Where Nobody Knows Your Name

I ate at Applebee's last night.

I feel as though I'm confessing a sin. After my last post, rhapsodizing the genuine and condemning the plastic culture of our fast-food nation, I hop, skip, and jump over to the restaurant that is one step removed from McDonald's, to ingest pre-fab calories. Why?

Yet now I have to pause for a second. There is an assumption in my last paragraph that Applebee's is somehow negative. True it is a chain, where the food and the experience remain identical from location to location. You can have southwestern lime chicken in northern Michigan and gulf shrimp as far away as Seattle. But why do I assume that this is inherently a bad thing? In the 1950's and 60's, one of the original selling points for the McDonald's was that a diner could be assured of the same hamburger and french fries at every location. Consistency was something to be valued.

And yet, there is a foodie culture in America that turns up its collective nose at any scent of a chain. This attitude can be seen in movies like Office Space and Waiting, where the faux 'hometown' restaurant is lambasted as another cookie-cutter pasture in which the suburban American sheep can graze. I have to admit, my inner foodie laughs along with each cutting, snarky witticism.

I have to stop again. See, the reason we went there has nothing to do with Americans. Instead, we can blame it on the Russians.

It all started with my friend Liza's (pronounced Leetsa) obsession with the former Soviet Union and Russian culture in general. For the past two years, Liza has been studying Russian with the help of - wait for it - actual Russians. Thanks to the beauty of 'the Internets', Liza skypes, IMs, and emails with several members of the former Eastern Bloc on a regular basis. They exchange grammar tips, photographs, and recipes for Real Russian Easter Bread (yum). Despite the fact that she has a new story about Andrey, Tatiana, or Vadim nearly every week, Liza has never met any of these people in person. So when her Russian friends Tania and Max said they would be in the area, she leapt at the chance to have drinks with them.

When it came time to meet them, however, Liza's husband was out of town for work. In a desperate search for a 'wingman', she sent me a pleading IM:

"LYYYYYYNNNNNNNNN! Pleeeease come out tonight?!!!! There will be Russians and beer."

Now, I know that one should never go out on a school night, but it is equally important to help a friend in need... Plus, I really like beer.

So we had to try to figure out a place to go. Because, the Russians were not getting to Liza's house until about eight o'clock, we needed a restaurant or bar that would be open a little later than most non-chain restaurants. My city is really a college town peppered with unique restaurants, pubs, and other watering holes reminiscent of a place where everybody knows your name. The problem: Liza doesn't live in my city. She lives in a nearby town with very few non-chain gathering places. Despite our proximity to one another most of the interconnecting routes between us are former cow paths that display as much sense as the animals they are named after. Liza's reticence at leading two people, who speak limited English, through the winding streets to a location known only to her via Googlemaps is understandable. Or to quote her: "I'm a wuss."

So we ended up at Applebee's in her town. It was a pleasant evening. I had a Blue Moon - nice, light - and a tasty queso dip. In fact, in terms of talking to the Russians, Applebee's probably worked out better than one of the hip local joints, where the music or sports are cranked so loud that you barely think in your own language - to say nothing of a foreign one. It was also college night, so we introduced them to American traditions such as the fist bump, quarters, and beer pong (I explained it using St. Mary's Rules). All with appropriate visual aids.

The Russians were truly lovely. Max was particularly effusive about the variety found in our geography. Last week, he and his wife drove from San Francisco to Tahoe down to San Diego via Death Valley and then back up the coast. He marveled over the change in landscape over such a small swath of earth.

And yet, something bugged me. As we were ordering our appetizers Max said that they had been to Applebee's before, referring to it as "typical American food." Which I guess is what Applebee's really is. Sort of. You can walk into any Applebee's anywhere in the country and get the same food of American origin, queso dip or slider burgers or boneless wings, regardless of local cuisine. The menu has a nationwide uniformity that defies the very variety that Max had praised. For example, my queso dip was not particular to New England. Its cheese did not reflect the unique diet enjoyed by cows in the Green Mountains. Jalepenos included in the dip are not native to the Merrimack Valley. Max and Tanya got a slice of America, perhaps, but not a snapshot of the locale they visited.

But you know what, Damien and I did some of the same last summer, while we were in Scotland and England. We did try to experience the cuisine of the country - English Breakfast, Bangers and Mash, and, in Edinburgh, even a Massala curry with lamb and scotch whiskey. However, we didn't look for what was good in Yorkshire, Glasgow, or Dublin. We were trying to have the 'English food' experience without really giving that any deeper thought.

