Chicago: Beef, Love and Understanding

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Don't blow up, manda. Plz.

― kenan, Monday, 26 February 2007 21:01 (seventeen years ago) link

Photos are replaceable, just buy another plane ticket.

― Jordan, Monday, 26 February 2007 21:05 (seventeen years ago) link

Thank you for your kind words of support. I will try not to explode.

I am not particularly bothered by this new format, except I liked the feature that would show me unread messages rather than that "500 messages are being hidden clickt to show" button.

― La Lechera, Monday, 26 February 2007 21:05 (seventeen years ago) link

the "Food of the 80's" thread makes me never want to eat again.

― kenan, Monday, 26 February 2007 21:09 (seventeen years ago) link

Amen to that. Plus I have a problem with the lack of x-post warning. And no automatic hyperlinking.

― Jesse, Monday, 26 February 2007 21:09 (seventeen years ago) link

Plus I have a problem with the lack of x-post warning.

― Jesse, Monday, 26 February 2007 21:10 (seventeen years ago) link

Maybe they need a double post warning.

― dan m, Monday, 26 February 2007 21:11 (seventeen years ago) link

Today as I was thoroughly relishing my McGriddle I was thinking that one food of the '00s is the sweet-and-savory kind.

― Jesse, Monday, 26 February 2007 21:11 (seventeen years ago) link

I just found a gnat floating in the glass of water I'm drinking. Will it end? Please let this 7-Day Spell of Hell end peacefully.

― La Lechera, Monday, 26 February 2007 21:11 (seventeen years ago) link

test

― Jesse, Monday, 26 February 2007 21:12 (seventeen years ago) link

test

is met with

ILX 2
You have tried to insert a duplicate message.

Return to Front Page.

― Jesse, Monday, 26 February 2007 21:12 (seventeen years ago) link

Comparing things I was actually eating in the 80's, many of which are listed on that thread, to what I eat now, i.e. tons of deep-dish pizza and thai and middle eastern food, I'd rather have now. Surely that's largely because I live in a better place to eat and have had more exposure to different foods. But I can't help thinking that some of it is because Americans have more options in general. Food is getting better!

― kenan, Monday, 26 February 2007 21:16 (seventeen years ago) link

You also have to take into consideration our age in the 80s. The fact that we were eating tons of ranch dip and Ruffles and fruit roll ups probably had to do with the fact that we were little kids. Now we are adults and eat adult food.

― La Lechera, Monday, 26 February 2007 21:18 (seventeen years ago) link

I never liked dip though.

― La Lechera, Monday, 26 February 2007 21:18 (seventeen years ago) link

I dip you dip we dip.

― La Lechera, Monday, 26 February 2007 21:18 (seventeen years ago) link

well, at least it's easy to conjugate

― kenan, Monday, 26 February 2007 21:21 (seventeen years ago) link

A friend lent me the Undeclared boxset the other day. I wasn't planning on renting it but I might as well watch it now, right?

― Jordan, Monday, 26 February 2007 21:28 (seventeen years ago) link

It's not wasted time, no, it's just not as good as F&G.

― kenan, Monday, 26 February 2007 21:29 (seventeen years ago) link

I dunno, Amanda, my parents didn't eat "adult" food in the 80s either, unless you mean the same pretty bland Midwestern stuff! It was home-made and healthy but it was still mostly boring and "American". I think it's a done deal that foods & ingredients that used to be exoticare finding much wider acceptance & availbility. Whether this is a GOOD idea or not remains to be worked out, there are plenty of food-miles kinks & etc, but I think it's The Future.

― Laurel, Monday, 26 February 2007 21:30 (seventeen years ago) link

Low expectations, check.

― Jordan, Monday, 26 February 2007 21:30 (seventeen years ago) link

L - Yeah, I agree that there is obvs a greater availability of ingredients (hummus in the superstore, for instance). But for the most part, the people I know who ate bland midwestern food in the 80s are still eating it. I don't know what food-miles kinks are, though.

― La Lechera, Monday, 26 February 2007 21:33 (seventeen years ago) link

Miles accumulated for kinky food preferences that can be redeemed for more food?

Sign me up!

― La Lechera, Monday, 26 February 2007 21:33 (seventeen years ago) link

food-miles = how far food has to travel to get to your table

― Jordan, Monday, 26 February 2007 21:37 (seventeen years ago) link

I dunno, Amanda, my parents didn't eat "adult" food in the 80s either, unless you mean the same pretty bland Midwestern stuff!

