food life story

I won’t tell the details, because I want to respect the privacy of our conversation, which was not a formal interview at all.

But I will tell you a wonderful way to get people talking, even when the people don’t know each other, as was the case for me this afternoon. Two individuals, notable for being from widely divergent demographics: age, gender, ethnic and cultural backgrounds, who have chosen different, shall we say, ‘lifestyles’ and I asked them a single question (to start…)

Where did you learn to cook?

Yes, I followed up with questions about who cooked for their childhood family and did they get to help in the kitchen? Were there certain foods they still love from their childhood? Etc. Etc.

But they also began to ask each other follow-up questions. And I also got to share a bit of my take on the PFIC and how women were told that processed food was better and easier… etc. etc.

Anyway, I offer this suggestion for anytime you need to make conversation… ask people about some part of their FLS. Any food/family topic will get most people talking.

Finished listening to that interview I had started a few days ago, where MA discusses more about adult cooking life, with continued references to childhood and mother’s cooking choices. A topic that I’ve shied away from a bit is how economic ‘class’ impacts one’s FLS. A southerner by birth, MA recalls going to a farmers market in a small town outside of the city where she lived. At that time (1960’s) in that area, many people thought it was better, more civilized, to shop in a grocery store and had the opinion that choosing to go to a farmers market implied that one was less educated. Although prices were lower and quality was higher. Thinking of today, when farmers still struggle to make a living, but the general consensus is that buying fresh produce/products at a local farmers market is a somewhat rarified, elitist thing to do. Except for a place like Boston’s Haymarket (slowly dissolving after many, many years) where the crates of produce may come from farms, but are certainly not local.

So, I’ve been thinking about the many meanings of ‘culture’ as it relates to a Food Life Story.

There is the history/culture/ethnicity of your biology, which is often linked to how closely your family connects with that ‘family’ history. If your grandparents were immigrants and live with or near you, they have probably been a part of your FLS: abuelas, avós, babcias, oumas, bubbies, Obaachans, mormor or nonnas that did the cooking for larger family gatherings, (or parents or fathers or aunts and uncles…) Or your family’s choice to live in what’s called ‘an ethnic enclave’, to buy food from or eat in certain restaurants.

There is the culture of the historical time period when you grew up; for me, 1950’s America. When the PFIC and ‘Mad Men’ were convincing women that they didn’t like to cook and that (initially) canned food was the answer to their prayers. Or was your family cook sticking with ‘from fresh’ or from scratch cooking?

And then there is the dominant culture in your world as you grow up and begin to feed yourself (and maybe others), especially in the late 20th and early 21st century. Did the pace of life pick up and take out become the norm? Meals to reheat from a market or getting meals delivered to your door? Did a single social life or long work hours lead to eating out a lot? What about the cultural norm of your friends, coworkers and neighborhood… is anyone a ‘foodie’ who loves to cook or just a ‘foodie’ who wants to hit the hottest new places and photograph their food for Insta?

Instead of listening to the rest of the first interview, I decided to pull a couple of books from my food life research collection off of the shelf and take a look at what I had marked… One of the first books I read had/has the lovely title (taken from an old Pillsbury ad, which makes the ‘warm fuzzies’ it gives me quite suspect, really) of Something From the Oven, with the subtitle: Reinventing dinner in 1950’s America. Spot on. My childhood.

The introduction poses this question:

“Do women like to cook? That is, are there any good reasons to cook from scratch, apart from habit, sentiment and the family budget? The question had never emerged before, but, suddenly, thanks to all the new products, there was a glimmer of space between women and cooking, just enough to invite reflection. Do we like to cook? Is it important to cook? Before the question could even be asked, it was answered with a powerful ‘Not anymore.’ The ones speaking up so convincingly were the advertisers.”

That is, the handmaidens of the Processed Food Industrial Complex (PFIC).

Obviously, the question of whether men like to cook was moot at that time in sexist his-story. I must say, it was delightful to interview a number of men who very much like to cook!

This paragraph from Laura Shapiro’s 2004 book, encapsulates many of the primary topics that I was/am seeking to explore, which became questions embedded in my interviews and research.

Do you like to cook?

Are there any good reasons to cook from scratch?

What role do habit and sentiment play in one’s food life story?

Is it important to cook?

And how was/has American food culture (been) influenced or controlled by the PFIC?

Think on it.

It’s the third day (or sort of the fourth day, since I wrote something on the 31st) of this revisiting Food Life Story. And I still don’t know exactly what I’m doing… I haven’t put the time into finding my way around, getting into this site…is it a site? I’m not sure, but I will say that it’s interesting to be stirring up these food related themes again. I spent several years doing research about cooking, food life stories and the Processed Food Industrial Complex. I want to continue this re-investigation. Re investigating the topics, but mostly (or at least to start) revisiting all of my interviews and research and writing. Maybe that’s my plan. Saber?

I did write a bit yesterday, but I don’t know where it is… where it has gone. This is unfortunately a familiar problem for me, when working on the computer, not just a website or blog post. So, instead on rambling about my technical issues, I’ll make a few comments about the first half of the first interview, which I listened to yesterday. My initial question is ‘What Matters About FLS?’ That’s what I’m curious about…

Some things that have come to mind right away are:

where you grew up and with whom,

whether the primary cook in your childhood actually like to cook or was fulfilling a role,

what generation that cook belonged to,

whether mealtime was a happy event or merely practical or actually tense?

I’m actually not sure if this website exists or not… It’s been a really long time since I did any blogging.