How does the farmer’s market factor into Boehner’s either/or equation?
The presidential race is not the only place where change is an issue.
Members of Congress returning to the Capitol this week are being confronted by transformational happenings that have shaken the building to its foundations: Democrats have hired a new company to run cafeteria services. Naturally, this has caused an outbreak of partisan skirmishing.“I like real food,” proclaimed Republican leader John Boehner when asked about the new menu by a producer for another cable news outfit. “Food that I can pronounce the name of.”
Boehner is now forced to wrap his lips around such phrases as “broccoli rabe and shaved persimmon,” “balsamic glazed butternut squash,” and “calico pinto beans”…all on this afternoon’s menu, along with the downright patriotic “American Regional Yankee Pot Roast,” which, even Boehner would have to admit, kind of rolls right off the tongue. On Fridays, there is a real sushi bar tended by a bona fide Japanese sushi chef. Gone are such grade-school cafeteria specialties as Salisbury steak and fried chicken, slathered in gravy and served with a side of chips.
Chris Bowers wrote an inspired rant about how this is further evidence that there’s something deeply fucked up about the conservative revolution, that even the pluralism that allows for balsamic vinegar is held up as some evil scourge on good, old-fashioned American conformity. Halfway through his post, I knew one thing was inevitable. As sure as the sun comes up in the morning, there are people on the internet who want to give the appearance of having intelligent opinions without having to do the work of it, and those people would go for the easy kill: “But not all conservatives abhor the sushi! You’re stereotyping!” Apparently, there were a lot of people who wanted to sound smart without being smart, because Chris had to update to clarify that he wasn’t saying that eating only grilled cheese with American “cheese” slices only wasn’t a baseline requirement to vote Republican or anything.
The lazy thinkers got their cheap victory, but it’s worth noting that Boehner wouldn’t be playing the rube if he didn’t agree with Bowers on a certain level, that his base would love to hear horror stories of being served food that has flavors outside of salt, pepper, and lard. I’m fairly certain that this little interview has less to do with Boehner’s actual tastes than what he thinks his voters like to eat—is he stereotyping unfairly or does he have a point? The larger point that Chris is making stands, I think.
Why does Boehner care so much if the cafeteria food is different from his usual tastes? For that matter, why have conservatives frequently insulted the type of food (sushi-eating), type of coffee (latte-drinking), or type of alcoholic beverages (wine and / or microbrews) that many progressives consume? It seems to me that they consider an individual’s divergence from their habits to somehow be an insult to them, rather than the outlandish possibility that different people just prefer different kinds of food and drinks. Does their intolerance know no bounds? And if they really like the food, coffee and alcoholic beverages they consume, why does it bother them so much that other people have different preferences? That strikes me as a shockingly high level of personal insecurity concerning one’s cultural preferences.
This literal distaste for pluralism, coupled with whining over something as petty as personal eating habits, is demonstrative of what has always struck me as the extreme insecurity among conservatives in the cultural realm. That someone even cares what someone else eats is absolutely pathetic. The inability to just live and let live reveals how the conservative cultural supremacist message is based in the highest levels of personal insecurity that one can think of. The fear of gays, of Mexicans, of Muslims, and even of food is infantile in the extreme. Does Boehner need to someone to scare away the unpronouncable words and diverse menu options under his bed at night, too? What else can conservatives fear and hate? Are they going to start holding news conferences about progressives hanging toilet paper the wrong way, too?
The left is getting accused of playing up base identity politics all the time, but it’s the right wingers who really have the tactic sewn up. Everything is up for grabs as something to sow fear and suspicion about. Fussing over food is about remaking the diverse group “liberals” into something very close to an ethnic identity that can then be hated for the same set of irrational reasons that people always tend to draw out when sowing hate between more traditional ethnic groups—their music, clothes, food and body odors are weird and off-putting. Whatever you do, don’t look too closely or exhibit a bit of curiosity about The Other, or you might discover that they aren’t that weird or terrible at all, and that differences can be illuminating.
