Out of the Jar with a Spoon

Today's non-book post is a comment on a point made in the book I just reviewed, Rick Bailey's Get Thee to a Bakery. 

Apparently trending on a web site, not too many years ago, was a set of questions about things people in other countries have heard about the foodways of the United States. (Briefly, although many Americans have never seen or heard of some of the menus foreigners have heard that "Americans" eat, in a nation of this size there probably are people, somewhere, who eat it. Though in the case of real authentic kim chi, which some Americans do eat and not all of them are even of Korean descent, they may have been asked to move out of a furnished room after preparing and eating it.)

In a nation of this size, in fact, to mention any unusual and (you think) disgusting food item is probably to give somebody an idea for a trademark for a new restaurant chain. It probably will work for somebody. I'm not defending the idea of pineapple on pizza, but the enzymes in pineapple probably would make it easier for some people to digest meat and cheese.

Most Americans aren't celiacs. Even in Ireland the celiac gene puts people in a minority. Glyphosate has, however, caused many Americans to try eating as if they were celiacs. It's not a cure but it helps, because nearly all U.S. wheat has been heavily sprayed with glyphosate, so a wheat-free diet makes a difference in the amount of this poison to which we expose ourselves. 

Quite a few traditional American foods consist of a wheat-based dough, baked, boiled, or fried, spread with or dipped into something softer. According to traditional rules, both of economics and of nutrition, people were supposed to fill up on generous portions of the wheat products with just a thin coat of the gooey stuff on top. Wheat was cheaper and, when unsprayed, unbleached, with a good bit of bran left in, it was nutritious for most people. (Celiacs still didn't digest it.) Pouring on or mopping up enough of the "topping" to spill back onto the plate, or need to be scooped up iwth a spoon, was extravagant and was seen as a form of gluttony.

This changes when you realize that wheat is what's been making you sick (and in some cases keeping you skinny, though flabby). You can substitute equal volumes of corn, rice, potato, millet, quinoa, oat, or tapioca products for the wheat-based part of a meal. Celiacs usually do that when cooking for guests. At home we don't necessarily bother. 

So, yes, there are those who do eat their favorite toppings-for-bread/pastry/pasta all by themselves...

1. Tomato sauce without the pasta or pizza. Heat it, thin with the juices and/or cooking liquid of vegetables, and it turns into delicious soup. That idea is positively mainstream. Hunt's displays recipes for their tomato sauce as a soup base on some of the labels of their tomato sauces.

2. Fruit preserves, jelly, jam, or marmalade without the bread. Personally I think it's more interesting to warm the fruit preserves enough to melt it and use it as sauce on fruit, anyway, especially if you happen to have some organically grown but rather boring fruit to use up, e.g. pears. 

3. Peanut butter without the bread. It's traditionally spread on celery, but yes, people do eat it by the spoonful. 

4, Frosting without the cake. The most popular cake frostings in the United States are the buttercream kind, though they're often made with Crisco shortening instead of butter for longer storage. The idea of eating a bowl of Crisco with sugar mixed into it still puts many people off, even in the celiac community, although I've heard it recommended. Frosting is, however, sold in little tubs from which it's easy to scoop up on pieces of fruit or nuts.

5. Syrup without the pancake or waffle. Personally, I once used a dab of cheap maple-flavored corn syrup to stick a key back on a typewriter when all else had failed. The key stuck on with corn syrup has stayed on that typewriter for 35 years. This has made the idea of eating anything that's that sticky seem unappetizing to me. Real maple or sorghum syrup is not to be wasted, though. It can be scooped up on pieces of fruit, especially fruit that didn't get enough sun while it was growing and may also have been picked while green for easy shipping. 

6. Nutella without the biscotti. Nutella has not been imported into the United States long enough to be traditional even with the biscotti. I can't think of anything else that really seems like a complementary flavor, but I suppose eating Nutella by the spoonful is no worse than eating peanut butter that way.

7. Applesauce without the bread or meat or even a cookie. Applesauce is just cooked apples so I see no reason not to eat applesauce with a spoon. I've known people who added crunch to applesauce by eating it with gluten-free cold cereals like corn flakes, Chex, or Cheerios. This was a better idea before food processors started spraying glyphosate right on grain, to dry it out faster, in 2009.

8. Salsa without the tortilla. Most things sold as salsa in the United States would be too peppery for most people to consider eating with a spoon, but they work just as well on any other component of a taco as on the tortilla. Salsa can go directly on meat, beans, lettuce, tomato, radish, fish, whatever. It can also be eaten on rice, or on corn and corn products.

9. Dulce de leche--condensed milk not reconstituted with water and used in cooking, as intended, but cooked into a sort of candy. How is that worse than eating caramels?

10. Mayonanaise without the sandwich. This one does disgust me, mostly because I don't put mayonnaise on salads or sandwiches myself. It has no food value. It is pure empty calories and it smells like vinegar. It is possible to sandwich two slices of meat together with mayonnaise. Meh. They could at least hold the sandwich together between leaves of lettuce.