Secret Ingredients -- Casserole Reading Response

We have been discussing various food cultures, from Bich’s American food culture experiences in Stealing Buddha's Dinner, Anthony Bourdain’s own explorations in food around the world, as well as our own food experiences.  M.F.K Fisher’s essay, Nor Censure Nor Distain, brings up another aspect of food that we have touched on before: time (or lack thereof) and how it affects food preparation and food enjoyment.  I would like to therefore discuss the casserole as a symbol, not only for their undeniable American-ness, but also for their flexibility and ingenuity.  

First, there is the adaptability of the casserole.  The casserole follows a basic form, “A good casserole will have clear-cut textures as well as flavor, and tired food can never stand up to the slow baking it should be given.”  Besides that, a casserole can become anything.  it can adapt to a certain person’s tastes and can feed many people.  People change the recipe, experiment, and share their findings with each other, acting as food in my opinion should act: as an outlet for people to gather and share.  I think it makes an interesting point for the fast-paced lives that U.S. Americans live while still maintaining this slow-cooking method.  Fisher explains the casserole as a “compromise between one’s knowledge of good cooking and one’s harried way of life.”  The casserole in this sense seems to be the epitome of American food culture.

I am, however, a little confused by the author’s argument.  On one hand I feel like the author is saying that casseroles are a symbol of America’s downfall from sophisticated cooking; on the other hand I get the sense that Fisher really likes casseroles.  Any thoughts?  Back to the casserole, it does seem to stem from some kind of American tendency to spend more time at work and less time doing housework, and if one looks at the casserole as a compromise, I think it does do a good job at fusing great taste (most of the time) with low preparation time, as well as big portion size.  We also have to look at the working middle class.  More and more often both parents are working, and a casserole does not require any special skills.  I personally love casseroles, and love the idea that Fisher brings up as a casserole being a compromise.  Fisher describes that “in times when I have combined going to an office and running a decently nourished household I have evolved many ways to cook more than will probably be needed for a meal, so that something will be left, to challenge what I prefer to think of as my inventiveness rather than my lazy penury.” This almost seems to reflect the idea that to make a casserole is lazy but necessary.  I would like to counter this argument and say that, while the casserole can symbolize America’s fast-paced ways, it can also symbolize America’s adaptability and ability to take a simple recipe and make it unique (and quick!).

Bacon Bliss (Final Memoir Draft)

My childhood family dinners lay neatly nestled between after-school activities and bath time. I look back on my youngest years and remember meals consisting of roasted chicken sitting in a pool of mushroom sauce and vegetables with islands of dumplings rising out of the thick salty swamp.  I remember tuna noodle casserole with squares of greasy cheddar cheese sizzling on top, frozen chicken nuggets, gigantic pork chops seasoned with a hearty amount of Lawry’s Seasoned Salts, and wing nights, when my father and sister would each put down 20-30 sticky barbecued wings in one sitting.  But as activities increased and schedules became busier and busier, daily family dinners turned into weekly meals, and soon, only occurred every once in a while.

As family meals grew sparse my independence from the typical American food culture grew as well.  By age 12 I was experimenting in the kitchen with delicacies like curried lentils and rice noodles, and I had built up the idea of vegetarians to an unhealthy saintly standard.  In my mind, vegetarians were animal-loving beautiful activists capable of an insurmountable level of self-control and self-confidence.  They were my idols.  Someone had only to say “I am a vegetarian” and they turned into a god.  My middle school years were a blur of days when I declared myself a true-blooded vegetarian, and other days when I realized that there was no real point to depriving myself of meat besides an inflated title and boosted ego.  I had once gone an entire week without eating meat, and then my mom made me stop because all I was eating were french fries and iceberg lettuce.  After that I pretty much gave up the idea of becoming an enlightened earth-warrior bearing kale and quinoa as weapons and settled on the mediocrity of chicken pot pie and pepperoni pizza.  

It wasn’t until my sophomore year of high school that my entire view of vegetarianism shifted from an exotic political statement and representation of someone’s worth to a practical and healthy lifestyle choice. I came to this decision through a combination of short-lived childhood dreams, Robert Kenner’s documentary film Food, Inc., the surprisingly informative guidebook Vegetarianism for Dummies, and horror of the United States meat industry.  Rather than simply wanting the label of “vegetarian,” I now also wanted the health benefits and wanted to stand for the food justice cause that so many vegetarians had spoken of.  The meat industry freaked me out, and who wouldn’t get queasy watching a hundred pigs being simultaneously slaughtered after months of forcing food down their throats?