What we did (and Max and Tanya, for that matter) was diminish the diverse cuisine of a nation to one "typical" food experience. I get it. You have a limited time in a country, and you want cram as much of the culture in as possible. The problem is that by forgoing the individual, local meal, you also sacrifice any chance of connecting to the place you're in. By accepting the Disneyfied version, you can tick items off of your cultural checklist, without gleaning any of the local culture.

But I have to interrupt myself one more time. My immediate family (Papa Bear, The Mama, Karl, Ali, Cody, Damien and myself) will, given our druthers, choose a local, mom and pop joint. We will go out of our way to choose someplace 'unique' or 'special'. Why do we do this? In part to support the local economy. It seems nice to know the owners of a business. In reality, however, the managers, cooks and servers at a chain need to earn a living as much as at a local joint, so there must be more than that. Damien suggested that there are health reasons to eat at a local restaurant, but realistically, nachos are nachos whether at On the Border or our local cantina La Carreta. So I think that that is not it. Maybe it is a case of better, more locally grown ingredients; animals that have been humanely treated, but that's not the case in most local places. So maybe it is a case of preference. Gastronomic adventure. We Egglestons prefer to boldly go where we have not gone before. Simply this and nothing more.

Ours seems to be a minority opinion. Driving through much of America, one is presented with the same dining choices locale after locale . But this is not, after all, because of any Applebee's conspiracy. They are not the Evil Empire plotting to take over America and squeeze out the little guy. Their success is the free market at work. Applebee's (and other similar establishments) are in business to make money. If people did not go for that 'hometown' atmosphere, the chains would close up shop. So, clearly, they have found a client base to cater to. They deliver something that part of the populace wants.

Considering all of this, is there any reason (beyond fostering a sense of smug superiority) to condemn those who frequent Applebee's as sheep?

The answer to this lies wedged between the cushions of your therapist's couch. The more interesting question for me is why we make the food choices we do. By now we have all watched enough Dr. Phil and read enough diet books to know that we eat to satisfy more than just hunger. Food is wrapped up in emotion, entertainment, and culture. Eating at Applebee's is certainly tasty, welcoming, and offers tourists a glimpse of "American Food." All laudable qualities.

If, however, you are striving, as I am, to develop a personal food culture, then you have to figure out how something like Applebee's fits in. Do I prefer to go to my neighborhood pub for a plate of deep fried broccoli and a local micro brew? Sure I do. Does that mean that I would turn my nose up at a night out with friends, tasty food and beer, and a chance to meet some Russians at a chain place? No, of course not. In an American food culture even the 'plastic' has its place. The size of that place is up to you.

So, I ate at Applebee's last night, and it was great.

Accept No Substitutions

Breakfast.

Nutritionists consider it the most important meal of the day.

According to WebMD (which cites many scientifically based resources), breakfast not only gives you the calories to function throughout the day, but helps with weight control, focus, and the endurance to deal with even the most recalcitrant of students.

But to Damien and me, breakfast means more. You see, we live largely separate lives. I frequently leave before he is even awake in the morning. Between grading, planning, and 9:30 pm ‘emergency’ calls from Damien’s Left Coast boss, our evenings are shot. Since he works for a multinational company with accounts (and therefore crises) that span five continents and a multitude of time zones, and I work for a high school scheduled to start before many cubicle grunts have their first cup of coffee, we rarely even go to bed at the same time.

That is why Saturday morning breakfast is so important to us. Every Saturday we frequent one of several local diners and have a leisurely meal, just the two of us. This is a time when cell phones and email go unanswered; papers go ungraded. In short, we unplug from the rest of our lives in order to reestablish ourselves as a couple.

Weekend breakfast has been ever thus in my life. Growing up I remember both my parents (but especially my mom) making hot breakfast on Saturday mornings and eating together as a family. Pancakes, eggs, French toast - complicated dishes that our over-stretched schedule couldn’t manage during the work week - weighed down our kitchen table, slowing down our day.

As we grew up, and necessarily apart, the weekend breakfasts still brought my family together. We each began to develop our own dishes. Cody learned the recipe for Grandma’s Swedish roll up pancakes and developed his own magic one for French toast. Papa Bear and I spent about a month tweaking scrambled egg recipes, adding our own delicious supplements, including a plethora of leftovers.

Family breakfast was so important to me that the morning of my wedding, my mom scrambled up a breakfast for me and my bridesmaids - a symbolic farewell to my childhood before the whole white dress and long aisle event.

Breakfast is a respite, a sheltered calm in our ordinarily chaotic lives. With all this going for it, it seems like we would try to have breakfast more often. Yet throughout the week, time slips away. I know that personally I hit the snooze for another nine minutes of pillow time rather than nudging Damien and sitting down for a brief breakfast.