The conundrum for the Republican party has always been that they speak for the actual interests of minority of Americans, but they need a majority vote to win. They need just enough of the people they intend to screw over to cross over and vote against their own interests to get that 51%. The winning strategy has been to drum up fears of The Other: racial minorities, gays, non-traditional women, immigrants, etc. Drumming up fear about urbanized habits (like eating ethnic, fusion, or nouveau foods) seems like a strange strategy on its surface, but it’s actually coldly rational. Rural states have disproportionate amounts of voting power on the federal level, so Republicans have to convince fewer people to cross over and vote against their own interests. How better than to manufacture a fake cultural conflict between those who eat of the balsamic and know of the city bus and those who don’t?
As a person who is both of the hayseed-chewing persuasion and the urban wine-drinking persuasion, who has spent her time in honky tonks and in ritzier places, who rides a bicycle to save energy but also owns a beater pick-up truck, who owns both snazzy high heels and cowboy boots, I can assure you that the cultural differences that are supposedly driving Americans apart are mostly a bill of goods being sold to us like assholes like Boehner who can’t win on their own merits and have to make shit up.
*Joke kind of stolen from “The Simpsons”.
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What do you expect from a walking boner?
Wait, why were All Liberals supposed to apologize for Ward Churchill, again?
Oh, sorry, I forgot about the whole “I’m rubber, you’re glue” philosophy of the modern Republican.
In Calvin Trillin’s American Fried, there’s a hilarious nightmare scenario in which law enforcement goes around confiscating all food that doesn’t conform to the Nixons’ ketchup-on-cottage-cheese tastes: “Y’all got a license to serve them fresh vegetables?” It’s a pity that bland food is seen as “American” (read: in line with right-wing values).
(Disclaimer: As much as I liked American Fried, I was a little annoyed by Trillin’s attitude of “how silly of those ridiculous hicks in Memphis to want to eat French food and hear classical music, when we all know they should stick to barbecue and country.”)
Real Rethugs don’t eat Broccoli, after all.
Just pork rinds with that foie gras, you all.
Just for jokes, everyone in American should be forced, for a week, to eat only those foods available on this continent 500 years ago. All those “exotic” treats would scare the pants of Boehner. It’s an avocado! Run!
I think that Trillin’s point was that the French food and classical music available in Tennessee then (American Fried was written in the 1970s) was so lame, but that the locals were ashamed of the excellent country music and barbecue because they thought it made them look like hicks.
George W. Bush, a man who’s afraid of horses, was born and raised in the Northeast, went to Harvard and Yale, owns a “Brush Ranch” in Texas that he purchased just before the 2000 election season, etc.
Yet he’s portrayed as a genuine Texas Cowboy, a Man of the People, whose strength of character comes from his relationship with Jesus (that he only started believing in 20-years ago and maintains in a sparse way) and his closeness to The Land, a regular guy that would be great to have a beer with, etc.
What the hell do you expect? After all, Ronald Reagan is a saint in their pantheon - a mediocre actor who made training films during WWII, but was transformed into a brave fighting man, protector of American Freedoms, and defender of “the faith”. His (second) wife was pregnant when they were married, and yet she was the one running around shouting “Just say no!”.
Phyllis Schlafly, Dr. Laura, Michelle Malkin, Ann Coulter, etc., are all women who tell other women to stay home, shut up, do what your husband tells you to do, and raise your kids - while they themselves violate their own prescription every day.
People who are considered great strategic military thinkers who got 5-deferments, etc., to avoid being caught up in the war of their youth. Etc.
Gotta keep those rubes voting for the Rethugs. Even though they privately loathe them and reject everything about them but their votes, as long as the rubes never find out the truth everything rolls along as planned.
Bottom line, wingnuts wouldn’t recognize Genuine if it was handed to them on a (silver) plate…
I don’t know about you, but other black people think I’m wierd because I like cheeses with funny names and Valrhona chocolate from time to time.
