Lindsey Crawford
Library 201
Food Blog #2
12 March 2010
You Eat What?
Out of all my family members I am the picky eater, always have been. My mother and older brother, Justin, are by far the most food adventurous out of the brood. A few years ago, during a ski trip to Breckenridge, CO, Justin actually ordered and ate Rocky Mountain oysters at this neat Tex-Mex restaurant situated in the village at the base of Keystone. I could not even watch as he did it. He said they didn’t taste that bad, not great, but not bad. My mother, a special education teacher by day, moonlights as an exotic gourmet cook at night. She is forever buying funky cook books at garage sales and thrift stores and using our kitchen to try out the recipes she finds. That last time I was home, during winter break, she cooked, and tried to cajole me into eating, an Indian dish that smelled like a dirty gym locker and looked like vomit, along with an Estonian meal that she refused to tell me the contents of. “Just trust me, you’ll love it,” she said. I didn’t budge. My sister, more reserved than my mother and brother, is still more daring than I. Two years ago we spent Christmas in Montreal. In honor of our favorite holiday movie, A Christmas Story, we went to Chinatown and had dinner at a Sichuan joint, where we ordered duck. Just like in the movie, it came with the head attached. My sister, Emily, brave soul that she is, ate the neck. I nibbled on some of its breast meat, but that was as far as I went. I stuck to my tried and true favorite Chinese dish, beef and broccoli in brown sauce. My dad is like me, a real meat and potatoes kind of eater. However, unlike me, he loves seafood of all kind. Salmon, he tells me, is good for the skin. In sum, while my family is more likely than me to sample the exotic, some may even say gross, food dishes that Alan Richman ate while writing the article “Waiter, There’s a Cloven Hoof on My Plate,” I am capable of grossing my family ate with my own food preferences, bland as they are.
One of my favorite things to eat is sauerkraut, straight from the can. My family thinks this is disgusting. They will all eat sauerkraut cooked, on bratwurst, but none of them will eat it alone and uncooked. They claim it is because of the smell, which Emily and Justin like to say is like rotting garbage. I don’t think it is that bad. The smell, pungent and vinegary, is perfume to my nose. For years, they have not allowed me to eat it out of the can in front of them. One summer day, I can remember them kicking me out of the living room and onto the front porch after I plopped down with an open can of it and fork in hand. “Get out!” My brother yelled. “You are so nasty,” my sister said. “How can you eat it like that?” I shrugged, took a bite, and said, “it just tastes good. I don’t know why I like it so much. I just do. I think it is because I am more of a salty person than a sweet. I also love pickles.
Food preferences, as I said in a prior blog, are shaped by early experiences with food and culture. My dad is a meat and potatoes guy because he grew up in the 50s and 60s, in a family that was the epitome of traditional. That is why he is usually unwilling to take a walk on the food wild side. Meanwhile, my mother’s father, my grandfather, was a chef, and as such made all sorts of different dishes. She gets her love of cooking from him. My siblings and I have had the benefit of growing up with one reserved eater and one experimental one. We are a product of the food choices made at home. Still, our family alone is not the only thing responsible for our food likes and dislikes. Media culture also influences food preferences. My generation especially grew up being shaped and groomed by advertising. We were sold on what was good and what was not by TV commercials, billboards and corporate synergy. Burgers, fries, pasta, cookies, candy, all were all foods pushed on us heavily. Thus, we internalized these messages that the foods we were saturated by in the media, were the ones most accepted as normal, as American.
Food preferences, like nationality, are social constructs. I think animal organs are gross because, for the most part, my culture does. I like meat and potatoes and burgers and fries because my culture does. However, the longer I live in this world and the more I am exposed to, the more I realize the facade. I see that every culture has its own constructs too.
Achenbach, Joel. “Fun Facts about Gross Food.” The Washington Post. 27 March 2007. n. pag. Web. 12 April 2010.
I have a lot of the same habits as you. I have a few close friends who will eat just about anything and are constantly attempting to get me to try new foods, or cominations of foods. My Grandfather and Grandmother are like your Father and Mother respectively. My Grandmother has always been a cook, experimenting, never quite following the recipies, while my Grandfather is the traditional meat and potatoes kind of guy. I'd agree with you about the culture aspect of foods habits. Thinking back, I doubt my mother introduced me to many different kinds of foods, mostly beacuse she's one of those "I'd rather have a pill for breakfast, lunch and dinner." That in conjunction with the small menu at schools has made me the picky and unadventurous eater I am now. I also have a strange habit as well; of eating pickles right out of the jar with just a fork. Although not as strange to most as sauerkraut, my Mother and Grandparents think I'm strange for not eating it with something else.
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