Instead, I toss cereal and a bottle of OJ in my bag, or I hit the congregation of fast food places right outside my neighborhood. The offerings at these places make me think about weekend breakfasts. Each advertises its wares using images of uncracked eggs, hunks of cheese, and real bacon. They also show families enjoying their food together. It seems to me that the manufacturers of these poor, prefabricated concoctions are trying to create the big box version of what Damien and I experience on Saturday mornings. In our super-charged, hyper-fast society these breakfasts are being marketed as portion controlled interpersonal connections. The message is that in lieu of actually being able to take a time out, people can experience a facsimile of the slow food – trying to cram leisure and connection into their already overloaded PDAs.

The problem is, you can’t manufacture connection. Mass-produced leisure is not leisurely. And facsimiles of breakfast will only leave you fat yet unsated. Our society of quick-fix satisfaction leaves us unsatisfied. Breakfast is only one example. The salty substitutes concocted to imitate something genuine permeate every aspect of our culture.

I, for one, choose to reject the plastic. What Damien and I have on the weekends is precious. It is something that, like my mom’s scrambled eggs and Cody’s French toast, deserves to be honored; preserved – not disrespectfully imitated. If, by some miracle, my husband and I wake up together during the week, I will gladly sacrifice those few moments of pillow time for a brief breakfast with him. Furthermore, I will be infinitely more satisfied with that stolen moment of joy than with 100 re-warmed egg and cheese sandwiches.

This quest for the genuine should stretch beyond just the morning. We should have a war on every front against the notion that something that has been mass-produced in the most cost efficient way and consumed as quickly as possible can stand as a suitable substitute for the individual experience of a ‘made from scratch’ meal, enjoyed slowly across the table from a loved one. This notion is a crime against food, families, and flavor, and I won’t stand for it.

I am going to begin a personal food revolution, and I will start with breakfast.

It is, after all, the most important meal of the day.

2010 a Food Odyssey

So, I woke up this morning and thought I was being punked. NPR is, after all, notorious for its over the top April Fools' Day stories reported with deadpan delivery.

Then I remembered: it’s May 6th.

I couldn't believe my ears. My local NPR station spends the last ten minutes of each Morning Edition hour focusing on local news. This morning's story, entitled "Living Prehistorically in the Modern Age", blew the socks off their traditional Beacon Hill backbiting fare (Click here for the whole story: http://www.wbur.org/2010/05/05/going-paleo). So, while I initially intended to kick off the official blog with my thoughts on breakfast, this breaking news demanded my attention.

Basically, the story followed several young urban hipsters who engage in a practice they term 'ancestral eating'. This takes the whole ‘back to basics’ idea of the organic movement to an extreme.

Both the organically obsessed and Paleolithic life-stylers believe that what we eat has become too high tech – transformed from naturally nutrient-rich food into food-like substances. Where they part company with one another, however, is that the Paleovores also believe that even agriculturally harnessed foods are not part of the diet for which humans have evolved. This means that along with processed foods like Oreos and Pringles, they don't eat sugar, whole grains, legumes or dairy. What they eat a lot of is meat, nuts, eggs, vegetables and berries. Think of it as a low-carb meets locavore.

In addition to the 'ancestral eating,' many Paleovores exercise like our forehead heavy forefathers as well. In lieu of real prey or authentic intertribal conflict (No! That's my cave!), Paleathletes scramble around on all fours and throw things. Picture your average two-year-old before bedtime. The focus of this 'sport' is agility rather than cardio - pre-evolutionary gymnastics, if you will.

What struck me more than anything else about this movement was that it seemed to apply the reductio ad absurdum school of thought to the organic movement. If the laboratorialy manufactured chemicals that we have been adding to foods for the last 75 years or so are harmful, then every attempt we make to domesticate and thereby change food must also be negative. This assumption ignores the societal advances brought on by agriculture and the domestication of livestock, including but not limited to: the development of non-portable art, systems of writing, codified laws, and architecture. It also ignores the millennia of evolution that have occurred since the Neolithic times, including our adaptation to a diet that includes whole grains and dairy. Women particularly need the calcium found either in dairy or in more processed sources.

