The Angry Young Man

A new tradition around these here parts...

As I'm on yet another one of my stupid diets (it's not a diet, it's a live it!™), today's meme is about food and my bizarre and unsettling relationship with it.

1. Are there any weird "food rules" you have? Feel free to list as many as you like.

I have a lot of personal food rules. Breetard thinks I have an eating disorder. I'm American, therefore, she's undoubtedly right. I think I do a good job sticking to my rules, though on occasions, much to the delight of certain oh, so supportive individuals, I have been known to break them. Here goes -

a.) No seafood. Everyone knows I no longer eat seafood. I used to eat sushi all the time. Loved it - the aesthetic, the ritual, the giant bottles of Asahi and sake. Then, becoming aware of how badly over fished our oceans are, I started paying closer attention to the fish I was eating. I had a little card with a chart telling me what fish were OK to eat, what fish were not. It soon occurred to me that if I need to carry around a card with a chart to tell me what species are OK to eat, that we have a big problem. Basically, if we've reached a point where we're on the verge of exterminating several major species out of any particular ecosystem - and with oceans, we very much are - it's prolly best to just leave the entire ecosystem alone. The like two fish left in the sea deserve a more dignified death than to be stuck on a mound of sushi rice, wrapped in seaweed, and shoved into your fat, unthinking mouths at the end of two sticks. Besides which, carrying around that card was a hassle.

b.) No pork. I'm not as strict with the pork rule as I am with the seafood rule. This one is simple. Pigs are extremely intelligent animals, smarter than dogs. Thanks to the rise of factory farms, the multitude of pigs headed towards consumption as pork are raised in concrete floored barns, in tiny pens, with no sunlight, forced to stand around in their own droppings because they don't have enough space to even turn around. Pigs are clean animals that like to crap in a certain place, far from their daily goings about. Because some postmodern nazis (aka MBA's) determined that more money can be made by raising pigs like carrots, your conventional pork chop is the end result of an intelligent animal's short, painful life. Mmmmm, Mom! Would you allow dogs to be treated like this? Didn't think so. So why contribute to pigs being treated this way by buying the end product? 'Nuff said.

Oh, and don't even utter the question, "But what about Niman Ranch...?" Niman Ranch is like the Swiss Colony of the Aughts, ummm...

c.) Butter. I love butter. Ultimately, all food is nothing more than a butter delivery unit.

d.) Sauce. I love sauce. I particularly like sauces that are sweet and sour. I also like salty sweet. I love barbecue sauce. I put it on everything. All food that is not a butter delivery unit is a sauce delivery unit.

e.) Cheese. I love cheese. Any food that is not a butter or sauce delivery unit is a cheese delivery unit.

f.) Mayonnaise. I LOATHE mayonnaise. The taste of uncooked or barely cooked eggs makes me gag. Mixed with vinegar and I’m hurling all over the table. Ugh. I will not eat it. Growing up, my mom made two dishes – cole slaw and chili - that I would not eat no matter what and I spent many a late evening firmly ensconced at the dining room table, refusing to eat it, before she’d sweep into the dining room in her blue chiffon night gown, turn on the light, and disgustedly excuse me from the dining room whilst hollering, “Why must everything be a contest?!!!”

g.) Beans. I am not a fan of beans. As a kid I refused to eat them. My mother would serve us lima beans and I’d swallow them whole in an attempt to avoid their foul and lingering flavor. Garbanzo beans were another one I could not abide. The worst, however, are kidney beans. Urgh. My mother made this chili with kidney beans and I’d pick around the beans until there was nothing left but beans and then I’d sit there until all hours of the night, refusing to touch them. As an adult, I’ve learned to tolerate beans. I’ll eat them now, but I’d rather not.

h.) No briney foods. I don’t like capers, I don’t like olives, I don’t like anchovies, I don’t like feta, I don’t like briney foods. Yech. Combined with my loathing of mayonnaise and beans, if I had to live in Provence, I would starve to death.

i.) No licorice. The taste of licorice is like an alien invasion in my mouth. I find it both unpleasant and confusing. Good and Plenty’s are outlawed in my world.

j.) No lamb. No rule here, really, I just don't like the smell or taste of it. Sheep are gross. I’m not a fan of Middle Eastern food. I have no desire to watch some urban hipster woman writhe about dressed like “I Dream of Genie” while I try to eat food with no cutlery. Yech.

k.) Cutlery. I find cuisines that require contact with fingers sans cutlery to be suspect. I KNOW where my fingers have been. I don’t want them in my mouth.

l.) Chicken everyday. Chicken's are stupid, cruel animals and I delight in eating their tasty flesh. If you’ve ever seen the chicken all the other chickens pick on, the untouchable chicken at the bottom of the so-called “pecking order” whose job in the chicken universe is to work with leather and haul away the dead, you too will be reminded of a grammar school playground (or India) and you will dig in with gusto. Mmmm, chicken. To eat chicken is like symbolically triumphing over the perennial bully (or Indian caste system). Hrmmm. Since I was apparently the bully, this means I’m symbolically eating myself like pop culture? I must contemplate this further lest I be thrown into yet another one of my confusion riddled Angry Young Man Brand existential crises.