Half the time, they think I’m trying to poison them and give me suspicious looks.
Food insularity is serious business.
The Ohio GOP also gave us “freedom fries” among food nomenclature, courtesy of disgraced former Rep. Bob Ney.
BTW, it’s probably because I live in Cali, but we can get nearly any food from any culture anywhere, and nobody really thinks that’s all that unusual.
I guess we’re just too multicultural for our own good…
Ms Kate wrote:
Alas! I eat broccoli, and bean greens (as they are pronounced at the Pico household) and think that sushi is the mostest perfect food.
However, it’s good to see that the Democrats have done this! After all, they promised to get us out of the war, but when they went eyeball-to-eyeball with President Bush, they blinked. When they went toe-to-toe with the president over the budget, they caved.
But now, I’ll have to retract everything I’ve said about the congressional Democrats having accomplished virtually nothing; they have now changed the menu in the House cafeteria!
Did you catch this absurd identity politics thing in the SF Chronicle?.
It seems that there are “beer-drinking” Democrats that tend to vote for Hillary Clinton and “latte-liberals” who tend to vote for Barack Obama. Whatever…
Funny, I always figured “down home values” when it came to food was “it’s on your plate, so shut up your damn whining and eat it or I send your ass to bed with no supper.”
which means being about values means an open mind about food, especially when you aren’t the motherfucker that cooked it.
You’re having the Arugula-Watercress soup, boiled bean salad and lemon cilatro salmon with grilled peppers and squash, or so help me, John
Ironically the new food will keep those ignorant slobs around a little longer.
I’d love to see the cafeteria start serving ‘franken food’ like GMO pot roast and ‘Franken-burgers;.
Heck, just wheel out the dumpster and let those republicans feast down on their kind of food. Just dumpa few gallons of breading and some palm oil and watch them tie a feed on. Stand back…
Real Rethugs don’t eat Broccoli, after all.
Neither do I. That shit is vile.
There’s nothing I love better than a hatful of rich assholes complaining about being served fresh fruits and vegetables.
Don’t families on WIC get something like ten dollars a month for fruits and veggies ?
/fury
It strikes me that this is a class thing as well as an identity and regional thing. Portray democrats as “latte drinking” and “sushi eating”, and you a) play to red state/blue state and urban/rural divides (through stereotypes - you can get both sushi and lattes lots of places, but they’re stereotypical East/West coast, city foods); and b) distract voters from the fact that Republican economic policies serve the rich at the expense of everyone else by portraying democrats as high income people who can blow $3 on a cup of coffee and are out of touch with working and middle-class people. Republicans get to be “regular folk,” not “limousine liberals.”
Many, many years ago when my sister and I were kids, if we didn’t want to eat an unfamiliar food, our mom would say to us “Don’t be such Republicans.” Looks like Mom knew what she was talking about.
“Heck, just wheel out the dumpster and let those republicans feast down on their kind of food. Just dumpa few gallons of breading and some palm oil and watch them tie a feed on. Stand back…”
Pinky, you rock!
Karpad wrote:
No, not quite. Nana was insistant: you will eat it, and you will not get up from the table until you do. For most foods this was never a problem, but she liked to prepare one of God’s mistakes: lima beans.
“calico pinto beans” = brown and white spotted beans plus black and white spotted beans. Whassabigdeal? Trust me, there’s already enough gas in that buildiing that an extra bit won’t be noticed.
So who do the Dems who drink both beer and lattes vote for?
So. stupid.
I definitely do not get a “beer drinkers” vibe from Clinton supporters. Wouldn’t that be more Bush-ish? Though I drink beer. Sooooo… yeah. I don’t even know what else to say.
My mom came to visit me in D.C. and insisted on going to Olive Garden for dinner. I suggested Thai and she told me she would never eat that stuff. Eventually I got her and my dad to a Sushi restaurant (dad is much more advernturous than mom) but my mom was visibly shaken about it.
