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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 o

by 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.)

by dalke 12y ago

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.)