I haven't been writing about food research for a while, mostly because I'm up to the 1960s and 1970s in the 2 part Harvey Levenstein food history work, and it's complicated and sometimes downright weird. On the one hand, Ralph Nader is making some justified attacks of the food industry, and some that were probably completely over-the-top. On another hand, linked to the hippie movement are THE most bizarre food fads since pre-World War 1. On yet another hand, the successful but completely manipulative method of attacking the messenger in order to taint the message was exploding, which to me is almost the most interesting part. I had read another book that had attributed this technique to the tobacco industry and their fight to discredit all the reports that linked (quite correctly) smoking and lung cancer, but in the food wars, it seems to go back into the 1960s, and I thought the tobacco industry didn't start defending itself until the 1970s, but I could easily be wrong.
I'm not sure what I had exactly expected to find when I started studying food history, but what I have discovered is that the history of American food is really the history of America itself. It has everything: racism, greed, optimism, idealism, complete quacks and loonies, patriotism, pomposity, humor, sensuality--in fact, the only thing I'd say it seems to be lacking is moderation and common sense. No matter what time period I've studied, the wackier the claim, the more popular the diet. The more outrageous the claim--especially if it was a claim that assigned blame for health problems to anyone BUT the individual behavior--the more likely it was to hang on even into today's climate.
This strikes a resounding note for me, because I spent three years working as the Director of the American Diabetes Association's Idaho office. During that time, I was regularly assaulted by adherence of the Adkins diet (horrible diet in general and harmful if one has diabetes) and the Nutra-Sweet-causes-cancer brigade. There were lots of other too, but those two were the regulars that could be counted on to badger me at every turn. Adkins was almost always being hawked by a chiropractor who had read Adkin's book and felt qualified to dole out nutritional advice in spite of having no actual training in the subject whatsoever. The Nutra-Sweet Brigade were 99.9999999% of the time affiliated with a "natural" nutritional substitute, and without fail their "proof" was a badly photocopied article written by an Asian doctor extolling all the studies done to prove that artificial sweeteners were almost guaranteed to cause cancer. Now for one thing, if I am being given "facts" by someone with a financial interest in you being led to believe those facts, I am automatically highly suspicious. For another, while I don't think artificial anything is actually good for us, there are currently almost 26 million Americans with diabetes. You know who has been the most targeted market for artificial sweeteners ever since they came out? People with diabetes. Know what their increased rate of cancer is? None. Increased heart disease, depression, risk of death because of flu or pneumonia, and increased rates of stroke and heart attack. 26 million test subjects--I think they would have noticed an increased rate of cancer. You can verify all this at the American Diabetes Association's website here: http://www.diabetes.org/diabetes-basics/diabetes-statistics/
So, the more I read, the more I wonder how much we really know about food. The easy answers are so tempting--like in a recent article in a health magazine I was reading rated products that would add fiber to your diet. I think the selling point of the things was that they were tasteless and so you wouldn't notice them. And, by sheer coincidence I'm sure, the top-rated products also had placed advertisements in the magazine. Gee, I wonder if there was a connection.......and in all honesty, I'll bet not a single one of them would work nearly as well as adding a little winter squash to one's diet. But then again, I haven't heard of a winter squash lobby that can place ads................
