My culinary history

June 11, 2007
Dave Uphoff The current emphasis on developing good eating habits to combat obesity and maintain a healthy life stirred my interest in the foods we ate years ago. It seems to me that the foods we ate then were not much better for you than what is currently recommended. So why are so many people fat today? I maintain it is because we lead sedentary life styles rather than the food we eat. You don't see kids playing pickup baseball in the summer anymore. Most are surfing the internet or playing games on the computer. More and more of our hard labor is performed by Mexican immigrants and technology has made couch potatoes out of most of us.

When I went to country school back in the 40's I would pack a lunch bucket. Usually the fare consisted of a baloney sandwich wrapped in wax paper, a twinkie, potato chips and perhaps a banana or apple. My thermos jug would usually contain kool-aid in the warmer months and chocolate milk in the winter. As you see, not exactly a diet recommended by the Surgeon General.

I remember one time when school was canceled for the day and my neighbor Jack Fewell and I went to his house down the road to eat from our lunch bucket. For some reason we exchanged lunches and I remember how good it tasted to eat someone else's lunch. Is that weird or what?

I never knew what a pizza was when I was a kid but I do remember eating a bowl of crackers in milk with a ton of sugar covering it. Sometimes that would be our supper. Other times I would have a bowl of bread in milk with sugar. To substitute for meat, my mother would fry eggplant in egg batter and it would have the same consistency as a hamburger.

We had our own cow and would drink milk that have had chunks of cream floating in it. Boy did it taste good but the fat content was off the chart compared to what we call milk today. At family get togethers in the summer we would make home made ice cream which was far richer and better tasting than what you can buy today. It also was much colder than store bought ice cream and often would result in ice cream headaches if you ate it too fast.

Some of my favorite childhood foods which you don't hear of anymore is my Aunt Fanny VonBehren's hamburgers stuffed with chopped onions or my mother's custard pudding or my grandmother's home made German black bread called swartzbrot. Speaking of my grandparents, my grandfather used to eat the fat scraps discarded from the other diners at the table. I am sure this unhealthy culinary oddity helped lead to his premature death at the tender age of 81! Years ago eating meat and potatoes was good for you and beer and wine was bad for you. Now they say that a drink or two is good for you but we are supposed to cut down on the red meat and starchy foods like potatoes.

Over the years I have noticed a change in the quality of our food. I never knew how good coffee could taste until I went to Europe. It made our coffee taste like dishwater. Also, America produces the worst beer in the world. Again I found this out when I was in Europe where beer is made with natural ingredients and is not contaminated with the preservatives and other chemicals that produce a longer shelf life. Why is it that the richest country in the world has to put economy ahead of quality in everything it produces?

It was really enjoyable to be young and to be able to eat as much as you want of anything you want without worrying about getting fat. Of course that all changes as you get older. Now in order to maintain my weight at a reasonable level I have to watch what I eat. That is the hardest part about growing old - the need to monitor all of your activities in order to maintain your health. You lose some of that spontaneity in life and become somewhat of a bore.

Eating years ago was fun and unencumbered by guidelines and guilt. Yet fewer people were fat. Maybe its time we close the borders and start doing some manual labor again.


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