For years, I subscribed to the trite and hackneyed phrase: "I don't have time to cook." It was easier to pick up fast food on the way home, or to prepare a pre-packaged meal in the microwave, the oven, or the skillet than to search out recipes and make a home-cooked meal.
Certainly, I haven't been alone in believing the line fed to me by the media, by the bright and shiny advertisements, the glamorous images on the television, the appealing packaging, the ease of use and consumption. As early as 1885, magazines and their corporate sponsors began to combine articles and ads for brand-name ingredients, laying out magazines such as Ladies Home Journal, McCall's, and Good Housekeeping to appeal to a modern woman who helped to drive consumer decisions in the household.
When I first consider starting this blog, it was a whim, a fancy, a lark. People have long complimented my recipes, starting with Apple Charlotte, a recipe of French origin that I made and shared with my classmates in grade school. [Each of us was supposed to present a dish from the country we had chosen to research for Social Studies class. I find it somewhat appropriate, then, that the two great avocations in my life have been cooking and geography.] I thought it would be easy, then, to toss out a recipe here and there, list a wine recommendation, add quirky little stories associated with food.
As I began to write, it became clear that I couldn't simply post the formula for my adventures in cooking or cute anecdotes. No, I've rarely been able to set aside my lingering sense of responsibility to the facts. I'm a researcher at heart: ask my husband, he'll tell you that it doesn't take much to start me down the road to another research project. "Hey, Meri, do you have any idea when soda first received its own grocery store aisle?" Well, no, I don't, but you can bet that a future blog post will focus on the issue. There wasn't always a soft drink aisle.
The issue of over-processed, quickly prepared, and convenience foods has been on the American radar and part of social consciousness for the better part of two decades. In a parallel track, organic and local foods have gained both visibility and popularity. I now visit no less than two farmers' markets a week, trying to purchase higher quality, more nutritious, and better tasting greens, meats, apples, breads, potatoes, and even flour. When we can afford them. Therein lies the rub: when we can afford them.
Our small farmers are not growing rich by charging exorbitant prices to capitalize on the recent popularity of organic and local food. On the contrary, many, if not most community farmers are lucky to break even at year's end. Today, the cost of growing a head of lettuce isn't just the cost of labor, property taxes, seeds, tools, and fertilizers. Government regulations intended, on the surface, to protect our health and well-being, have penalized local growers and have rewarded volume production. Farms in urban or urbanized areas suffer by comparison to farms in the Midwest when shopping is done on a cost basis alone.
We are taught that quantity matters, particularly when it comes to cost. We are encouraged by wholesalers and warehouse clubs to buy in bulk. A larger size, or a case, is cheaper, per ounce. Yet what if that ounce is filled with preservatives, coloring, and fillers that are doing untold damage to our bodies? We have sacrificed our well being and the richer, fuller taste of local foods for cheaper, more, and "better".
The brilliant British documentary, The Century of the Self, traces the rise of mass production and consumerism, and links the push to sell the concept of faster, better, and cheaper with the image of the perfect wife and mother. You don't have to make a recipe from scratch. You don't even have to know what's in the mix. You just have to add one or two ingredients, stir, bake, and dessert is ready. You merely have to remove the foil and serve a fully-prepared meal. Pushed by economic drivers and profit margins, cheaper, more, and "better" has resulted in enormous portions, bloated waistlines, and cravings for starch, fat, and sugar in immense proportions.
My purpose in this blog, then, is not just to share recipes and casual conversation, but to make you think about the foods you enjoy, to try foods that you have never tried, and to learn about the components of recipes that provide taste, nutrition, and enjoyment. In thinking about your meals and snacks and their ingredients, you will also find yourself examining cultural norms, economic change, and historical precedent.
Meri's Apple Charlotte
You'll need:
4 large apples
8 slices of white bread
approx 3 tbsp butter
2 tbsp pure maple syrup
1 tbsp vanilla
1 tbsp cinnamon
1 tsp nutmeg
2 tbsp raw sugar
2 tbsp honey
1/2 c cream
Preheat the oven to 375 degrees
Lightly spray an 8x8 glass or stoneware baking dish with olive oil or baking spray
Peel, core, and slice 4 large apples. I recommend half granny smith and half empire or macintosh.
Remove the crust from eight slices of white bread. Spread four slices with butter and toast. Spread the remaining four with butter, but set aside.
Place the toasted slices in the bottom of the baking dish.
In a large bowl or plastic bag, mix the apple slices with the maple syrup, vanilla, and spices. Stir or shake until coated. Pour over toasted bread in pan. Sprinkle raw sugar over the apples.
Place the remaining bread slices, without crusts, on top of the apples, butter side down.
In a small, microwave safe bowl, heat the cream and honey together for 1 minute. Mix, and drizzle over the top of the bread slices.
Bake at 375 on middle rack for 20 minutes, covered (with tin foil). Remove foil and continue to bake for 20 minutes.
Cool for 10-15 minutes. Serve with preserves (strawberry or apricot).
