days or after Christmas will become a vampire, rolling around on the ground and growling to pester the living. People have little fear of the vampire pumpkins and melons because of the creatures' lack of teeth. One of the main indications that a pumpkin or melon is about to undergo a vampiric transformation (or has just completed one) is said to be the appearance of a drop of blood on its skin.

(My note: the blood is apparently rot, mold, or fungi of some kind that is red and mottled in appearance.)
The only known reference in scholarship is Tatomir Vukanović's account of his journeys in Serbia from 1933 to 1948. He wrote several years later in the Journal of the Gypsy Lore Society:
The belief in vampires of plant origin occurs among Gs. [Gypsies] who belong to the Mosl. faith in KM [Kosovo-Metohija]. According to them there are only two plants which are regarded as likely to turn into vampires: pumpkins of every kind and water-melons. And the change takes place when they are 'fighting one another.' In Podrima and Prizrenski Podgor they consider this transformation occurs if these vegetables have been kept for more than ten days: then the gathered pumpkins stir all by themselves and make a sound like 'brrrl, brrrl, brrrl!' and begin to shake themselves. It is also believed that sometimes a trace of blood can be seen on the pumpkin, and the Gs. then say it has become a vampire. These pumpkins and melons go round the houses, stables, and rooms at night, all by themselves, and do harm to people. But it is thought that they cannot do great damage to folk, so people are not very afraid of this kind of vampire.

Among the Mosl. Gs. in the village of Pirani (also in Podrima) it is believed that if pumpkins are kept after Christmas they turn into vampires, while the Lešani Gs. think that this phenomenon occurs if a pumpkin used as a syphon, when ripe and dry, stays unopened for three years.

Vampires of vegetable origin are believed to have the same shape and appearance as the original plant.
...
The Gs. in KM. destroy pumpkins and melons which have become vampires ... by plunging them into a pot of boiling water, which is then poured away, the vegetables being afterwards scrubbed by a broom and then thrown away, and the broom burned.

The majority of Vukanović's article discusses human vampires; vampiric agricultural tools are also mentioned. Though modern readers may be skeptical that such beliefs ever existed, the superstitions of Gypsy culture are well documented. The Journal of the Gypsy Lore Society has many articles that are collections of Gypsy tales, presumably oral history. However others are horror stories that allegedly include the direct involvement of the source (e.g., the fatal consequences of disrespecting the dead). In this context, vampire pumpkins and watermelons are not necessarily any more implausible than other superstitious beliefs.

Notes from the Michael Pollan Lecture

A quick post, I have been reading like crazy for the thesis and will be posting some academic book reviews (read: excerpts of my annotated bib.). Stay tuned.

So the other night I was lucky to go see Michael Pollan. He was giving a lecture put on by the California Lectures series with the question being presented by AG Kawamura, the Secretary of Agriculture for California.

I originally got tickets with the intent to scribble notes down furiously for my thesis, however not much was said that I could use but the event was intellectually stimulating none the less. Not to mention tons of fun as the reception was catered by Grange and Frog's Leap and I was able to chat and goof with some of my best food friends.

Pollan brought up many topics but seemed to make a focus of the idea of how we farm; mainly that there is no one right way. He noted that organic doesn't mean best or even healthiest. He spoke about one farmer he met that was unable to be certified as organic by the government as the feed he used for his cows wasn't organically grown, however the feed was local and the farmer felt it had less of an ecological footprint as it didn't have to be shipped from far away.

Another farmer he met had created an seemingly Orwellian system in which he had a two acre greenhouse. In it there were various manure piles which would heat the greenhouse. Large tanks filled with farmed tilapia were kept and the waste water was used to fertilize the plants in the greenhouse. The plants then would give off more oxygen for condensation to help create a mini-climate system of sorts (my terminology might be wrong here, if so I apologize). Furthermore parts of the greenhouse were tarped with plastic to simulate different growing regions all in one space. Crazy, no?

Pollan also talked about a cycle farming system used in Peru where cows would graze on a space for three years. The cattle would be moved and grain or corn would be planted. The amount of nitrogen from the cattle would sustain the crops for three years. Afterwards it's harvested, the ground allowed to chill a bit and grow sod, and the cycle restarts.

Basically, he encouraged the idea of many different flowers. There is no singular method to farming that will help feed the world.

AG and Pollan lastly went into the depravity that is Federal school lunches. Created when the government noticed that potential soldiers weren't getting enough calories and the Ag. industry had excess crops we turned our children into little waste disposing units. Sixty years later we are doing the same but with the farm excess worse than ever and certainly not nutritional.

Furthermore, with cuts in school funding and school years losing weeks of teaching time kids aren't being given a holistic - let alone effective - education about nutrition.

He talked about so much more but to go into every detail would be far too difficult. NPR should have a recording up soon. I'll be sure to post it when it is.

A Brief Musing About the Canning Cycle

This post is short but sweet - just a little something to consider. I'm on Summer Break and before I nose dive into the thesis research that will consume it I am taking a week from any real thinking. Still, while reading the New York Times I came across this little piece about home canning. Apparently it's sweeping the nation. People are once again taking part in what used to be a regular, seasonal tradition of food storage. Every single culinary culture on earth had ways of preserving their food for long periods of time.