Add liquor* and you’ve got the four food groups (American).
====
* For the under-twelve crowd, substitute Twinkies for liquor.
There’s nothing I love better than a hatful of rich assholes complaining about being served fresh fruits and vegetables.
No shit. You want plain, American-style food, Boehner? Eat in a poor school’s cafeteria for a year, you fuck.
/rage
Boehner– the whiny 3 year old in the Capitol building. “I don’t waaaaanna eat it! What iiiiiis it?”
One thing that gets to me is, the Republicans are the ones who claim that making health care unaffordable will get people to exercise and eat right. “Do as I say, not as I do” as usual, I guess.
If you compare what people actually want with what actually gets done, I would guess that the Republican party and the Democratic party put together represent a minority of Americans.
Not that any single party’s platform ever really could coherently represent a majority.
Doesn’t everyone drink beer? I have yet to meet the class or group of people—outside of tedious Southern Baptists—the doesn’t drink beer.
Observant Muslims don’t drink any alcohol, and I think Mormons refrain also.
After a Christmas dining through Montreal with the family, then returtning to the small-town Diner monopoly, I say with passion “THIS IS WHY WE FIGHT!!!”
Meanwhile I’ll see if I can get “Les 3 Brasseurs” to send me a cask of their Amber Ale across provincial borders…
A class or group? Can’t think of one. I personally, however, won’t touch beer. Vile, vile stuff.
Who can forget ‘freedom fries’ in the congressional cafeteria.
Nothing surprises me after that stunt.
It’s all an act. I’d hazard a guess that most politicians don’t want to appear to removed from the “common man.” The GOP just makes a much bigger deal about it because they know that their voters buy into symbolic class warfare ideas, as though Republicans don’t drink lattes or eat kobe beef. (Or drive Volvos for that matter.) It’s one of the many ways they pretend to represent average people and not to act too snobby or high-flautin’– they’re afraid that people might see them for who they really serve.
Seriously, what do you think was served as Jack Abramoff’s Signatures restuaruant? Budweiser and BBQ? No, try hamburgers with goat cheese and $72 steaks. I’m sure their wine and bourbon lists were nothing to sneeze at either.
Doesn’t everyone drink beer? I have yet to meet the class or group of people—outside of tedious Southern Baptists—the doesn’t drink beer.
No, not everyone drinks beer. The class or group you’re looking for is called “people who don’t like beer.”
There are actually lots of us around.
I might drink beer if I didn’t find that hops smell like feces.
I wonder what Boehner eats when he goes out to his tony hundred-plus-dollar dinners on the town. I’d really like to be a fly on the wall for that. Five gets you ten that he eats things he’d later claim not to be able to pronounce. Hypocrisy’s the best-paying bet in town when talking about Republicans.
Doesn’t everyone drink beer? I have yet to meet the class or group of people—outside of tedious Southern Baptists—the doesn’t drink beer.
This is the “wine track” vs. “beer track” division of candidates. The idea is that the upper-middle classes drink wine, whereas the working classes drink beer.
Come to think of it, my parents don’t really drink beer. They would very occasionally drink wine. I used to not like beer, but I changed my mind. Except that as a northeastern liberal elite, I, of course, drink microbrews and foreign beers. Thus any claim to my being a salt-of-the-earth “beer drinker” does not hold up to scrutiny.
My mom came to visit me in D.C. and insisted on going to Olive Garden for dinner.
My normal reaction would be shock and dismay and a suggestion of a good, real Italian restaurant, but the truth is that I have no idea where to get good Italian food in DC. In the “ethnic but not scary-ethnic” category, DC has plenty of good east-mediterranean places, though.
Can’t let an opportunity pass to bring up the fact that Boehner represents the Pork Festival.
By all accounts the man smokes heavily, so that good tasting food is probably wasted on him anyway.