Showing posts with label Food research. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Food research. Show all posts
Monday, May 2, 2011
Tuesday, May 18, 2010
More American Food History
In my food research project, I am currently reading Something From the Oven by Laura Shapiro, and it's simply fascinating to me. Shapiro is talking about American cooking in the 1950s, and the trends that define the era. I'm not finished yet, but so far the trends are:
* manufacturers who have all sorts of money invested in equipment to produce processed & packaged foods leftover from the war, and their attempts to convince American housewives to buy these bizarre food products--without, of course, condescending to actually consider what housewives might be thinking or what they actually want
* the emergence of early women humor writers--the first women publicly willing to admit that ironing their husbands shirts while wearing high heels and pearls really isn't a fulfilling lifestyle
* women's magazines producing dreadful recipes and articles in order to please advertisers
* great numbers of women were in the workforce already (no matter what we like to pretend about the era), and the dual incomes were contributing greatly to the post-war prosperity, which afforded families better food choices
* Poppy Cannon: the woman responsible for "The Can Opener Cookbook," and perhaps the only person in existence to ever think of dousing Libby's Vienna sausages with brandy, setting them on fire, and still expect someone to eat it
It's been a very entertaining--if somewhat frightening--book, but I have had to stop reading it before bedtime after a few Spam-related nightmares. Not to frighten you--and it will be best to not read this right before dinner--I do have to share a few memorable processed foods that manufacturers tried to persuade American housewives to try:
* canned bacon
* Tatonuts (some sort of "new potato tidbit")
* canned deep-fried hamburgers
* canned fruit gelatin
* powdered wine, sherry, and port
* ham sticks
* eggplant sticks
* dried lima bean sticks
* and several Spam-like substances: Treat, Mor, Prem, and Snack. Mercifully, I don't think any are still available for human consumption......
* manufacturers who have all sorts of money invested in equipment to produce processed & packaged foods leftover from the war, and their attempts to convince American housewives to buy these bizarre food products--without, of course, condescending to actually consider what housewives might be thinking or what they actually want
* the emergence of early women humor writers--the first women publicly willing to admit that ironing their husbands shirts while wearing high heels and pearls really isn't a fulfilling lifestyle
* women's magazines producing dreadful recipes and articles in order to please advertisers
* great numbers of women were in the workforce already (no matter what we like to pretend about the era), and the dual incomes were contributing greatly to the post-war prosperity, which afforded families better food choices
* Poppy Cannon: the woman responsible for "The Can Opener Cookbook," and perhaps the only person in existence to ever think of dousing Libby's Vienna sausages with brandy, setting them on fire, and still expect someone to eat it
It's been a very entertaining--if somewhat frightening--book, but I have had to stop reading it before bedtime after a few Spam-related nightmares. Not to frighten you--and it will be best to not read this right before dinner--I do have to share a few memorable processed foods that manufacturers tried to persuade American housewives to try:
* canned bacon
* Tatonuts (some sort of "new potato tidbit")
* canned deep-fried hamburgers
* canned fruit gelatin
* powdered wine, sherry, and port
* ham sticks
* eggplant sticks
* dried lima bean sticks
* and several Spam-like substances: Treat, Mor, Prem, and Snack. Mercifully, I don't think any are still available for human consumption......
Thursday, May 6, 2010
Fun Food History Facts
* The "Good & Plenty" licorice candies are believed to be the oldest brand-named candy in the United States, although the name was not trademarked until 1928
* Heinz never actually had the famous "57 Varieties" of his slogan--he had considerably more. He just liked the number "57."
* In the 1940s, to promote their tomato sauce, Hunt Foods printed tomato sauce recipes inside millions of matchbook covers--which leads me to wonder if matchbooks were bigger then, or did people have better eyesight back then?
* John Kellogg--he of the corn flake fame--also invented nut butters as an alternative to dairy butter. Peanuts were inexpensive, and peanut butter became an American staple.
* Harlan Sanders operated an automobile service station in Corbin, Kentucky. In 1930, he began serving meals to hungry travelers, and when his seasoned fried chicken (using 11 herbs and spices) was more popular & more profitable than gasoline or tires, a legend was born.
* Lifesavers are thought to be the first "impulse-buy" food items. Because grocery stores wouldn't initially stock them, Edward Noble sold the mint candies to bars, where the displays were placed next to the cash register--mighty handy for anyone trying to disguise the alcohol on his breath.....
* In 1929, Oscar Mayer and his brother were the first to sell brand-name meats in America--and certainly the first to drive around in a humungous hot dog. The Oscar Mayer Weinermobile hit the streets 7 years later. We're still waiting for the "pickle-loaf" mobile......
* Pizza Hut--the chain largely responsible for popularizing pizza throughout the US--was so named because the Carney brothers, being short on money, wanted to use the existing sign on the restaurant they purchased. The sign had room for 8 letters and the first 5, P-I-Z-Z-A, were already in place....
