'modern' food

[mrj]

This might relate to the great piece posted by Soapweed lamenting consumers' lack of understanding of facts about food production, in a way.

I served some watermelon as a snack yesterday afternoon, a favorite food of our great grand daughter, age three and a half years. When she saw the container containing cut melon with many seeds, she said "there are bugs in it!" And refused explanations that those were seeds, not bugs. Her mother said they hadn't had any watermelon that wasn't seedless!

I was a little disappointed with the extreme number of seeds compared to most we see, but the melon was exceptionally delicious, so it was easy to tolerate those seeds, for most of us. We bought the melon at a stand at Mitchell, near the great melon growing area north of that city, a couple of weeks ago, and are looking forward to a return trip in a couple of weeks when we go to Sioux Falls to get the cast changed on my ankle replacement. Guess we will need to ask if they have any seedless melons if we are to convince our sheltered grand child to eat watermelon again!

It does make it a little easier to understand how consumers might fail to understand changes in 'modern' food. We just need to think of them as three year old's!

mrj

 

[PPRM]

LOL, I am from the Watermelon Capital of the West. Truly, Hermiston Melons have the reputation (earned) as outstanding in flavor... And, we locals, tend towards the seeded. They have the best flavor.

Speaking of "Modern Food", it is amazing the amount of bone and offal products we are selling the last few years. I refer to a lot of my customers as cooking like my Grandparents did (For reference, I am almost 51 and My Grandma raised 13 kids through the 1920', 30's and 40's). I also gotta say, the food they make is absolutely and incredibly delicious! We truly have tended to throw the best parts away as American Consumers in general.

 

[Faster horses]

I have Mr. FH's grandmothers recipe for Scrapple (head cheese) and it is delicious!

 

[mrj]

I remember my paternal grandma making scrapple, but never tasted it. She had tried sweetbreads, fried brain, liver, and other 'parts' not appealing to me as a small child, with NO success. Grandpa did insist once that I eat the fat from a pork chop because I was just "skin and bones". All that did was make me sick and grandma spent the afternoon cleaning up and comforting me when it all came back up! She was not happy with grandpa!!! But, she was from the waste not, want not era, and I have inherited some of that. I'm not a good scavenger of wild plant foods, tho, so she is probably disappointed in that. It is just too time consuming. Grandma wasn't an enthusiast cook, and a neighbor confided in me that she was NOT considered a good cook. I'm sure her mind was more on a book or a program for the Federated Womens' Club, or Ladies Aid as of more interest to her and maybe even of more benefit to others.

My grand girls sure do run the gamut of food preferences. The little great grand girl mentioned in first post here, could be the modern girl, one of her older cousins, our 17 year old grand girl is into 'clean foods', natural things like honey produced on our ranch, grass feed beef we grow, and makes great salads of fresh foods, often from Farmers Market in Rapid City. And I wish I had access to that more often than I do! Our 25 year old grand girl loves to cook from scratch and favors fresh veggies, home grown beef, and pretty plain foods. She dreams of learning to can beef. She loves home canned beef to the point she hid the last jar of it in her mothers' pantry to be sure they wouldn't eat it when she wasn't at home while she was going to college. Her younger sister is more adventurous, works in an Asian Food court in a mall and loves to try different dishes there. Their whole family likes to cook meals together when they have the all too rare change to do that. They often invite a friend or several and do that instead of going out, since they have moved into a newer house with a wonderful kitchen which is great for either a single cook, or a whole group of them to work together in.

I think I've demonstrated that there are many styles of food choices today. And, isn't it great that our system of agriculture and 'truck gardens' makes it possible for ALL of them to get what they want.....and at such reasonable prices compared with so many people in the world???

BTW, I learned to can meat from my mil, back in 1957. The critter was processed at a locker plant, the front quarters were brought home to cut up to our specifications. The water for canning was heated in the old copper boiler on the modern electric range in her new house. We scalded the jars and lids, packed the cut up meat into them, added some salt and pepper, and the lids, then placed them in the canner and brought the water to the necks of the jars. The load was boiled for four hours. How that was determined to be the proper time, I do not recall. But the lids sealed and the meat was wonderful. A true convenience food and very versatile....from sandwich spread to tasty beef and noodles, soups, with mashed potatoes, and more! I have a nice pressure canner which takes about 70 minutes for pints, or 90 for quarts, and I like to heat it on a large single burner camp stove just outside the back door to keep the heat and steam out of the kitchen. It has been too long since I did that. I look forward to it again after the ankle is healed. The locker will now cut the meat up for us, which will be a time saver. The eldest grand girl hopes for some vacation time to come and learn to can beef this fall. She is a treasure as she is very capable at doing household repairs, re-painting the propane tank and picnic tables, and repairing things the guys here don't seem to have time for. I could keep her busy for a month!

mrj

 

[Faster horses]

Oh yes, home canned meat. I always try to keep some on hand. This last beef we had butchered we shared with our daughter. When I unboxed mine......the meat for canning wasn't there. I asked her if she had it, but so far, no reply. I don't know if she forgot, or
just has not unpacked all of hers. I really want to can some as, like you mrj, it's so handy and convenient. You can do a lot of things
with it and it is so darn.......good!

 

[John SD]

IMO, home canned beef is the ultimate "fast food". Even better if you have some home canned potatoes to go with 8)

Back to the original topic. I'm getting quite lazy in my old age, and I frequently purchase prepackaged plastic bowls containing various combinations of watermelon, honeydew melon, muskmelon, kiwi fruit, and blueberries ready to eat. I would not be surprised if there are a few consumers with the mentality of a 3 yr old who actually think the fruit bowls grow that way :lol: :lol: :lol:

 

[mrj]

I'm very thankful that those nice fruit combinations do "grow that way"! Recently I started noticing how much time I spend slicing and dicing fresh produce, and it is a lot. This recuperation phase has me more aware of how much time and energy it takes to prepare decent fresh food....and I really appreciate the short cuts of buying it prepared, on fairly rare occasions.

Maybe that time thing is a bigger factor than the experts want to admit in the lack of fresh fruits and veggies in modern diets, since many people are so pressed for time to fit all the elements into modern life.

And fear of our fresh food, such as generated by current news of contaminated cucumbers imported from Mexico, and no wonder we aren't eating more fresh foods!

I do wonder if zapping those cukes with irradiation would prevent the illnesses experienced, or are cukes too delicate for that? I'd prefer a tiny bit of radiation to those awful stomach 'bombs' from such contamination.

mrj