Tag: Baking

Food Traditions: Pierogis, Kolachis, and Front-Yard Barbeques

“See, okay, the thing is, you better know that in this country nobody eats in the front yard. Really. Nobody” –Diana Abu-Jaber, “A House and a Yard”

kolachi88

Food traditions surround every culture. Whether this means barbequing in your front yard to the dismay of your neighbors, like Diana Abu-Jaber explains in “A House and a Yard,” or gathering around the table for turkey and stuffing on Thanksgiving, or cracking crawfish with your hands at a backyard crawfish boil, we all grew up with our own sense of “normal” when it comes to food. As explained in “A House and a Yard,” Abu-Jaber felt ashamed of her traditional Middle Eastern fare when she realized that it wasn’t the norm in her American suburb. Her family’s grilled meats, tabbouleh salad, and skewers of veggies weren’t typical American cuisine, which thus segregated her family from the rest of the neighborhood and caused her great distress.

Have you ever had a moment where you realized what you thought was so normal and traditional, in fact, wasn’t? Maybe you haven’t barbequed in your front yard like Abu-Jaber, but I can guarantee you have had at least a split second when your sense of culinary normalcy was shattered. Continue reading →

The Productive Home vs. The Average Person: Biscuits on Saturday, Canned Beans on Monday

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Blog Image 1 The food industry has come to a consensus: Everyone is cooking less and eating worse. Nutritionists, chefs, farmers, gourmands, productive home enthusiasts, hipsters in the granola aisle of Whole Foods–everyone agrees that there is an epic food fight being waged in our homes. Unfortunately, the rhetoric used to combat this trend is often laced with blame and judgement. “Cook all three meals.” “I hope those eggs are cage free.” “Don’t waste money on organic avocados.” You bought non-organic strawberries? Here’s a shovel. You’ll need it to dig the grave all those pesticides are going to put you in. Think fast: there’s a Chinese takeout container full of shame and guilt flying right at your head.

Within this milieu of confusion, good intentions, and more than a pinch of guilt, it is tempting to side-step the minefield that cooking can become and outsource the decision of what’s for dinner to restaurants and corporations. Erica Strauss addresses this temptation, and why she resists it, in a post entitled “Zombies vs. The Joy of Canning: Motivation in the Productive Home.” She hits upon a refreshingly simple and unpretentious reason for fighting against the cultural norm of take-out and microwave dinners, as she admits, for making life harder: It makes her happy. As frightening as the threat of a zombie apocalypse or satisfying as taking down big business one organic cantaloupe at a time may be, she comes to the conclusion that, “At the end of a long, long, long day of canning, or weeding, or sowing, something greater than fear and anger has to carry you along.” I think she’s right. If you’re going to spend a full weekend canning tomatoes as she does, I hope to God it’s because you find enjoyment in it. And if you do, then congratulations, because being happy and healthy is an excellent by-product of that hobby.

It’s important to note though, that the way of life Strauss has chosen is a hobby. Some people love taking pictures, or playing music, or cooking tiny, ant-sized versions of popular foods (miniature cooking is a thing, and it is weirdly satisfying). Erica Strauss loves making her own deodorant, and harvesting honey straight from the hive.

That’s great for her, but for most of us it’s impractical at best and utter drudgery at worst. Continue reading →

3 loaves of bread.

A Product of the Home

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I woke up early every morning to read my science textbook and cook breakfast burritos before my dad left for work. I wrote essays in front of the fireplace after I had finished shoveling snow off our driveway. I discussed Dostoevsky’s novels with my mom and sister while we prepared spaghetti for dinner, growing so absorbed in the conversation that I accidentally burnt the tomatoes. From kindergarten through senior year of high school, my education took place completely within my own house, and I am a proud graduate of the Lisko Home School. Continue reading →

If You Give a Health Nut a Fruit Chip

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“Industrial technologies, particularly synthetic nitrogen fertilizer, has fed the swelling human population during the last century. Can organic agriculture feed a world of nine billion people?” David Biello, “Will Organic Food Fail to Feed the World?”

David Biello’s “Will Organic Food Fail to Feed the World?” examines an issue that “has too often been an emotional debate”: organic vs. non-organic farming methods.

Biello begins by drawing attention to how much civilization truly relies on food: we need it to feed ourselves, to feed the animals we use to feed ourselves, to strengthen our clothing with fiber, and even to fuel our cars. Because we rely so heavily on food, agriculture has wiped out massive amounts of the biosphere: 70% of grasslands and 45% of temperate forests have been converted to farmland. Additionally, farming is not only the leading cause of deforestation in the tropics, but also “one of the largest sources of greenhouse gas emissions.” Continue reading →