I suppose that in our super-sedentary society, where approximately 90 percent of the average household food budget is spent on processed foods, any back-to-nature movement is a positive step. My concerns about this movement are two-fold. First, I am troubled by the poorly thought out fad-like nature of it. The assumption that eating like our Neanderthal ancestors is a) satisfying, and b) healthy, does not take into account the ways that our bodies and our lifestyles have changed over time. Instead, the movement gloms onto a catchy idea - good enough for them is the best thing for us - and runs with it. To me, this seems to miss the point that our ancestors ate what they could catch, with little choice in the matter and less knowledge of their own nutritional needs. Following the Paleovores’ own logic, one could similarly pose that because my friend’s child instinctively eats carpet lint, it is our natural diet and somehow superior to a nutritionally balanced intake of food. I suppose, however, that such a shallowly considered fad, like the low-carb craze before it, shall soon succumb to extinction.

The second and more concerning predicament is that there is no concern for eating sustainably. Like other diet fads before, it focuses purely on the desires of the individual and not on the effect that those desires have on the planet. If you are going to eat ancestrally, why not bow hunt your own deer meat? Or forage for food in Boston and its surrounding environs? These options would be both true to local ancestry and less self-absorbed than trucking in beef, vegetables, nuts and berries from the world at large.

However, I believe that the photographs on the website mentioned above illustrate the true depth of this movement. In two of them, Paleathletes show off their neoprene five-toed shoes and Lycra exercise shirts. In another, a Paleolithic 'Meatza'- vegetables, bacon, and sauce piled on a ground beef crust - glistens in all its carnivorous excess.

The group photograph is perhaps the most telling. While these Paleovores reject such modern advancements as cereal grains and milk, one can clearly see the remnants of wine in their glasses. I don't believe that wine grows wild anywhere, not even in Napa Valley.

You Are Where You Eat

Allow me to introduce myself (although if you are reading this, you probably know me already and find the pretense of a pseudonym beyond ridiculous). I am a 27-year-old high school English teacher living in a former industrial hub of the Northeast. I was born and raised in the Midwest, however, and went to college in Maryland.

Food featured prominently throughout my formative years, and I began to notice a difference between the cuisines served by my WASPy maternal grandparents and my father’s Keillor-esque relatives. As I ventured further afield, I discovered even greater variation such as Maryland Crab Cakes and Yankee Pot Roast. While engaged in this personal discovery, I simultaneously became aware of the ‘eat humane’ and ‘eat local’ food movements that have gained popularity in the last decade or so. This came to a head in late 2008 when my family began to prepare for our first truly ‘blended’ Christmas Dinner.

In 2008 both my older brother and I each got married. While each of our spouses had visited my parents’ house for prior holiday feasts, this was the first where they would be expected to transcend that intangible yet frequently insurmountable barrier between ‘guest,’ and ‘family.’ As we began to plan this theoretically blissful joint celebration, it turned out that there were questions beyond simply how to prepare the turkey (roasted or deep-fried) and what stuffing is appropriate (cornbread? Sage? Oyster? Stovetop?). The most interesting question was raised by an email that my older brother Karl sent out in mid December. Along with ideas about turkey, stuffing and dessert, he added this input:

“We West Coasters are striving to eat seasonally, so to the extent we can jive that with Christmas and our other dinners, I'd certainly like to. Therefore, any good winter veggies or starches would be a good starting point for other dishes.”

I suppose it should be noted that Karl, his wife Allie, and my younger brother Cody live in the heart of San Francisco and would be flying in several days prior to Christmas.

What ensued was a debate over exactly what was ‘seasonal’ in Michigan in December. While our forefathers (and mothers) ate squash, potatoes, and rutabaga during the winter, they did not harvest them in December but rather spend the greater part of the fall preparing them for long-term storage. I shot back a snarky (read ‘bitchy’) email that questioned the seasonal nature of any winter crop in Michigan. Allie, with her trademark good naturedness, replied with a t-chart of food seasonally available in Michigan and California. On the California side, she listed a plethora of delicious treats available nearly year round in that welcoming clime; on the Michigan side she listed one item: Christmas trees. She then suggested the possibility of deep-frying a Christmas tree as the seasonal Michigan contribution to our festivities - hence the name of this blog.

To me, this incident underscores the difference between the principles of the west coast locavore movement and the reality of living in the Midwest, the Northeast, or any other region subjected to more climate variations than the Bay Area.

In this project, I propose to explore food and its relationship to place, income, time of life, and family. Barbara Kingsolver suggested that, as a nation, we are lacking a food culture. I don’t believe that, but perhaps with seasonal and occasional food that is now available year round and formerly fresh food that has been processed within in an inch of its life, we have lost our way. Part of my goal, therefore, is to rediscover a healthy American food culture. Short of that, I would like to create an Eggleston family food culture that incorporates my Midwestern upbringing, my husband Damien’s Maryland heritage, and the place in which we currently reside. So grab a plate and a micro brew and come along. Let the questing begin.