Yeah, mine still don't, really. Lots of hamburger casserole-y stuff, "goulash" that only resembles goulash because it has a can of beans in it, spaghetti sauce that's more meat than sauce, a delectable/horrifying dish called "Chicken Dorito," etc. etc. My mom at least eats good Tex-Mex food now when she goes out, but by and large, they're both still cooking and eating the same stuff they fed us when we were kids.

― kenan, Monday, 26 February 2007 21:37 (seventeen years ago) link

Oh. Ok.

― La Lechera, Monday, 26 February 2007 21:38 (seventeen years ago) link

I think food is getting better. I was reading somewhere (maybe in the 80's food thread?) about how cookbooks used to call for "1 clove of garlic" in a huge pot of spaghetti sauce, as one example of how food these days is more international and more interesting. Even so, my family in MI still is kind of meat and potatoes (boiled together is fine).

I grew up in the Midwest too for the most part, but my 7th Day Adventist upbringing was an odd source of variety in my diet. As a youngster I ate tabouli and baba ganoujhshch at church events because a lot of the people there were vegetarian. But their idea of "Mexican" was "taco salad," which was icebergy, olives, kidney beans, Doritos and FRENCH DRESSING.

― Jesse, Monday, 26 February 2007 21:40 (seventeen years ago) link

So basically that confirms my suspicion that we are talking about our own changing food preferences, not those of the gen-pub. Which means that even though there is hummus in the supermarket, a lot of people keep buying the Shake and Bake.

Maybe people are slowly waking up,but who knows. I am not demographer.

― La Lechera, Monday, 26 February 2007 21:40 (seventeen years ago) link

Taco salad can die (see also every office party ever).

― Jordan, Monday, 26 February 2007 21:43 (seventeen years ago) link

But if there is hummus (and bulgar wheat, mesulin mix, and various organic stuff) in grocery stores, that means that the demand amongst the general public has increased otherwise you would only find this stuff in the hippy health food stores where the 7DAs shopped. Also, note the degree to which chain restaurants like Applebees and Ruby Tues. have "ethnicized" and "exoticized" (big scare quotes here) their offerings.

― Jesse, Monday, 26 February 2007 21:44 (seventeen years ago) link

This is starting to make me think about the suburban housewifey 7-layer dip I made for the movie the other night. Mmmmmmmmmmmm

― dan m, Monday, 26 February 2007 21:44 (seventeen years ago) link

No one can fade that shit. I barely even had to wash the pan because it was scraped so clean.

― dan m, Monday, 26 February 2007 21:45 (seventeen years ago) link

Maybe people are slowly waking up,but who knows. I am not demographer.

Nor am I, but there's a big urban/rural divide here, too, right?

― kenan, Monday, 26 February 2007 21:45 (seventeen years ago) link

Uppity city dwellers would probably like to think so.

― dan m, Monday, 26 February 2007 21:46 (seventeen years ago) link

It's probably not as big as we, the uppity, would imagine -- I'm sure there's a Whole Foods by now in Omaha.

― kenan, Monday, 26 February 2007 21:49 (seventeen years ago) link

heh. Yep.

― kenan, Monday, 26 February 2007 21:50 (seventeen years ago) link

Nor am I, but there's a big urban/rural divide here, too, right?

Good point. West Branch, MI's grocery stores certainly don't carry hummus. And remember Sarah's story about trying to buy hummus somewhere in rural Virginia? On the other hand, 20 years ago you wouldn't have found hummus in a Jewel in Chicago, would you? And you *can* easily find it in smaller cities like Salisbury, NC these days, so I would stick with "food is getting better/more varied" but add that it's happening regionally, and spreading slowly from city to rural.

― Jesse, Monday, 26 February 2007 21:52 (seventeen years ago) link

When my parents moved to Whitehall from NJ you couldn't get BAGELS within like 100 miles! I grew up on Lender's alone! And it was a long time before more than just the ONE "good" supermarket carried Boursin or Boar's Head deli meats or Bremner Wafres or any Parmesan besides the Kraft kind or any number of things. There is DEFINITELY an increase in availability, because I can remember how excited my mom used to be when she found that stuff in West MI...or would buy it once or twice a year on trips to Chicago or elsewhere.

― Laurel, Monday, 26 February 2007 21:56 (seventeen years ago) link

I do somehow has this fear that eating too much non-native food is terribly bad for you, and my last words will be, "I should have stuck with the goulash!"

― kenan, Monday, 26 February 2007 21:57 (seventeen years ago) link

I agree with you, Jessepants.

I like the name Jessepants.

