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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

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.)
- daveloyall 12y ago
  You can't tell a person older than you that they are wrong about their own life during a period that happened before you were born. Especially not with with pulp sources. This is not an internet points game and it is not wikipedia. This is a conversation between more or less like-minded people. Personal insight is to be valued. If you want to actually prove your point, get the 1950/1960 US Census data, average them, analyze the income and employment numbers, and tell me how the center of the bell curve could afford a three course meal on the daily. Don't forget that 36% of the country wasn't employed at all (in 1950, includes children), but still needed to eat (includes children!). In short, yes, you can trump personal memory with hard numbers (and you should!)--but not with a mere large volume of citations.
  - dalke 12y ago
    What you ask, regarding the analysis of census data, is completely besides the point because it doesn't even fit the example in the essay. You make a statement about the bell curve. Jennifer, the modern vegetarian, is not in the bell curve. http://www.vegetariantimes.com/article/vegetarianism-in-america/ http://www.vegetariantimes.com/article/vegetarianism-in-amer... suggests that 10 percent of U.S., adults, or 22.8 million people, say they largely follow a vegetarian-inclined diet. Even if it's 20%, that's still not near the center of the modern US diet. So already the essay isn't a strong match to modern culture. I sure can say that someone is wrong about their memory, but in this case I'm saying that the OP's recollections don't fit the data. Even if true for the OP, it appears to be atypical. You complain that I mention pulp sources. I've also mentioned diary entries. Every single entry is a "personal insight." See http://diaries.markbartlett.net/diary58.html http://diaries.markbartlett.net/diary58.html for another example. "We had fried chicken, mashed potatoes, salad, date nut bread and coffee for dinner." and "Mrs. Colburn gave us sack of green beans and Mrs. Burnett more green beans, onions and beets." (Some of that would have been canned, but some certainly eaten fresh.) "Mr. and Mrs. Kluckman and baby here tonight – brought green beans and cabbage." Or http://melissa-ellison.tripod.com/id25.html http://melissa-ellison.tripod.com/id25.html from 1933, "July 9 We were all alone today. No one came. Very warm. We had string beans for dinner today." (They picked and canned the string beans the day before, so these were fresh beans.) "Sept 26 Very warm and sultry. We are again to have boiled bacon and swisschard for dinner today." "Nov 14 Cloudy and snowflurries. We had spare ribs and carrotts cooked together for dinner." https://www.ashleighbrilliant.com/Diary%201951.%20America.html https://www.ashleighbrilliant.com/Diary%201951.%20America.ht... which is about a British man visiting the US in 1951: "For dinner I had fruit and soup and bread and broccoli & 2 huge lamb chops & Pepsi Cola & chocolate cake & milk.", "We had a fine lunch of meat, potatoes, vegetables, apple juice, raspberries & ice-cream." (It's entirely possible that the vegetables were canned or frozen. At some point though I don't think it makes a difference. Most of my vegetables now are frozen too.) I'll make my point again. The author of the essay sets up a hypothetical "Betty" from 1958 in a situation which does not appear to be characteristic of the larger society. The OP - the one who linked to the essay - finds the description to be characteristic of the OP's own history. That doesn't mean that that OP's memory is a true reflection of the time. You want me, I believe, to demonstrate somehow that the OP must not be correct. I am trying instead to show that the hypothetical Betty is likely not characteristic of the era, and given the well-known problems with human memory, I want something stronger than a childhood memory when the available "pulp" evidence so strongly shows a much wider variety of food dishes for that era. This was absolutely the era before the War on Poverty, and before the Civil Rights era. The essay seems to exclude immigrant foods (fresh bok choi for Chinese dishes), regional foods (like Southern dishes with collard greens), etc. That's why I argue that it isn't representative of the 1950s, but only representative perhaps of the most culturally influential social groups of that era .. and the OP may also be a member of that group.

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.)

daveloyall 12y ago
You can't tell a person older than you that they are wrong about their own life during a period that happened before you were born. Especially not with with pulp sources. This is not an internet points game and it is not wikipedia. This is a conversation between more or less like-minded people. Personal insight is to be valued. If you want to actually prove your point, get the 1950/1960 US Census data, average them, analyze the income and employment numbers, and tell me how the center of the bell curve could afford a three course meal on the daily. Don't forget that 36% of the country wasn't employed at all (in 1950, includes children), but still needed to eat (includes children!). In short, yes, you can trump personal memory with hard numbers (and you should!)--but not with a mere large volume of citations.
- dalke 12y ago
  What you ask, regarding the analysis of census data, is completely besides the point because it doesn't even fit the example in the essay. You make a statement about the bell curve. Jennifer, the modern vegetarian, is not in the bell curve. http://www.vegetariantimes.com/article/vegetarianism-in-america/ http://www.vegetariantimes.com/article/vegetarianism-in-amer... suggests that 10 percent of U.S., adults, or 22.8 million people, say they largely follow a vegetarian-inclined diet. Even if it's 20%, that's still not near the center of the modern US diet. So already the essay isn't a strong match to modern culture. I sure can say that someone is wrong about their memory, but in this case I'm saying that the OP's recollections don't fit the data. Even if true for the OP, it appears to be atypical. You complain that I mention pulp sources. I've also mentioned diary entries. Every single entry is a "personal insight." See http://diaries.markbartlett.net/diary58.html http://diaries.markbartlett.net/diary58.html for another example. "We had fried chicken, mashed potatoes, salad, date nut bread and coffee for dinner." and "Mrs. Colburn gave us sack of green beans and Mrs. Burnett more green beans, onions and beets." (Some of that would have been canned, but some certainly eaten fresh.) "Mr. and Mrs. Kluckman and baby here tonight – brought green beans and cabbage." Or http://melissa-ellison.tripod.com/id25.html http://melissa-ellison.tripod.com/id25.html from 1933, "July 9 We were all alone today. No one came. Very warm. We had string beans for dinner today." (They picked and canned the string beans the day before, so these were fresh beans.) "Sept 26 Very warm and sultry. We are again to have boiled bacon and swisschard for dinner today." "Nov 14 Cloudy and snowflurries. We had spare ribs and carrotts cooked together for dinner." https://www.ashleighbrilliant.com/Diary%201951.%20America.html https://www.ashleighbrilliant.com/Diary%201951.%20America.ht... which is about a British man visiting the US in 1951: "For dinner I had fruit and soup and bread and broccoli & 2 huge lamb chops & Pepsi Cola & chocolate cake & milk.", "We had a fine lunch of meat, potatoes, vegetables, apple juice, raspberries & ice-cream." (It's entirely possible that the vegetables were canned or frozen. At some point though I don't think it makes a difference. Most of my vegetables now are frozen too.) I'll make my point again. The author of the essay sets up a hypothetical "Betty" from 1958 in a situation which does not appear to be characteristic of the larger society. The OP - the one who linked to the essay - finds the description to be characteristic of the OP's own history. That doesn't mean that that OP's memory is a true reflection of the time. You want me, I believe, to demonstrate somehow that the OP must not be correct. I am trying instead to show that the hypothetical Betty is likely not characteristic of the era, and given the well-known problems with human memory, I want something stronger than a childhood memory when the available "pulp" evidence so strongly shows a much wider variety of food dishes for that era. This was absolutely the era before the War on Poverty, and before the Civil Rights era. The essay seems to exclude immigrant foods (fresh bok choi for Chinese dishes), regional foods (like Southern dishes with collard greens), etc. That's why I argue that it isn't representative of the 1950s, but only representative perhaps of the most culturally influential social groups of that era .. and the OP may also be a member of that group.