6 ms·

It would have helped if you read the entire essay. I was a kid during that 1958 description, and it is exactly what was happening in my house (Alexandria, VA).

• dalke 12y ago
  Like I said, I couldn't get through the essay because I fundamentally disagreed with it. You say your memories of the 1950s are in agreement with it. I point out multiple examples from that era which show it isn't the case. I trust copies of literature from that era better than I do memories of childhood. I know how distorted my own memories of childhood were compared to the reality of the 1970s. Here's another: http://calorielab.com/news/2005/08/25/family-dinners-school-lunches-and-fast-food-in-the-1950s/ http://calorielab.com/news/2005/08/25/family-dinners-school-... - "Dinners consisted of meat, potatoes, a green vegetable, dinner rolls, salad. and dessert." Or look at the image of a Swanson's TV dinner from the 1950s , http://leitesculinaria.com/10348/writings-dining-through-the-decades-american-food-history.html http://leitesculinaria.com/10348/writings-dining-through-the... , with potato and peas. You say your mom wasn't shopping at a farmer's market. I never mentioned that - my reference was to 50 years previous. Fruit and vegetables are available at the supermarket. Here are pictures of a 1950s supermarket. http://fl4projects.tumblr.com/post/16150521363 http://fl4projects.tumblr.com/post/16150521363 . See the produce section? Same for http://www.pinterest.com/pin/27021666487620537/ http://www.pinterest.com/pin/27021666487620537/ . You say that "food woo" is rampant now. I pointed out that C.S. Lewis against vegetarianism of the 1950s. Or I can point you to http://articles.latimes.com/1999/may/12/food/fo-36243 http://articles.latimes.com/1999/may/12/food/fo-36243 and how "From the 1930s through the '60s, Americans were convinced you had to have a certain kind of bowl to make a proper green salad: a plain, unvarnished wooden bowl which could never be washed." Or I could point out the radium craze of the early 1900s, when it seems you could get just about anything with a bit of radium added to it, for good health. Here's a better description of my point, at http://www.stephaniecoontz.com/articles/article10.htm http://www.stephaniecoontz.com/articles/article10.htm : > Why do so many people think American families are facing worse problems now than in the past? Partly it's because we compare the complex and diverse families of the 1900s with the seemingly more standard-issue ones of the 1950s, a unique decade when every long-term trend of the 20th century was temporarily reversed. In the 1950s, for the first time in 100 years, the divorce rate fell while marriage and fertility rates soared, creating a boom in nuclear-family living. The percentage of foreign-born individuals in the country decreased. And the debates over social and cultural issues that had divided Americans for 150 years were silenced, suggesting a national consensus on family values and norms. ... > But much nostalgia for the 1950s is a result of selective amnesia-the same process that makes childhood memories of summer vacations grow sunnier with each passing year. The superficial sameness Of 1950s family life was achieved through censorship, coercion and discrimination. People with unconventional beliefs faced governmental investigation and arbitrary firings. African Americans and Mexican Americans were prevented from voting in some states by literacy tests that were not administered to whites. Individuals who didn't follow the rigid gender and sexual rules of the day were ostracized. The 1950s also had the "curse of capitalism". All of the new processed food companies want to get in on the action, after the rationing of the war. Look at http://thehairpin.com/2013/10/lets-eat-some-weird-shi http://thehairpin.com/2013/10/lets-eat-some-weird-shi and see just how many ways the free market was trying to convince people in the 1950s to add a bit of their branded processed food to a recipe. "Fill the center of the peaches with Miracle Whip." "Split frankfurter buns in half and spread with Kraft Mayonnaise. Fill with good thick strips of Velveeta and brush the tops of the buns with melted butter or Parkay Margarine.", etc. I don't see any awareness of these issues in that essay, which makes it very frustrating to read. It comes across like a specific, typically conservative viewpoint which emphasizes a certain hierarchical conformist culture.
  • daveloyall 12y ago
    I didn't get all the way through your post because I fundamentally disagreed with it. > I trust copies of literature from that era better than I do memories of childhood. You're doing it wrong! :) Really. "Literature" that specifies what people should eat is likely pulp (a class of literature). You can't gain any information about my diet--or even the average diet--by flipping through the magazine racks at the grocery store checkout--not in this decade or decades past.