Seriously, what do you think was served as Jack Abramoff’s Signatures restuaruant? Budweiser and BBQ? No, try hamburgers with goat cheese and $72 steaks. I’m sure their wine and bourbon lists were nothing to sneeze at either.
To a degree, the Republican stance on food is an act. It works both ways. They know that many of their constituents like when their representatives pretend to have “salt of the earth” tastes or pretend to be part of southern culture because such dishonest displays “show respect.” The flip side is that doing anything in any way different or interesting is considered disrespectful and arrogant.
At the same time, the food that they prefer isn’t much more interesting or creative, only more expensive. What do they eat at Abramoff’s restaurant? Meat and potatoes. Just really expensive meat and potatoes. Bribe-taking Republican Duke Cunningham would eat at the upscale Capital Grill and order his expensive filet mignon well done. Not something that tastes much different at home or at the local bar. Just a lot more expensive.
I might drink beer if I didn’t find that hops smell like feces.
??? What do you eat?
Totally agree, zoe.
Boehner’s from an affluent, mostly white suburb of Cincinnati, but they still sell sushi in the grocery stores there, and you don’t have to look far to find a really tasty curry or a Hispanic grocery. He grew up in the city (a notoriously conservative city, but still a city filled with multicultural restaurants) and now he’s a D.C. politician.
All of which means that Boehner saying he doesn’t know what broccoli rabe is is just an enormously cynical move designed to pull in people who think of themselves as “beer-drinkers.” (Which annoys me even more than if he honestly preferred Twinkies to sushi or whatever, mainly because I’m from Cincinnati and I’m bringing my own, local, issues to the table now. Sorry.)
One more thought. I recently read an article about a local pizza place that started up in the 1950s or so, and in the article a guy was quoted as saying that at that time, pizza was a bold move for any city except New York.
Makes me imagine some conservative politician in 1953 saying, “Pizza? I don’t know about that. It’s got two Z’s - how would you even pronounce it?”
Excellent post, but intentionally or not, Amanda’s insistence (which is true, but, at the same time, telling) on her rural roots kind of gives away what is going on here.
City slicker with no rural roots equals liberal (and sissy, and all that).
City slicker with rural roots or connections equals savvy, tolerant, maybe somewhat wussy becuase of city slicker status, but not a true city slicker, so its all good.
Rural hick…no worries, manly, authentic, down home, etc.
In any event, and this is not meant to slag, the idea that real American have connections to places where most of us never go, and didn’t grow up in (that is, actual rural places, defined by the Census as places with less than 30,000 people in a geographic area, if I recall correctly) is as powerful as ever. We all need to inject the grit into our personal narratives, either through experience or sympathies.
The reverse is not true, and it is odd how this rural stamp of approval remains necessary.
That said, I grew up rural (and liberal…and losing all elections), and now am a city slicker, so there you go. I cannot escape my own analysis.
This is one of those times when you wish the reporter would ask Boehner’s hired help what they’d prepared for him for dinner in the past month. No matter what it was, I think the point would be made.
Bribe-taking Republican Duke Cunningham would eat at the upscale Capital Grill and order his expensive filet mignon well done
*sobs*
Whenever it was that Kareem Abdul Jabbar had his last year with the Lakers, the fans at an away game hung a banner reading “Kareem eats quiche”. What a putdown! Oh, how unmanly!
In an interview Kareem said, “Of course I eat quiche.” I think the Lakers won that night, too.
Makes me imagine some conservative politician in 1953 saying, “Pizza? I don’t know about that. It’s got two Z’s - how would you even pronounce it?”
Oh, I LOL’d.
Too true.
This is, needless to say, a very old political tactic.
Back when I was a lowly staffer on the Dukakis campaign in 1987 and ‘88, Dick Gephardt managed to beat us in South Dakota by running radio ads that made fun of Dukakis’s mentioning an agricultural diversification program he had overseen in Massachusetts.