I keep thinking something horrible might happen any second to my body since I ate SOOOO many cookies (wasn't counting and had multiple kinds), but I feel fine... just kind of heavy.

Hi, Amanda. This too shall pass.

― KitCat, Monday, 26 February 2007 21:57 (seventeen years ago) link

Omaha has a metro population of like 800,000, not really rural.

You can buy hummus at the neighborhood grocery store in my hometown. You can also buy garam masala, thai chilis, giant bags of basmati rice, juustoa, all kinds of chinese noodles, betel nuts... on and on. It's a function of the place being the only store within walking distance for lots of international graduate students.

― dan m, Monday, 26 February 2007 21:58 (seventeen years ago) link

I don't know that I'd describe what I ate as a kid as "bland Midwestern." The food we ate was pretty basic, but it was healthy. Typical meals included fresh pasta salads tossed in olive oil; tacos with seasoned ground beef, refried beans, shredded lettuce, cheese, onions, and diced tomatoes; stir fried pork with broccoli, snap peas, and water chestnuts and served with rice; oven-roasted chicken with baked potato and green beans; homemade pizza with the usual toppings. We never had white bread and kept Kraft singles in the deli tray next to bricks of cheddar. My dad even sometimes got a little adventurous -- he had this Moroccan stew that he used to make when he had co-workers over. The two cookbooks in my parents' kitchen: the original Moosewood and the original Frugal Gourmet.

Based on how the culinary landscape has changed, I have a feeling that if I were growing up right now, my dad would be serving us Indian or Thai food for dinner on occasion. And mostly just because it's so easy now to find curry sauces in the supermarket next to the Kikkoman bottles, both at Jewel and at new stores like Trader Joe's, which my parents shop at all the time now.

― jaymc, Monday, 26 February 2007 21:59 (seventeen years ago) link

Does it strike anyone else as a bit unsettling that you can buy caskets at costco online?
here is the page

― KitCat, Monday, 26 February 2007 22:00 (seventeen years ago) link

I think my parents subsist on a diet of almost 100% chana masala and variations of thai/chinese stir fries these days. Had a lot of this stuff as a kid, too.

― dan m, Monday, 26 February 2007 22:01 (seventeen years ago) link

Also: a big class divide. At least back then. Jaymc's parent's went to college; mine did not. Hence hamburger meat with everything. "Healthy" wasn't even a consideration. Only "filling." Pasta salad was only to impress the other moms at the potluck picnic.

― kenan, Monday, 26 February 2007 22:02 (seventeen years ago) link

Interesting. I know that some people have found it strange that my dad made stir-fries in the 80s. It never seemed that weird to me, because it was a pretty simple and not particularly exotic dish, since Chinese cuisine had been familiar in this country for a while.

― jaymc, Monday, 26 February 2007 22:03 (seventeen years ago) link

Moosewood recipe apple/cottage cheese stuffed squash = bane of my existance as a ~10 year old.

― dan m, Monday, 26 February 2007 22:03 (seventeen years ago) link

My upbringing was mostly on meat potatoes. It seems like every single Sunday we'd have roast beef, cooked with the vegetables and potatoes. Mom would start it before we left for church. All during the service, I'd dream of roast beef. She did mix it up every once in a while by making Chow Mein, which I thought was meh.

― KitCat, Monday, 26 February 2007 22:03 (seventeen years ago) link

(That was an xpost to Dan.)

― jaymc, Monday, 26 February 2007 22:04 (seventeen years ago) link

TOP TEN COMMERCIAL CASKET MODELS

10. The Dirt-Master
9. Tupper-Tomb
8. Krazy-Kasket from Whammo
7. The Slim Reaper
6. The 19th Hole
5. McCoffin Styrofoam Casket
4. The Comfort-King Velvetliner (endorsed by Paul Anka)
3. Cap'n Crypt
2. The Cardboard Warrior
1. The La-Z-Boy Eterna-Lounger

― kenan, Monday, 26 February 2007 22:04 (seventeen years ago) link

John, that's more or less like my childhood diet, minus the salads in olive oil, and plus a lot of French dressing and casseroles involving cream of whatsit soup. But the point is that "normal" is shifting to include a lot of cuisines that it wouldn't have before! Or they'd have been the Better Homes & Gardens Americanized versions of say, Chinese food (like the one we always called "chicken flied lice" -- I know, so shoot me) and now they are stir fries with ACTUAL Asian vegetables. It just is what it is.

― Laurel, Monday, 26 February 2007 22:05 (seventeen years ago) link

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