    • dalke 12y ago
      I have an autobiographical essay by someone written in around 2001. It says X about something that happened in the 1960s. I have a paper written by the same person in 1964. It says not X. That's evidence that people's memory fades or changes over time. Of course that's well known. For example, "Not only are our memories faulty (anyone who has uncovered old diaries knows that), but more importantly Schiller says our memories change each time they are recalled. What we recall is only a facsimile of things gone by.", from http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/am-i-right/201307/your-memory-isnt-what-you-think-it-is http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/am-i-right/201307/your-m... . I have printed menu suggestions, restaurant menus, and pictures and movies from the 1950s which say that "meat and two veg" was far more common than just potatoes. Certainly it's not indicative of anyone's specific diet. Certainly it may be true for the OP's history. But if the only "fresh" vegetable on a typical dinner was potato, why are there so many non-potatoes vegetables in those pictures of 1950s grocery stores? Recall too that the original essay discusses a hypothetical diet of the 1950s, and a comparison to a hypothetical one now. There are not that many vegetarians now for the modern example to be representative of a general modern trend, and I pointed out that vegetarianism was also part of general culture of the 1950s. The essay is therefore an artificially constructed and I argue essentially meaningless comparison. Here's a perhaps atypical diary entry from 1954 for a farewell dinner, http://annbkennedy.blogspot.se/2013/04/june-29-30-1954-farewell-dinner.html http://annbkennedy.blogspot.se/2013/04/june-29-30-1954-farew...: > Long menu in courses--celery, etc., soup, then small lobsters with rice, filet mignon, gr. beans, mushrooms, then asparagus salad, peach melba, coffee & fruit. That's yet another piece of evidence that says that many people ate dinner with fresh vegetables other than potato. (To be fair, in winter it would be hard to get fresh veg. But the essay is using fresh veg as a proxy for food surplus, and it's better to look at food surplus directly. Otherwise it makes no sense to say that King Louis XIV of France, deprived of fresh peas in winter, is somehow food impoverished.)
• dalke 12y ago
  (Split answers between "food" and "sex".) > there is little or no limit on your private sexual behavior now Umm, what about the increasing restrictions on access to abortion, and the continued efforts to prevent teaching effective birth control methods? Instead, over the last 25 years or so there's been increased funding for "abstinence only" methods, which result in making it harder for people to know what sexual freedom means. And here's the thing, neither you nor I really know what private sexual behavior was like in the 1950s, because by definition it was private. That's why the Kinsey reports of the late '40s and '50s were so shocking. What I want is the freedom to not have to keep my entire sexuality private, not the freedom to have whatever sort of private sex I can get. Those are different things. JFK could have extramarital affairs as could his father, Joe Kennedy. People know about it. But because they were privileged, upper-class white males with political power, they could away with it. While there are still people who today can lose their jobs for having pre-marital sex. For example, http://www.10news.com/news/woman-sues-san-diego-christian-college-claims-she-was-fired-for-having-premarital-sex-021413 http://www.10news.com/news/woman-sues-san-diego-christian-co... . In that case, San Diego Christian College's "contract, in part, says "… sexually immoral behavior, including premarital sex, adultery, pornography and homosexuality …" are not allowed." This is clearly a counter-example to your statement that "pretty much everyone in the US" has the freedom to have all the sex they want. Same for http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2014/02/catholic-religious-schools-fired-lady-teachers-being-pregnant http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2014/02/catholic-religio... . "Firing unwed teachers who become pregnant is not uncommon for private religious schools. It's not necessarily illegal, either. Although federal law generally forbids discrimination against pregnant women, the Supreme Court has ruled that religious employers are protected from certain discrimination lawsuits brought by employees who serve in ministerial roles." Or here's a "prison guard fired after having sex with convicted wife-beater on parole" http://www.ottawasun.com/2014/09/18/prison-guard-fired-after-having-sex-with-convicted-wife-beater-on-parole http://www.ottawasun.com/2014/09/18/prison-guard-fired-after... . In that case it's likely an abuse of power issue, but it's still a restriction on having sex. The challenge is to show that "the freedom to have all the sex you want" is any more prevalent now than during the free love era the (re)bloomed in 1960s, or the sexual promiscuity of the 1970s. (Eg, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disco#Drug_subculture_and_sexual_promiscuity http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disco#Drug_subculture_and_sexua... ) I have a book, written in the 1970s, which says something like "kids these days consider a handjob about as commonplace as a handshake."
• sirfapsalot 12y ago
  >No, the freedom to have all the sex you want is new, for pretty much everyone in the US. Not everyone takes advantage of it, but there is little or no limit on your private sexual behavior now. Just consider gay marriage. And there was a huge risk with private sexual behavior back then. The fact that prostitution is still illegal pretty much blows your whole argument there out of the water, skip. Nobdoy has the freedom to do that, do they (outside of extremely remote parts of Nevada)? And really, lets face it, that's pretty much the only way that a lot of people can ever hope to even have sex -- take cripples, mentally handicapped, or people just considered slightly undesirable by arbitrary and inescapable standards of pop culture. So this pretty much blows your whole disingenuous argument out of the water, doesn't it?
• facepalm 12y ago
  "No, the freedom to have all the sex you want is new, for pretty much everyone in the US." Except for the tiny problem that you need somebody who wants to have sex with you to have sex.