The first three years of vegetarianism were bliss.  I was enlightened—I had discovered that the meat industry was bogus, and was reaping the benefits.  I learned how to cook myself vibrant and fun meals filled with vegetables and grains, how to get the right combination of amino acids from my meals to form complete proteins, and how tofu could soak up pretty much any flavor it was cooked with.  Those first three years I was blissfully unaware that meat even existed; I had no cravings for it, and I was having too much fun making my own meals to go looking for it.  It wasn’t until nearly three and a half years after my induction into vegetarianism that I came face to face with the most viciously tasty meats of them all: bacon.  This came as a complete surprise; when I was little I had always thought bacon smelled like cat vomit mixed with baked beans.  I had rarely eaten it.  

After a night of fun (maybe a little too much fun), I woke up in my bed with a pounding headache and the distant memories of skinny dipping and riding around the streets in a golf cart.  I slowly got out of bed and shuffled towards the kitchen.  That’s when I smelled it.  The smoky fragrance of the bacon and the sound of its fat sizzling in the pan hit me like a smack in the face.  My mouth started watering and all I could think about was sliding one of those crispy greasy strips of pork into my mouth.  I had never wanted bacon this much in my life.  I didn’t understand.  Bacon?  The very thing that had sent me running for vegetarianism in the first place?  I tried imagining the squealing pigs and unsanitary factory this bacon had been prepared in, but the smell was relentless.  I spent the morning talking to my father, the heartless culprit who had made the bacon in the first place, and avoided eye-contact with the growing pile of succulent pig bits.  I wasn’t allowed to eat that.  I hadn’t eaten meat in three years, and I was not about to give up that accomplishment in order to fulfill this hangover-induced irrational lust for a bite of what seemed at the time to be the best bacon in the world.  I was at a cross-road, each successive thought contradicting the previous one, complicating the situation.  I was about to get up from the kitchen table to leave the room when my father abruptly left the kitchen (and the bacon) to go wake everyone else up.  I was left there, stranded, the pile of bacon waiting for my greedy fingers to snatch it up and let the heavenly slice of pork fill my mouth with exquisite and earth-altering flavor.  

Before I could stop myself my feet had taken me to the counter and my hand had seized two slices of bacon.  I devoured it without a second thought.  By the time my father came back with my sister and step-mother in tow, I was sitting back at the table acting as if nothing had happened.  They suspected nothing.  Relaxing a bit, I closed my eyes and remembered the crispy bacon hitting my tongue, overwhelming my taste buds and setting my senses ablaze.  It had been so good, so deliciously succulent.  What was wrong with me?  Could I even call myself a vegetarian anymore?  My thoughts morphed from bacon bliss to vegetarian hell.  I panicked.  Was I now one of those “flexitarians,” who only claimed the vegetarian diet when it was convenient for them?  What was I now? A traitor?  A fraud?  A liar?  The labels ran through my head, each one cutting me deeper, making me feel worse.  And then I realized, these were all just labels.  Why had I become a vegetarian?  When I was little simply the label was enough for me, but when I had actually committed I had done so out of purpose.  I had done so out of health for myself and health for the planet.  I could still smell the bacon, could still taste the slimy residue in my mouth, but it tasted different now.  It tasted like freedom; it tasted like the harsh reality of infrequent family dinners and the creativity their absence sparked within me; it tasted like new understandings and new meanings of idolized labels and perfect lifestyles.  It tasted like an indulgence; it tasted like a rare occasion.  It tasted like bacon.

My Food-Memoir (First Draft)

I look back on my youngest years and remember daily family dinners consisting of roasted chicken sitting in a pool of mushroom sauce and vegetables with islands of dumplings rising out of the thick salty swamp.  I remember tuna noodle casserole with squares of melted cheddar sizzling on top, frozen chicken nuggets, gigantic pork chops seasoned with a hearty amount of Lawry’s Seasoned Salts, and wing nights, when my father and sister would put down 20-30 sticky barbecued wings each in one sitting.  I remember growing older and realizing that these daily dinners were turning into every other day, once a week, once in a while family dinners.