Campaiging in Iowa in ‘87, Dukakis had said something about farmers growing new crops such as Belgian endive. The Gephardt SD ads basically suggested that the very mention of endive meant that Dukakis was out of touch (and, in a dog whistley way, unmanly, i.e. gay). The concluding line of the ad (remember, this was before you had to end with the “I’m X and I approved this message” line) was an announcer saying “Belgian EN-DIVE?!?!?”
And the genius who came up with this Gephardt ad? Bob Shrum!
From MikeEss: …His (second) wife was pregnant when they were married, and yet she was the one running around shouting “Just say no!”.
Okay, okay, settle down MikeEss- Nancy was saying no to drugs, not to sex. (nor should she!)
And I agree with the descecration of a filet mignon- the waitstaff should have said that, “NO, we will not cook it to shoe leather, sir, and we humbly suggest you select another cut of beef to ruin.”
And if Boehner wants someone ELSE to eat his sushi on Fridays, I’ll gladly volunteer my tummy, as will my daughter! When Mary was in 3rd grade, the teacher asked all of the kids what their favorite foods were- she told me you could have heard a pin drop when she truthfully answered, “Sushi and Brussell Sprouts!”
As I often say, in Russian to say that someone is “not cultured” is a deadly, practically scatological, insult.
In the USA it is a proudly claimed credential.
I’m surprised that food has such political overtones. There’s probably a thesis being written about this as I type.
I’ll go with Douglas Adams on this one:
What does it make you if you brew your own beer and ferment you own wine?
Dunc - I think that might make you the host of next weekend’s party.
:-D
A tax evader?
I guess I don’t like Boehner’s implied mutual exclusivity. I like beer - just about all kinds - and wine. I like Salisbury steak and Thai food. Why do I have to be one or the other?
Not too big on sushi, though I understand why others like it.
I used to be really intolerant of picky eaters. Now I am fine with them, so long as they admit that being picky is the personal failing, instead of pull a Boehner and act like everyone else’s curiosity is the failing.
schrödinger’s cat meowed:¹
During the 2004 campaign, Pennsylvanians made fun of Senator Kerry when he visited Philly and ordered a cheesesteak using Swiss cheese! That just isn’t done.
Of course, despite living in Pennsylvania, I think that cheesesteaks are vile, regardless of what kind of cheese is used. While I am certainly aware that cholesterol is one of the four main food groups², if you are going to eat a cheesesteak you might as well just take the grease intravenously.
___________________
¹ - Sorry, but I just had to do that!
² - The others being sugar, salt and caffeine.
Slightly off topic, but this reminds me, somehow, of a passage in Barbara Kingsolver’s Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, where she describes friends giving her dramatic readings about her from the “100 most dangerous people in America.” She was doing farmwork at the time, harvesting chickens in a blood-spattered t-shirt.
That’s why I’ve never been able to bring myself to try a cheesesteak, despite meaning to every time I visit Philly. The whole “real men don’t eat quiche” line stemmed from a painfully unfunny book by one Bruce Fierstein, whom, to my knowledge, has never been heard from again.BTW, I had quiche for dinner last night, and I’m having the leftovers tonight. It’s delicious and easy to make. The only hard part is wrapping a strip of aluminum foil around the edge of the crust so it doesn’t burn.
Me too, Amanda. I work with a guy that will only eat well done meat and a very few other things. He has the most boring diet of any person I know. But, he knows he is weird, and I’ve learned to refrain from making fun of him.
I am so grateful to have been born into a family that appreciates food. My parents give favorite recipes as Xmas presents. They are very sweet and usually come with a story about their childhood or our childhood.
I happen to like meat well-done. The smell and taste of bloody beef makes me queasy.
However, I happen to like ethnic cuisine (although I’m not terribly fond of most Indian or Vietnamese dishes).
I guess none of this has much bearing on the discussion, except to say that many of us have a mix of sophisticated and unsophisticated tastes.