What? You want I should become a stringy vegan with unhealthy skin and hair, reeking of patchouli and calling everybody “rainbow brother” before I beg a cigaret or some change off them? I need protein, real protein, not that soy shit that’ll make me have a period.

m.) Flatmate Elisabeth has noted that I overcook everything I eat. She says my favorite method of cooking is to boil over the pan. Sorry. I just like my food very well cooked, particularly as I have no idea where it was before I bought it. It’s prolly full of germs and insects. Kill them all! I’m germphobic.

n.) Here at Maison le Trou, we have a multitude of cutlery and dishes. I’m very particular about what dishes and cutlery I use. I like my bowl, my plate, my fork and spoon. I’m neurotic. This is a surprise?

OK, enough! Besides, I lost the point of the question somewhere. Where is it?

2. When you were growing up, what ONE thing did your parents always remind you of, when it came to meal time (or cooking)?

I thought about this long and hard and came up with nothing. No repeated instructions on proper table manners, no lectures about starving children in China, no prayer to God thanking him for food HE didn’t produce, nothing. The main thing I remember is that we always had discussions about issues of political and social import that would degenerate into loud arguing before my mother would command us all to shut up. My maternal grandparents were Marxists, my parents classic Ray Gun Republicans, and my politics definitely were more in keeping with those of grandparents than my parents. I stopped eating with my family at the age of 16 because I’d had enough of the conflict. That, and the fact that I’d become a vegetarian and my mother refused to respect my new diet. Not surprisingly, my parents were fine with this. They’d pretty much written me off by this point and I was sorta like Chuck, Richie and Joanie Cunningham’s older brother who disappeared after the first season of “Happy Days” and whom no one ever talked about…

3. Is there anyone you know whose food you won't eat (for one reason or another)?

No. That would be rude. My mother won’t touch anything I cook, though. This started about the time she found out I was a pole smoker. A connection? Hrmmm…

4. Is there anything you "specialize" in cooking, that people actually ask for?

No. I’m a lousy cook. Every attempt I make to cook for other people is an unmitigated disaster. Learning to cook proper like is on my life’s list of things to do, between learning Greek and climbing the Matterhorn…

5. When you were growing up, what one meal do you remember as being your favorite?

Ah, my grandmother was a wonderful cook who indulged us ridiculously. During the summer, when my grandmother would stay with us while my parents were on vacation (Yes, my parents went on vacation without us kids. They had a time share in Jamaica that I only ever saw in stupid photographs. Remember those “My Parents Went to Bangladesh and All I Got Was This Lousy T-Shirt” shirts? That was me. ) if it was an especially warm evening, my grandmother would make us strawberry shortcake. She’d bake the biscuits, whip the cream, slice the strawberries, and that would be our evening meal, taken al fresco. It was wonderful. In the mornings, we’d have fresh croissants with jam and butter and strong, black coffee. For my birthdays, she’d make me Monte Cristo sammiches and my favorite cake, which was chocolate marbled and had veins of sweet cream cheese like cheese cake. That and she made this incredibly indulgent flourless chocolate torte with raspberry filling. Yummm. I miss my grandmother.

6. Did your family have particular ethnic foods different from those eaten by your friends?

My dad was a Sephardic Jew and my mother’s family were WASP/Norwegians from Minnesota, imagine the combination. I grew up on matzoh ball soup, Israeli cous cous, burekas, lefse, and tuna hot dish. Every Christmas my grandmother and mother would make big plates of Fattigman that no one would ever touch and my grandmother would get excited when the Sons of Norway Hall would hold an all you can eat lutefisk dinner. Lutefisk was spoken of in my house with mirthful disdain, but never, ever allowed in the door. December was incomplete without latkes for Chanukah and Julekake on Christmas morning. Apfelskiver was another mystery dish that was talked about but rarely seen. You could always find an abandoned apfelskiver pan in some dark corner of our garage…

7. Today, what is your IDEAL meal?

I have no ideal meal. Mebbe something that delivers butter, sauce, cheese, and chicken yet is only 500 calories or less?