As family meals grew sparse my independence from the typical American food culture grew as well.  By age 12 I was experimenting in the kitchen with delicacies like curried lentils and rice noodles, and I had built up the idea of vegetarians to an unhealthy saintly standard.  In my mind, vegetarians were animal-loving beautiful activists capable of an insurmountable level of self-control and self-confidence.  They were my idols.  Someone had only to say “I am a vegetarian” and they turned into a god.  If they said “I am a vegan” they turned into the center of the universe.  My middle school years were a blur of days when I declared myself a true-blooded vegetarian, and other days when I realized that there was no real point to depriving myself of meat besides an inflated title and boosted ego.  I had once gone an entire week without eating meat, and then my mom made me stop because all I was eating were french fries and iceberg lettuce.  After that I pretty much gave up the idea of becoming an enlightened earth-warrior bearing kale and quinoa as weapons and settled on the mediocrity of chicken pot pie and pepperoni pizza.  

It wasn’t until my sophomore year of high school that my entire view of vegetarianism shifted from an exotic political statement and representation of someone’s worth to a practical and healthy lifestyle choice. I came to this decision through a combination of short-lived childhood dreams, Robert Kenner’s documentary film Food, Inc., the surprisingly informative guidebook Vegetarianism for Dummies, and a general disinterest in meat and horror of the United States meat industry.  

The first three years of vegetarianism were bliss.  I learned how to cook myself vibrant and fun meals filled with vegetables and grains, how to get the right combination of amino acids from my meals to form complete proteins, and how tofu could soak up pretty much any flavor it was cooked with.  Those first three years I was blissfully unaware that meat even existed; I had no cravings for it, and I was having too much fun making my own meals to go looking for it.  It wasn’t until nearly three and a half years after my induction into vegetarianism that I came face to face with the most viciously tasty meats of them all: bacon.  This came as a complete surprise; when I was little I had always thought bacon smelled like cat vomit mixed with baked beans.  I had rarely eaten it.  

I was spending the week in a retirement community in Florida with my father’s side of the family to celebrate the marriage of my grandpa Tom to Geri, a wonderful, intelligent, and kind woman he had been dating for the past five years.  A few nights before the official wedding and reception, my sister, cousins, and I all snuck out to the pool (which had closed hours earlier) and hopped the fence.  That’s about alI remember that night, and I woke up in my bed with a pounding headache and the distant memories of skinny dipping and riding around the streets in a golf cart.  I slowly got out of bed and shuffled towards the kitchen.  And that’s when I smelled it.  The smokey fragrant smell of the bacon and the sound of its fat sizzling in the pan hit me like a smack in the face.  My mouth started watering and all I could think about was sliding one of those crispy greasy strips of pork into my mouth.  I had never wanted bacon this much in my life.  I spent the morning talking to my father, the heartless culprit who had made the bacon in the first place, and avoided eye-contact with the growing pile of succulent pig bits.  I wasn’t allowed to eat that.  I hadn’t eaten meat in three years, and I was not about to give up that accomplishment in order to fulfill this hangover-induced irrational lust for a bite of seemingly the best bacon in the world.  I was at a cross-roads, each successive thought contradicting the previous and complicating the situation.  I was about to get up from the kitchen table to leave the room when my father abruptly left the kitchen (and the bacon) to go wake everyone else up.  I was left there, stranded, the pile of bacon waiting for my greedy fingers to snatch it up and let the heavenly slice of pork fill my mouth with exquisite and earth-altering flavor.  

Before I could stop myself my feet had taken me to the counter and my hand had seized two slices of bacon.  I devoured it without a second thought.  By the time my father came back with my sister and step-mother in tow, I was sitting back at the table acting as if nothing had happened.  They suspected nothing.  Relaxing a bit, I closed my eyes and remembered the crispy bacon hitting my tongue, overwhelming my taste buds and setting my senses ablaze.  And then I realized something: it hadn’t tasted that good.  In fact, I was now acutely aware of a slimy bacon residue caked on the inside of my mouth.  The luscious smell that had awoken me earlier this morning had reverted back to the normal cat vomit/bean odor, and the glistening pile of succulent bacon now looked only like a pile of fat-smothered pig bits.

I was never going to eat bacon again.

