An ode to lard and all the old time cooking habits

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I get you, OP.

can I add that I miss really good watermelon? It all tastes like garbage now.

If it’s the seedless kind, I know the man who had a part in developing it and the reason why. He did say that the taste is not nearly as good at the ones with seeds like when we were children.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I love all the cooking things but I don’t really share your nostalgia for the “good old times” since I have plenty of family stories about how not good they actually were. (Unless you were super rich I guess. But that’s true wherever.)

No, many parts of the “good old days” weren’t, but OP is correct that food did used to be more nutritious, by quite a bit. Our soil is badly depleted due to modern farming methods, but increasing carbon dioxide is also causing plants to be less nutritious. https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/vanishing-nutrients/

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP, I grew up on a farm and experienced most of these things.

Just to balance things and maybe make you feel less sad about what you think you are missing now, here are some of the negatives that came along with that life:

1. It was so boring as a teenager. We were an hour and a half drive from a mall, and a long drive from each friend. Friends who were also farm kids lived equally far from everyone else.

2. This kind of community conjured up some religious crazies. My best friend in elementary school was pulled out of school when her parents discovered Bill Gothard’s crazy cult and began homeschooling her in preparation for becoming a “stay at home daughter” instead of college, then marrying young. She’s super messed up today!

3. The casual animal cruelty that I saw among some (not all) farmers really hurt me as a sensitive child. I never got used to seeing just-shot, bloody deer dragged out of the woods or the sick way some people would beat or mistreat certain farm animals.

4. Farm life meant close-knit families, which was great if your family was loving, but awful if there was abuse in the family. I knew a few people who suffered physical or sexual abuse from family members for years.

5. When I was a teen I did not want to spend hours helping out with farm chores. I really resented having to shovel horse stalls or ride on the wagon behind the mower to help catch and balance the bales. I hated weeding and I hated being asked to “mow the lawn” (the lawn was 2 acres). Friends I knew who were not farm kids had so much more free time.

6. My pet cats weren’t allowed indoors and didn’t get expensive treatment if they were injured or sick. They were simply euthanised. Because they were “working animals” (mousers) and there were a lot of them. I was a sensitive kid and there were a few really horrific things. (See casual animal cruelty)

7. I never, ever failed to cry when a beloved pet I’d fed from a bottle as a baby calf grew up and the truck from the slaughter house came to get her/him. Those men were gruff and mean, and the cow that had been raised as a pampered pet looked so scared and sad when these brutes arrived, smacking the cow on the shoulder or rump with a stick to get him/her into the huge, stinking trailer. I never got over the trauma of being told by my laughing parents that the chicken dinner I’d just enjoyed was actually the goose I’d gotten as a fuzzy baby last Easter. People say that farm kids are more practical about these things, but I never was. The way cows, especially, are treated makes me sick because I saw it all. I am a vegetarian today.

In addition, women were tied to their kitchen and home, and couldn’t work outside of home, have independent income stream etc.

There’s much to live in what OP posted but it came at significant cost.

+1
And they were always “farm wives,” never given credit for doing the work that allowed farms to thrive (and actually doing the actual work of farming, too, half the time).

[Anonymous]

OP, I experienced this for just a few years when I stayed with my grandparents in Central Europe as a child. The fresh currants, fresh cream, rows of mysterious canned pickles in the dark cellar, the same perfect butter lettuce day after day, thick poppy seed paste in yeasted dough. I yearn not just for the quality and earthiness but also for the repetition. It was a lexicon of food—each ingredient and dish secure in its place. I’m sure it was drudgery for my grandmother but she also took great pride in cooking, honoring traditions and keeping her home, and she was respected for her efforts.

But to the sensitive PP: I also was shocked by the cruelty and glad to return home for that reason alone. Learning the bunnies you played with grew into rabbits who were butchered on your swing set… I’m now a vegetarian, too, despite knowing it would be healthier not to be. And I probably eat fifty types of foods each month.