However, when technological and biological advancements occurred in the 1920's this stopped. Mass canning production was initially funded for the purpose of the war efforts so that soldiers could have portable, long lasting food with them on the battlefield. After the great war the technology and production factories turned towards the public for income.

Canned good began to be praised as a way for the everyday woman to save herself hours upon hours of time stocking up fruits and veggies for the year. Indeed it was a time saver that way. Women were liberated from the strain of the kitchen. The food lasted even longer than home cooked. (It is also no surprise that the frozen dinner was invented at this time.)

Tins of food were a godsend. Yet as time went by people began to take more interest into what actually went into these canned good. Shocked and horrified and the quality of the produce used, the vast array of chemicals and procedures, and the underwhelming taste the food focused have begun to turn back to canning.

However, the new canning is different. We're canning and jarring recipes from a wide diversity of culture. Having a jar of kimchi next to your plum jam isn't uncommon. We have clearer understanding of the science of canning making it safer than ever (however, a point to consider, generations of people figured it out without knowing the micro-chemical biology behind it). We have the ability to create new flavors, and tools are more specific than ever. Plenty of books and manuals can be found on the internet so we can teach ourselves.

Cultural patterns and practices in the long term seem to be cyclical in nature. Fads, ideas, thoughts, practices and so on come into fashion then die out only to come back but slightly different than it was before. Raymond Williams in his discussion of Marxist theory calls this the cycle of dominant, emergent, and the residual in the construction of cultural ideas and norms. 

However canning seems to occupy all there spheres. The dominant idea of preserving food has sustained. While before the process of doing it at home was, and for the most part still is a residual concept for most of America it is re-emerging with new ideas, concepts and twist with an intense focus on good, clear, fair food. 

So will this trend continue? Will we once again tire of it and start turning back to buying canned goods again only this time cleaner and organic?

*The picture you see is from a jar of Seville orange marmalade made by Elise Bauer. Picture by me.

The Generational Recipe Shift

I've been going through my grandmother's recipe cards again putzing through and looking for something that screams Old Americana nostalgia like a nifty casserole or a recipe that's so funky and uncool that it's cool again - a horrid jello salad with marshmallows in it would adequately fulfill this want. I think making that would be so deliciously awful and retro it would revert time and space and the dish would become phenomenally awesome, like the clothes I wear that my dad boxed up from 1960-something. Sidecar cocktails and women's magazine chop suey recipes are the bell bottoms and luncheon gloves of Waybackwhen.

Still, there is one category of recipe which vexes me, the company made recipe. Recipes clipped from the back of a box of Vox (lard) or XLNT (chili beans) or other product that no longer exists. The problem here is sometimes the recipes aren't clear so I have no idea what the actual ingredient is. The instructions simply read "Stir in (X-Ingredient)." So sadly, I am left with the words that haunted me throughout college and high school trig and calculus courses: solve for X. The internet is also only so useful when hunting down something that hasn't been sold in stores since 1971.

There's always a bit of a generational recipe shift when trying to translate these cards. Sometimes the recipe is straightforward enough and I can pound out the dish easy enough. Other times my grandmother, having committed the recipe to memory or having been familiar with it, wrote it out in shorthand leaving gaps for me to figure out like baking times, degrees, or order of ingredients - creating a sudoku-style recipe where I have to fill in the blanks based on the information given which at times isn't lot, and games of sudoku don't run the risk of burning or making your kitchen smell of failure. In some cases it's simply a type of dish or flash-in-the-pan hot recipe that I'm completely unaware of and therefore have no inkling as to what the final product should be. 

But it's not all bad. I can trace out the history of culinary America, or a short period of it, through this box. It definitely reflects a time where convenience cooking is held in high regard. Sliced white bread. The intoxicating newness of frozen peas for a "Fresh Pea Soup." Canned corn that makes for a "Southwest Salad." And lo' and behold the glory and miracle that is the microwave which goes hand in hand with the frozen dinner - or ones that you can make at home! Make a dish and freeze it for later - the novelty of it all! Gather up the kids and we'll all watch a swell episode of I Love Lucy! I hear Joan Crawford will be guest starring in tonight's episode!

It's amusing to say the least. But what's even better is when the card is noted as "old fashioned" and refers to some dish popular in the 1920's like a bully old appetizer of mushrooms stuffed with crab and cheese or big bowl roman punch.
Plus I find it interesting to follow the food fads of the time. Curry powder was making a resurgence, indeed curry as the dish itself was huge. In fact there's a whole section dedicated to curry in the recipe catalog such as Hawaiian Turkey with Curry Sauce and Governor Smylie's Lamb Curry (using Smylie's brand prune chutney, of course!). Lots of stuffed mushrooms for all those neighborhood parties. I don;t judge this based solely on the box, but rather than many of these recipes are clipped from magazines and newspapers and glued to note cards.

