5 May 08 re: American food

mb:

So, you may not know this, but I was raised by a serious foodie.

m-c:

What? Who could you possibly be talking about? (Ahem, ahem.)

mb:

Being raised by a foodie meant that I missed out on a lot of the traditional American foods that other people around me think are totally normal. And now that I'm an adult I get to have the pleasure of discovering all these foods for myself.

One of the greatest parts of this is that if I was raised with these foods as part of the norm then they'd still be just that ... normal. But since I didn't experience them until just recently they're incredible! It's like an entirely new culinary experience for me!

m-c:

Now you've piqued my curiosity. What kinds of foods are we talking about here?

mb:

Well, ummm, a lot of stuff!

jello instant pudding is one of the strangest things I've ever encountered in my life. The first time I ever made it I came running out of the kitchen to where J was and said, "It just thickens! Like, all by itself! Instantly! All you have to do is beat it and it thickens!" He looked at me like I was crazy, because what else is instant pudding going to do?

m-c:

I'm curious what prompted you to make jello pudding in the first place.

mb:

I was walking through the grocery store, just scanning the aisles and a box of Nilla Wafers caught my eye. In large letters on the front it said "Black-Bottom Banana Cream Pie -- recipe on back!" It sounded delicious, so I picked up the box to check out the recipe. I was absolutely flabbergasted by the strange things I saw listed on the back of the box: Nilla Wafers, jello vanilla pudding, Cool Whip?

For me I think that the making of that first pie was really more of a social experiment than a cooking one. I was simply intrigued by what it would actually taste like. Is the American public onto something amazing that I just didn't know about? Was this going to be the tastiest thing of all time, leading me to apologize to everyone around me for ridiculing their "normal" food for so much of my life?

m-c:

And ... ???

mb:

Yeah, it was ok. I mean, nothing to write home about. J and I ate it, decided it would be better with some other flavor of pudding, and that if I ever made it again it really didn't need the chocolate.

So make it again I did, this time sans chocolate and with butterscotch pudding instead (I had never made instant pudding before, but I've eaten my share of butterscotch pudding in my life. It's a favorite of both mine and J's.) And again it was only ok. I just kept expecting something fabulous, but it was didn't happen. I think I'm perfectly satisfied knowing what it tastes like, having had it, and never needing to have it again. Experiment complete.

m-c:

I was lucky enough to be there for the second edition of the pie. It was pretty interesting. What other new and strange things have you discovered?

mb:

J's mom used to run a daycare and she would make the kids lunch. One of the favorites was pasta with butter and Kraft Parmesan Cheese on it. J recently suggested that we could make said dish for Darwin and I made a disgusted face. He told me to buy some Kraft Parmesan and try it and since I like to think that I'm a pretty open person, I did.

Oh. My. God. The stuff is unbelievably delicious! It's just like cheese-flavored salt! It has all the crack-addictive goodness of parmesan without any of the actual parmesan flavor! I want it put it on everything now!

Also, did you know you can buy garlic bread in a bag that you then take home and bake IN THE BAG? It's incredible! The bread is cut down the middle and filled with about a metric ton of garlic-butter which then heats up and melts while you're cooking the bread (in a bag ... did I mention that already?). It's about the highest calorie thing around, but it's a super easy and very tasty side dish for a weeknight meal.

And we've started keeping fish sticks in the house, because they make an easy and quick meal for Darwin. He's currently obsessed with ketchup, so whatever we can give him to dip into ketchup is good by us. And fish sticks are great, as long as you make sure to get the ones made with whole fillets, not minced fish.

Now let me just say this: I am trying to cut down on processed foods (thank you, Michael Pollan). How do these foods fit into that? In a word, they don't. And if I lived exactly the way I'd like to, these foods wouldn't have a place in my world.

But in real life, where everything is busy and messy and there's always a toddler to chase, sometimes you want food that comes together instantly. And that, my friends, is when I reach for the processed American food, and whole‑heartedly thank it for existing.

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