* As early as the 1870s, there were street vendors selling frozen fruit juices on the streets of New York and other American cities. These vendors were called "hokeypokeys," but no mention is made of whether selling frozen fruit juice truly IS "what it's all about."
Source: The Oxford Companion to American Food And Drink, edited by Andrew F. Smith
* Heinz never actually had the famous "57 Varieties" of his slogan--he had considerably more. He just liked the number "57."
* In the 1940s, to promote their tomato sauce, Hunt Foods printed tomato sauce recipes inside millions of matchbook covers--which leads me to wonder if matchbooks were bigger then, or did people have better eyesight back then?
* John Kellogg--he of the corn flake fame--also invented nut butters as an alternative to dairy butter. Peanuts were inexpensive, and peanut butter became an American staple.
* Harlan Sanders operated an automobile service station in Corbin, Kentucky. In 1930, he began serving meals to hungry travelers, and when his seasoned fried chicken (using 11 herbs and spices) was more popular & more profitable than gasoline or tires, a legend was born.
* Lifesavers are thought to be the first "impulse-buy" food items. Because grocery stores wouldn't initially stock them, Edward Noble sold the mint candies to bars, where the displays were placed next to the cash register--mighty handy for anyone trying to disguise the alcohol on his breath.....
* In 1929, Oscar Mayer and his brother were the first to sell brand-name meats in America--and certainly the first to drive around in a humungous hot dog. The Oscar Mayer Weinermobile hit the streets 7 years later. We're still waiting for the "pickle-loaf" mobile......
* Pizza Hut--the chain largely responsible for popularizing pizza throughout the US--was so named because the Carney brothers, being short on money, wanted to use the existing sign on the restaurant they purchased. The sign had room for 8 letters and the first 5, P-I-Z-Z-A, were already in place....
* As early as the 1870s, there were street vendors selling frozen fruit juices on the streets of New York and other American cities. These vendors were called "hokeypokeys," but no mention is made of whether selling frozen fruit juice truly IS "what it's all about."
Source: The Oxford Companion to American Food And Drink, edited by Andrew F. Smith
Sunday, May 2, 2010
The Defining Moment In American Food History?
I'm continuing to read food history--though obviously not blogging about it much--and last night I reached Prohibition--January 16, 1920, when the 18th amendment to the US Constitution prohibited the sale of alcohol.
As with most attempts to legislate morality, the "Noble Experiment" failed miserably, and I have read that alcohol consumption actually INCREASED during that time, though I am still looking for the source so please don't quote me on that one. And like most things, there were far-reaching consequences that seem to have not been considered: the rise of organized crime, the lack of tax revenues on alcohol causing a tax shortage and almost destroying the existing restaurant industry.
According to Harvey Levenstein in Revolution at the Table, (and considering how many footnotes & sources he lists, I tend to believe him on things) before Prohibition, restaurants--especially those of the "fine dining" variety--were for men only because of the conspicuous consumption of alcohol and were devoted mostly to French cuisine, which had been held up as THE standard for fine dining since the later 1800s, and was generally for the upper-classes only. Hotels, which could offer large portions with fine ingredients and low room rates because they made most of their money from the alcohol, had to change to cheaper food, smaller portions, and untrained chefs or go out of business. Many of the legendary New York restaurants like Delmonico's went out of business. Between not being able to cook with wine, not being able to serve wine with dinner, and general cost problems due to lack of alcohol revenue, the "fine dining" segment of society basically evaporated.
However, because restaurants could no longer serve alcohol, it became acceptable for women--especially those in the work force--to visit them. As bars were converted to soda fountains, quick inexpensive meals became a national trend. Automats, sandwich shops, cafeterias--anything that could provide cheap, clean, fast meals flourished. Classically trained chefs were replaced by cheap unskilled labor who could assemble meals from cans & simple cooking techniques. Aimed at the working classes who weren't impressed by French food and weren't comfortable ordering things they couldn't pronounce, French food fell out of favor. Since the movies had made slimness & the Flapper a national ideal, the new meals were lighter and some restaurants even posted calorie content right on their menu--and people considered it a GOOD thing. Maybe it helped that the 1200-calorie burger was still several years into the future.....