Induction into Pescatarianism

When the guides told me we would be eating fish for lunch, I did not expect to be served a plate with a whole yellow snapper fresh off the grill, skin peeling back in wisps of thin crispy scales and eyes still sizzling in their sockets.  The charred fish rested in a bed of fresh platanos and fried rice.  We had spent the entire afternoon snorkeling off the coast of La Ceiba, Honduras. The clusters of tiny jellyfish bobbing about in the ocean waters took a liking to me, and every few minutes I would feel the light sting of their affection on my arms and legs.  I looked down at my lunch, its mouth slightly open and exposing a row of tiny jagged teeth.  I had been a vegetarian up until that point for 3 years; was I really going to break that streak and eat this fish?  I was tired and sore and my mouth was dried out from the salt water.  The sun beat down upon my back, and my stomach clenched with hunger.  Hell yes, I was going to eat that fish.

We were not provided with utensils, so I began peeling the charred-pink flesh dusted with flakes of fried skin, off the brittle bones of the snapper.  And so started my love of seafood.  On that day I vowed never to pass up another fresh fish, scallop, crustacean, or other delectable sea creature presented to me on a plate ever again.  I would eat it all, and love every minute of it.   

Every once in a while I would stop to lick my oil-covered fingers and pop a slice of a platano into my mouth.  These will forever be the perfect side to any fresh seafood dish.  The starches of this great fruit mixed perfectly with the oils seeping with the savory flavor of the grilled snapper.  I picked at each tiny bone, sucking all the remaining succulent bits from the skeleton, trying to make the flavor last as long as possible. 

After lunch, we all clamored back onto our boat and headed inland.  I smelled the cool breeze of the ocean, the splash of salty water on my cheeks, and closed my eyes.  All I could see was the yellow snapper, its face frozen in an expression of shock and anger.  It was delicious.

A Cook's Tour, Part 1

I want to talk about meals.  More specifically, I want to discuss the intricacies of a meal, the preparation that goes into it, and the people that gather to share it with one another.  This concept is demonstrated beautifully by Anthony Bourdain in his book A Cook’s Tour.

 In his chapter “Where Food Comes From,” he tells us about his first pig slaughter in Portugal.  I read this at first in awe with the detail in which Bourdain described the event, but then I realized that I was also struck by all of the people in attendance.  There was “José’s brother Francisco, his other brother, also Francisco… his mother, father, assorted other relatives, farmhands, women and children” (20), all there to watch the killing of a pig that would later turn into their meal.  They know exactly where this pig has been, how it’s been raised, and how it has been killed.  How many of us (U.S. Americans) can say the same?  Here our pork comes from factories where hundreds of pigs are slaughtered each day, gift-wrapped, and sent out in perfect little bundles to our doorstep.  Compare this with the scene Bourdain describes.  One pig is being killed by three men instead of ten or twenty pigs being gassed to death with no one around.  What does this disconnect between the meat that ends up in our grocery stores and the pigs it came from mean for our own personal relationships with food? 

The meal Bourdain later describes has even more people than the slaughter did.  And they keep on arriving, helping to prepare for this huge meal that everyone can enjoy.  Bourdain sees “thirty assorted family members, friends, farmhands, and neighbors crowded into the stone-walled room.  Every few minutes, as if summoned by some telepathic signal, others arrived: the family priest, the mayor of the town, children, many bearing more food-- pastries, aguardiente (brandy), loaves of … Portuguese bread” (26).  I find myself jealous of this entire ordeal!  How connected it must feel, contributing to a meal and sitting down to share it.  I fear that this amount of work would never happen in the states, and also would be considered a waste of “our valuable time.”  I think the irony of this for me is the sheer amount of the pig that is consumed.  Almost nothing goes to waste!  Each part of the pig is honored, and I can’t help but imagine how much food is wasted in the U.S. with our ‘efficient’ pig-slaughtering factories. 

At the end of the chapter, Bourdain says, “I’d seen an animal die.  It changed me.  I didn’t feel good about it.  It was, in fact, unpleasant in the extreme.  I felt guilty, a little bit ashamed.  I felt bad for that pig, imagining his panic, pain, and fear.  But he’d tasted delicious.  We’d wasted maybe eight ounces of his total weight” (28).  I cannot help but wonder, if this is his reaction (as would probably be many U.S. Americans’ reactions) to one pig being killed, what would his reaction be to a tour of one of our pig factories?