/can’t stand beer either
The smell and taste of bloody beef makes me queasy.
er, “make”.
That’s probably one source of the common Eumisconception that Americans are stupid. (Don’t shoot me. I said MISconception.) A good trick is to ask: “Is it the kind of thing John Wayne would do?” This usually clears up the fog. John Wayne would totally have eaten cheese steak.
I think I get why people cling to these types of food. Perhaps Europe has the advantage of having a stronger sense of local history, and usually our identity is very closely linked to a local dialect or accent. Moreover, our national languages aren’t really “global”. No one appropriates them for themselves. They’re all ours. If you travel thirty minutes in whatever direction you choose, people will talk differently and even the mentality will be slightly different. If you don’t have all that in quite that extent, perhaps it’s logical to seek other symbols that anchor one’s identity. Just a theory.
No, not quite. Nana was insistant: you will eat it, and you will not get up from the table until you do.
Consider yourself lucky. We learned to eat what was on our plate because otherwise we’d be facing it for dinner for the next three or four days…
“Eumisconception”? This should have read “European misconception”. Sorry.
And I thought “eumisconception” was an interesting neologism (perhaps meaning something like: “a misconception that is for the good”).
And let me just speak up for the lowly cheesesteak, a delicious, if deadly, food item, best ordered “whiz wid”, of course. Then again, I’m also a fan of that other great Philly contribution to world cuisine: scrapple.
BTW, I had quiche for dinner last night, and I’m having the leftovers tonight. It’s delicious and easy to make. The only hard part is wrapping a strip of aluminum foil around the edge of the crust so it doesn’t burn
I do them crustless. Ramekins are awesome for making personal sized ones, so if I make one for dinner, I do another one in a second ramekin and have it for lunch the next day.
Filet mingnon–bland flavourless pap. Cooked well done–an atrocity. Served up with iceberg lettuce (click the link–if you dare!)–utter blasphemy.
It gets worse. Much worse. Something about Cunningham, a hot tub filled with Potomac river water, and an absence of clothing.
Pass the brain bleach and Brillo, please!
Make that “filet mignon”. Although, cooked well-done, who can tell what it is?
According to Anthony Bourdain (fine-dining chef, restauranteur, author, food-adventurer), in his book “Kitchen Confidential”:
And Bitter Scribe, forget the foil business, just buy a pie crust shield. They come in all sizes, even adjustable-size.
De gustibus non est disputandum!
I can now add another “ism” to my collection - Foodism, which would make me a Foodist?
For every Foodist Rethuglican, I’ll bet I can find a left side version which generally states that “third world foods are superior”!
I like to serve Durian, Balut, and “Buddha Jumps Over The Wall” soup, and observe the reaction when my friends want to like this stuff, but have to admit that their western tastebuds might need a little training before the aforementioned are perceived as delicacies!
“For every Foodist Rethuglican, I’ll bet I can find a left side version which generally states that “third world foods are superior”!”
Yeah, so there!!! isopluvial pwnd you! You stupid snooty moonbats, with your stupid third-world food - you think you’re SO damn smart and sophisticated! And thanks to J*nah G*ldberg, we know you’re all just a bunch of fascists, dirty hippie food-fascists.
Real Americans eat nothing but Meat and Potatoes and Meat! You can stick your fruits and vegetables up your high-fiber-squeaky-clean colons!!!…
“I like to serve Durian…”
I bet that makes you REALLY popular with your friends and neighbors…unless they have working noses…
Yeah, I love the fact that they smell so skanky they’re explicitly banned on singapore mass transit.
Reverse food snobbery in US politics goes back at least as far as 1840:
But a large variety of interesting and fascinating foods is much cheaper now, at prices affordable to all but the poorest. I wonder if there’s more than just a class issue going on here. Is there a dog-whistle hidden in it that says “Hey, maybe these sickos with their exotic foods are experimenting with other sensual experiences”?
