Chicago: Beef, Love and Understanding

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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

― 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

I...don't remember what I ate as a kid. At least when my parents were still living together. I remember some fish, and pancakes on weekends, and pb&j (with wheat bread and nasty organic pb&j) for lunch every day. When I was a latchkey kid I remember lots of frozen pizza, frozen waffles, bagels, and cereal. I had to consciously broaden my tastes as an adult, for real.

― Jordan, Monday, 26 February 2007 22:06 (seventeen years ago) link

Another thing, is it because I work in restaurants, or are people more comfortable eating food that is not cooked to death? I would have been shocked as a child to see rare steak or raw fish on anyone's plate, but these I am mildly disgusted when people order even their pork med-well or, god forbid, well done.

― Jesse, Monday, 26 February 2007 22:06 (seventeen years ago) link

Not a lot of vegetables or ethnic-y foods (except for Jewish stuff around the holidays of course).

― Jordan, Monday, 26 February 2007 22:06 (seventeen years ago) link

Did any of you associate meals with particular days of the week?

Oven-roasted chicken with baked potatoes and green beans was totally a Sunday night dinner, right before 60 Minutes.

Grilled hamburgers and pizza both were on Saturday, and we'd eat them outside on the deck.

Tacos = Monday night, right after coming home from CCD. My brother once called the All Things Considered theme song "taco music" because he associated it with my dad making tacos in the kitchen with the radio on.

― jaymc, Monday, 26 February 2007 22:07 (seventeen years ago) link

On probably the first shopping trip I took after getting a "real" job here at UofC (the first time in my working life I'd had pretty much free reign wrt what I could spend on food, no tight student budgets or anything) I got really high and wandered through Cub for like an hour buying all the things I could 1. never afford before and 2. my parents wouldn't let me eat as a kid. Oh, Gushers "fruit snacks", we were made to be together...

― dan m, Monday, 26 February 2007 22:07 (seventeen years ago) link

On preview (review) I would have to bet that the rare vs. well-done divide coincides with class as well.

― Jesse, Monday, 26 February 2007 22:08 (seventeen years ago) link

I agree that there is a greater variety of choices now -- but I'm not sure of the numbers of people who give a shit that the variety is there.

Either way, I eat way better than I did in the 80s, when my choices were Arby's, Taco Bell or Pizza Hut on the way to the sitter's.

― La Lechera, Monday, 26 February 2007 22:09 (seventeen years ago) link

My dad used to always make pizza on Friday nights. I didn't even know pizza was deliverable until we moved into town when I was like 7 or 8 years old, and the concept was completely amazing to me.

― dan m, Monday, 26 February 2007 22:09 (seventeen years ago) link

like the one we always called "chicken flied lice" -- I know, so shoot me

My grandma called it that when we took her out to a Chinese restaurant during one of the last conversations I ever remember having with her. (She contracted pancreatic cancer shortly thereafter and died several months later.)

Another thing, is it because I work in restaurants, or are people more comfortable eating food that is not cooked to death?

Haha, my parents had these friends named Mark and Nina -- whose sons played soccer with my brother -- and Nina was like Brazilian or Russian or something, and I remember going over to their house for a dinner party once and they served steak tartare. This was in 1992 or so. (Right, because Mark was wondering why Tonya Harding's first name wasn't pronounced with a long O.)

― jaymc, Monday, 26 February 2007 22:10 (seventeen years ago) link

I have recently developed deep feelings of love for tartartes and carpaccios. Except smoked salmon carpaccio which is too strong.

― Jesse, Monday, 26 February 2007 22:12 (seventeen years ago) link

Beef, love and undercooking.

― Jesse, Monday, 26 February 2007 22:12 (seventeen years ago) link

Even though my childhood food was bland it was relatively health-conscious, I think. Memories of melba toast and trips to Brownberry Ovens (breadmakers + health food store) are coming back to me.