Another big fad was Chinese food. It was HUGE in the 50's. Indeed every woman had their own unique recipe for chop suey. Incidentally, chop suey when translated to Cantonese means "odds and ends." As Jennifer 8. Lee related in her book The Fortune Cookie Chronicles Americans in the fifties whet crazy for what they thought was the national dish of all of China. This would be like someone from China coming to the U.S. and asking for our national dish which they heard was called "leftovers." (There is much more to that story but you should read her book to get it.) But basically as adventurous eating turned to the many new Chinese restaurants popping up in the U.S. which had dishes that were altered for American tastes using local ingredients - making the unfamiliar a little bit safer - people wanted to cook these dishes at home.

There's also a huge section of recipes for "Liver / Kidney," the third biggest next to "Salads" and "Grilled Meat." I assume this is one based out of poverty and of a time when people simply ate more offal before pre-packaged cuts of meat became so widely available and people were able to simply pick up mass produced choice cuts. People then became separated from it and now the populous at large is disgusted by the food their grandparents happily grew up eating.

Anyways, it's an interesing topic to look at. How food and recipes have changed and stayed the same over the years. The food fads and trends (1980's goat cheese salad anyone?). I'll probably delve into the rhetoric of recipes sooner or later too after more research. Stay tuned.

Nifty Links:
Recovered Recipes
Rockstar Ingredient Theory
War Cake Recipe
Tomato Soup Cupcake (Depression Era Recipe)

Pica: You gonna eat the rock?

Normally, this blog will update on Mondays. Today's post is just to put something up that isn't a piece of one of my research papers. Hope you enjoy.


I was unaware of this particular eating disorder until someone asked me about it at school. Curious I questioned what they were talking about. It was explained to me that some people in the world have an unusual eating disorder that causes them to eat rocks. Now I was aware of certain types of clay being formed into calcium-rich tablets but as for straight up eating clay and dirt I was a bit perplexed and decided to investigate.

Pica is a word derived from the Latin word for Magpie, a bird that is known for eating anything such as worms, animal droppings and rocks. Ther term now is used to describe a particular eating disorder in which people habitually eat things which are generally not considered food - the most common things usually are flour, cornstarch, rocks, clay and dirt. The condition is also called geophagy, which translates to dirt-eating.

Uncommon? Not really, there are cases of it documented throughout the world. Many cultures tout that it has various health benefits, the facts behind this aren't exactly well documented but we'll discuss that later. Often people resort to pica in times of extreme famine or poverty as, theoretically, it supposedly has nutritional values.

The research behind these theories is scanty at best - almost all of the studies have been relatively classist with most of them performed on relatively low income families and very few higher socioeconomic groups have ever been extensively studied.

There are a variety of theories behind it. Paul Fieldhouse in his book Food & Nutrition: Customs & Culture posits the following reasons:

• Psychological - to get attention
  
• Anthropological - traditional behavior taught by mothers to daughters during the process of gardening and food prep
• Sensory - clay eating decreases uterus movements and intestinal mobility and thus reduces nausea, it also reduces hunger
• Microbial - pica influences acidity of intestinal tract, discouraging the growth of pathogens
• Physiological - reduces the amount of saliva in the mouth which is a problem for some pregnant women
• Nutritional - pica provides some nutrient missing from the diet

The two most commonly referred to theories though are the nutritional and the psychological ones. Nutritionally, people supposedly eat clay and dirt in order to balance iron, calcium, or magnesium deficiencies. This is often is poor areas where access to a balanced diets or dietary supplements aren't available.

In regards to the idea of attention getting this theory is usually nulled by the fact that most adults, and in particular pregnant women, don't admit to the habit and struggle to keep it a secret. However, that counter-argument is itself undermined by the idea that each person could be doing it for psychological reasons.

Anthropologically, the behavior is seen as something picked up to stave off hunger during times of famine as previously noted. Sometimes the habit is carried over during times of plentifulness and then is adopted by the medicinal practices of that culture. In the theories of hot and cold medicine (the practice in which medicine is seen as a balancing of temperatures - heartburn, a hot malady, might be treated with mint, which has cooling properties) clay was a neutral medicine able to warm cold maladies or put out hot ones.

Of course, not to say there aren't plenty of risks involved. Lead toxicity is a major problem as lead poisoning which according to emedicine can have neurologic, hematologic, endocrine, cardiovascular, and renal effects. The ingestion of pathogens especially in regards to corprophagia and xylophagia where bacteria and poisonous mycological growths can occur. Obstruction of the digestion tract in regards to the consumption of paper, flour, or starch can also be a serious problem which may result in organ rupture and blood poisoning.

Nowadays you can start buying types of clay and dirt in pill form as a dietary supplement. In fact NASA requires it's astronauts on the space station to take calcium rich clay tablets to assist with keeping optimum bone density in zero gravity. So technically, many people partake in geophagy, but not in a habitual way. Indeed, taking these supplements can help cure the condition and often iron supplements are prescribed which for some helps relieve cravings.

A curious habit to consider. Future studies however still must be conducted over multiple socioeconomic, racial, gender, and age categories to ascertain any real or solid data. The little bit that has been done is incredibly biased and therefore unreliable.


Pica on Wikipedia