Somehow, I never heard the real men and quiche comment until someone transposed it and grinningly served himself a portion remarking “Real mean eat quiche.”
I always thought the expression was meant to say that real men get over the faux-machismo bullshit.
schrödinger’s cat meowed perhaps
fixed that for you Dana.
and I fucking love quiche. it’s like omelet pie. Who doesn’t love omelets? who doesn’t love pie?
what kind of fucking nihilist wouldn’t love omelet pie?
My dad, who is in just about every other way very post-Vietnam hippie scientist — you know the type — has MAJOR hangups about which foods are worth eating. It’s similar to Boehner’s material here, but toned down. For him the whole thing seems to be that, (1) food that isn’t meat is basically filler, or a waste of money; and (2), even more importantly, “fancy” food is both snooty and dainty, i.e., rich and/or gay.
One of our former chancellors used to do that to visitors of state. He always took them to his home county, into his favourite restaurant, where they had to eat Pfälzer Saumagen. Think of Haggis and you’re close. I’m beginning to suspect it was his way of getting his own back at Maggie Thatcher.
what kind of fucking nihilist wouldn’t love omelet pie?
A Kantian nihilist!
(I couldn’t resist)
I grew up in the Midwest. There’s plenty of “ethnic” food with “weird” names that Midwesterners eat without a second thought, and as for vegetables, all that ‘corn-fed’ doesn’t come from eating stuff out of a can. Boehner knows this. He just can’t help being a xenophobic, faux-anti-intellectual assbag.
(And you can’t get good corn in California, I’m sorry to say. I asked a vendor at a local farmer’s market what variety of corn she was selling and she said “Supersweet”. Damn Left Coasters.)
I grew up in the Midwest. There’s plenty of “ethnic” food with “weird” names that Midwesterners eat without a second thought, and as for vegetables, all that ‘corn-fed’ doesn’t come from eating stuff out of a can. Boehner knows this. He just can’t help being a xenophobic, faux-anti-intellectual assbag.
Yes, but there are also wide swathes of the midwest that are allergic to flavor. (I grew up among a lot of them.)
what kind of fucking nihilist wouldn’t love omelet pie?
A Kantian nihilist!
A Hobbsian realist, on the other hand, wouldn’t be afraid to break a few eggs…
calico pinto beans” = brown and white spotted beans plus black and white spotted beans. Whassabigdeal?
I once brought a pot of fagioli alla tuscani to a potluck and no one ate it. I brought the same thing the next time and called it ham and bean soup and they ate it all and asked for more.
You can get pretty bad food in California, too. Just saying that there’s nothing about down home average Midwestern folks that means “stupid about food and likes it boring”, and Boehner fucking knows it.
mythago…i’m betting a large chunk is actually an urban/rural divide. When I was living in Minnesota most recently, I had to drive an hour and a half to have sushi, pho, tikaa, well, almost anything interesting. And more than a few people were actively freaked out about what I would eat. While there was a population very interested in such food, there was also a good ol’ heartland “meat and potatoes” aspect where vegetarian cuisine is an iceberg lettuce salad. Yeah, he’s playing rube, but it’s a form of identity politics that will play to certain segments.
There’s another component to Rethug’s strategy that shouldn’t be overlooked. I wrote about it on the Bower’s thread here, but the summary is that Boehner’s trying to convince people that Liberals want to take away the food you love, the cars you drive, etc. (Remember Lott’s false choice of the Trabant-esque compact car during debate on fuel efficiency a few years ago?)
NY Expat
January 20, 2008 at 5:38 pm
There’s another component to Rethug’s strategy that shouldn’t be overlooked. I wrote about it on the Bower’s thread here, but the summary is that Boehner’s trying to convince people that Liberals want to take away the food you love, the cars you drive, etc.
You mean Liberals don’t want to do these things?
And I always thought Vonnegut’s “Harrison Bergeron” was a liberal instruction manual.