I rarely got fast food, so I have fond memories of the occasional McDonald's fish sandwich (I wasn't allowed burgers as a kid, I don't think) or Pizza Hut cheese personal pan pizza (thanks to Book It!!). Pepperoni pizza wz the holy grail, only obtainable at friend's houses or the roller rink.

― Jordan, Monday, 26 February 2007 22:13 (seventeen years ago) link

I like tartares and ceviches and stuff, but I keep thinking of that tapeworm link that was posted a few months ago.

― Jordan, Monday, 26 February 2007 22:14 (seventeen years ago) link

I dunno about the numbers, Amanda, but clearly there's SOME demand which is more than there was 20 years ago! Even if it's just the usual slow aspirational build, where non-Kraft romano cheese gets into one store, and then the other, and then is perceived as normal and people want a nice baked brie to really "class" things up, etc etc. Because stores continue to carry masala spices, hummus, there are bagel shops in lots of towns now (even though they're not all GOOD), there's Droste's cocoa powder at the regular grocery and not only at the specialty import store in Grand Rapids...things like that. I wonder what the tipping point was, if there was one; I should ask my mom about it.

― Laurel, Monday, 26 February 2007 22:15 (seventeen years ago) link

Now I want raw oysters. My biggest treat when I was a kid was seafood. Especially fresh seafood that we pulled out of the Gulf ourselves. Fried shrimp never fails. Crawfish. Stuff like that. This was all my dad's doing, and my gramma on that side of the family.

― kenan, Monday, 26 February 2007 22:17 (seventeen years ago) link

there are bagel shops in lots of towns now (even though they're not all GOOD)

so sadly true. Even in Chicago. Or LA. Neither of which have any shortage of Jews.

― kenan, Monday, 26 February 2007 22:18 (seventeen years ago) link

thanks to Book It!!

OMG awesome!

Laurel, I went back and reread your original post in which you said that the stuff your family made was homemade and healthy and not necessarily Cheez-Whiz and fluffernutters and Jello molds with maraschino cherries -- and so yeah, we did have similar diets growing up. I guess I'm just averse to calling this "bland, Midwestern" since I think it's a lot better than what a lot of people eat even today and since using "Midwestern" as a derogative kinda bugs me.

― jaymc, Monday, 26 February 2007 22:18 (seventeen years ago) link

I guess ultimately I know you're all right but it makes me feel like a jackass to think that I'm sitting here on the internet making proclamations about how different things are when I was a child at the time and my body was probably made of mac and cheese, tacos and roast beef sandwiches.

― La Lechera, Monday, 26 February 2007 22:19 (seventeen years ago) link

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

I'm glad to have done my part in saving you labor. :) I ate the shit out of that.

― kenan, Monday, 26 February 2007 22:25 (seventeen years ago) link

During winter break of my sophomore year of college, I went down to St. Louis to visit my friend Chris, who was a freshman at Webster University, and he and his dormmates had a little potluck. Someone made hummus, and this girl from somewhere like Carbondale was all "OMG this is so weird, what is it?" and I derisively snorted and was like, "Uh, hello, it's hummus" -- even though I had probably only had it for the first time a year or two prior. This was 1997. I don't know if Middle Eastern food became more widely available in the late 90s than in the earlier part of the decade, or if I had just found it in Kalamazoo more easily than in Bolingbrook. (And obv. this girl was from a much more rural part of the state.)

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

Wow, I can't believe Book It is still going on.

― Jordan, Monday, 26 February 2007 22:27 (seventeen years ago) link

Haha, the Book It! site has a 1980s nostalgia-kitsch section.

― jaymc, Monday, 26 February 2007 22:30 (seventeen years ago) link

Austin totally spoiled me for eating more diverse foods. Even if it was simple. I had no idea what a black bean was before I moved to Austin -- suddenly, I was eating them 4 times a week. And schwarma, and thai food... all really close to campus, all at rock-bottom student prices. Oh, and really good coffee.