As with most attempts to legislate morality, the "Noble Experiment" failed miserably, and I have read that alcohol consumption actually INCREASED during that time, though I am still looking for the source so please don't quote me on that one. And like most things, there were far-reaching consequences that seem to have not been considered: the rise of organized crime, the lack of tax revenues on alcohol causing a tax shortage and almost destroying the existing restaurant industry.
According to Harvey Levenstein in Revolution at the Table, (and considering how many footnotes & sources he lists, I tend to believe him on things) before Prohibition, restaurants--especially those of the "fine dining" variety--were for men only because of the conspicuous consumption of alcohol and were devoted mostly to French cuisine, which had been held up as THE standard for fine dining since the later 1800s, and was generally for the upper-classes only. Hotels, which could offer large portions with fine ingredients and low room rates because they made most of their money from the alcohol, had to change to cheaper food, smaller portions, and untrained chefs or go out of business. Many of the legendary New York restaurants like Delmonico's went out of business. Between not being able to cook with wine, not being able to serve wine with dinner, and general cost problems due to lack of alcohol revenue, the "fine dining" segment of society basically evaporated.
However, because restaurants could no longer serve alcohol, it became acceptable for women--especially those in the work force--to visit them. As bars were converted to soda fountains, quick inexpensive meals became a national trend. Automats, sandwich shops, cafeterias--anything that could provide cheap, clean, fast meals flourished. Classically trained chefs were replaced by cheap unskilled labor who could assemble meals from cans & simple cooking techniques. Aimed at the working classes who weren't impressed by French food and weren't comfortable ordering things they couldn't pronounce, French food fell out of favor. Since the movies had made slimness & the Flapper a national ideal, the new meals were lighter and some restaurants even posted calorie content right on their menu--and people considered it a GOOD thing. Maybe it helped that the 1200-calorie burger was still several years into the future.....
Friday, March 5, 2010
What Am I Missing?
In my food history research, I ran across this recipe in Grandma's Wartime Kitchen:
Wartime Special
Jellied Vegetable Entree
1 package lemon or lime flavored gelatin mix
3/4 cup hot water
1 bouillon cube
1 cup cold water
3 tablespoons cider vinegar
1/2 tsp. salt
1 teaspoon onion juice
2/3 cup cooked diced carrots
2/3 cup cooked peas
1/8 teaspoon cayenne
2 hard-cooked eggs, peeled and quartered lengthwise
Dissolve gelatin mix and bouillon cube in boiling water. Stir in cold water, vinegar, salt, and onion juice. Chill until thickened.
Spoon 1-inch gelatin into gelatin mold. Arrange egg wedges around side of mold. Refrigerate until firm--30 minutes. Fold remaining ingredients into remaining gelatin, cover, and set aside at room temperature.
When gelatin in mold is firm, add remaining gelatin mixture. Chill until firm. Unmold and serve.
Granted, I haven't had lime Jello in a few years, but I just don't remember ever thinking, "Dang, what this could really use is some bouillon, cayenne pepper, and some hard boiled eggs." Don't you just wonder who actually DID have that thought??????
The other question I have is: WHAT IS THE DEAL WITH JELLIED FOODS??????? When I first heard about the "Julie & Julia project" (where a woman cooked her way through the entire Julia Child "Mastering the Art of French Cooking" cookbook in one year), I was all for giving it a go myself until I heard about the aspic chapter. Not even for Julia Child am I eating meat Jello. I still can't even understand the attraction. Am I underrating gelatin in some way? Did being tortured by years of public school lunches & the ever-present Jello with mushy fruit cocktail suspended in it forever jade my opinion of gelatin? Is there something I'm missing about the idea of lime Jello with hardboiled egg in it? Did everyone just have really bad teeth and gelatin was a way to slide food right down without having to try to chew it up?????
If I keep this up, Twinkies are going to end up sounding like a darn reasonable idea...........
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