― kenan, Monday, 26 February 2007 22:30 (seventeen years ago) link

lol @ "alumni pizza deals"

― Jordan, Monday, 26 February 2007 22:33 (seventeen years ago) link

i.e., let's see if we can capitalize on generational nostalgia in order to lure people to Pizza Hut that otherwise forsook us long ago

― jaymc, Monday, 26 February 2007 22:36 (seventeen years ago) link

I think it's working. :(

― Jordan, Monday, 26 February 2007 22:38 (seventeen years ago) link

My mom wouldn't let me take part in Book-it because of the product tie-ins to Pizza Hut. Naturally I thought she was insane at the time, but now it makes me love her even more.

― dan m, Monday, 26 February 2007 22:41 (seventeen years ago) link

Jay, it IS bland!! The tastes are simple, there usually aren't too many flavors competing in any given dish/meal, we didn't eat garlic or onions or anything spicy or too game-y or strong. My house might have been more extreme than most in blandness but it's not just an unkind stereotype, dude: stir fry would have freaked me out as a kid.

You're also taking the Midwestern label too much to heart as it's usually applied, I think, because if your parents were academics and lived in or near Chicago that's really not the same experience as being blue collar in a town of fewer than 6000 people that's mainly either agricultural or industrial shift-work and not much influenced by any metro area.

― Laurel, Monday, 26 February 2007 22:41 (seventeen years ago) link

when i was little my mom had a close friend who was indian, and would cook big crazy multicourse dinners for us sometimes....i didn't like all of it (i was a picky eater), but it exposed me to a variety of food at a very young age. i had my own names for some of the snacky things, and i have no idea what they were now. i haven't been able to find out, either through internet searches or grilling an indian friend. some sort of regional stuff, probably.

i was looking for easy veggie casserole recipes online yesterday, and recipes involving ritz crackers, cheez whiz, and cream of mushroom soup are alive and well.

we made ours sans cheez whiz, with whole foods mushroom soup and extra veggies of various sorts, and it is now abundantly clear that whole foods sells incredibly bland soup. it doesn't have to taste like shit to be natural and healthy and such, grrrr. i think it would be possible to make such a thing with homemade mushroom gravy in the place of soup, and then it would be good. next time.

speaking of which, bad 80s food fad: rice cakes.

― JuliaA, Monday, 26 February 2007 22:45 (seventeen years ago) link

Also LOL at the idea of my mother allowing "Cheez-Whiz and fluffernutters and Jello molds with maraschino cherries" through the front door. What kind of pioneer daughter do you TAKE her for, that woman made all our jelly and jam from scratch and baked her own bread.

― Laurel, Monday, 26 February 2007 22:47 (seventeen years ago) link

i have the opposite problem with those rice crackers you have as with rice cakes: they have *too much* flavor. Kinda burn my mouth, but not in a hot way.

― kenan, Monday, 26 February 2007 22:47 (seventeen years ago) link

stir fry would have freaked me out as a kid

Whereas I had it all the time and didn't think of it as unusual, and yet you're saying we had a virtually identical diet. Or am I misunderstanding?

You're also taking the Midwestern label too much to heart as it's usually applied, I think, because if your parents were academics and lived in or near Chicago that's really not the same experience as being blue collar in a town of fewer than 6000 people that's mainly either agricultural or industrial shift-work and not much influenced by any metro area.

Totally agree. I think sometimes when I bristle is when I feel like you're applying the label too monolithically. Maybe not in this instance, but in others.

― jaymc, Monday, 26 February 2007 22:49 (seventeen years ago) link

Julia, the Indian family friend thing is exactly the kind of anecdote I was thinking of! We were friends with a Mexican couple and Patty cooked for us now and then, but I think our tastes were already pretty boring and set so I'm not sure how much we benefitted. We did start eating quesadillas regularly about a decade before they hit restaurants, and I'm sure that was purely Patty's influence.

― Laurel, Monday, 26 February 2007 22:50 (seventeen years ago) link

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