Hi, Everyone! Please forgive the recent lack of posting. We've had something of an on-going family crisis that has taken up the vast majority of our time and energy over the past few weeks. Thankfully, things are finally starting to look up and we're getting back into the swing of things. Below is a post I wrote about a month ago, but never posted until now (obviously). Hopefully I'll be back to regular posting within the next week or so.
Over dinner
the other night Michael said something to me about us being food snobs. Immediately taking offense, I declared, “No,
we’re not!”. Having been referred to as
a “snob” in the past, I wasn’t particularly excited to have this term applied
to me again, even if the word “food” was involved. Michael then reiterated his original
statement, making it clear that we were getting nowhere fast in this debate. When I asked why he thought we were food
snobs, he replied that so far for the week we had eaten Ethiopian cabbage dish
and risotto. Not persuaded, I responded
by pointing out that Ethiopian cabbage dish is only a mixture of basic foods
found in many cultures (potatoes, onions, carrots, and cabbage) treated with
different spices, and that risotto is glorified rice. Michael continued good-naturedly by pointing
out that we eat very little prepackaged or processed foods, sugary cereals,
meat, or food containing artificial dyes, artificial ingredients, or
preservatives. In other words, we don’t
generally consume what many people consider to be “normal” foods. Instead, he maintained, we eat a lot of beans,
whole grains, fruits and veggies, and most of what we eat is homemade.
And, that’s
when I realized that he was at least partially right. While we’re not “food snobs” for reasons I’ll
get to in a minute, it appears that we have inadvertently become rather
“crunchy”. How and when did this happen,
I wondered. It’s not like I have a
vendetta against convenience and salty foods.
Perhaps it just comes with getting older (eek!) or with having a family
to care for and wanting to provide them with nutritious meals. Or, maybe, it stems from just plain disgust with
the food industry’s doings – things such as the addition of beef flavoring, sodium
acid pyrophosphate, and dimethylpolysiloxane to McDonald’s French fries, “pink
slime” being served in school cafeterias, sourcing meat through factory farms,
and high fructose corn syrup/sugar pervading the top four ingredients in
seemingly every prepackaged food. I
never set out to be crunchy, but at the point when I realized what some of the
“ingredients” were that were being put into my food, an instant avoidance of
unpronounceable ingredients began, as did a quest for information about what I
had once considered to be innocent food products. Getting married and cooking for my husband
added fuel to the fire. In turn, the
more I learned, the more disgusted I became.
The avoidance and disgust have apparently culminated in our crunchiness.
It struck
me later that the distinction between food snobbery and crunchiness is often
confused. It seems that both the food
snob and the crunchy would, in many cases, order the same types of items from a
menu. Organic, free-range chicken or baby
greens from the restaurant’s garden?
Yes, please! But, it is the
purpose behind the ordering that differentiates the two. The food snob is looking to order what is en
vogue, not what is most healthful, and not what is better for the environment,
although these may be secondary considerations.
The crunchy is choosing the food items he believes to be most healthful
for him, often also taking into account animal welfare and environmental
factors. The types of restaurant and
food preparation follow in the same thread.
The food snob enjoys culinary adventure, often trying different cultural
foods. The crunchy may also enjoy the
culinary adventure of trying different cultures’ foods, but is almost forced
into the partial or full abandoning of the traditional American diet due to his
crunchy choices. Although not all
crunchies eat little or no meat, most seem to eat considerably less meat than
what is typical of the American diet. The
typical American diet is at something of a loss with the exclusion of meat, and,
so the non-meat focused crunchy is forced to look internationally for more
accommodating restaurants and meal ideas.
Once again, the food snob and crunchy might well find themselves sitting
at the same table, although for entirely different reasons.
And so, in
the spirit of being inadvertently crunchy, today’s recipe is for Super Pumpkin
Granola!
Super Pumpkin Granola
5 cups rolled oats
2-4 tablespoons neutral-flavored oil
1 cup pumpkin
1 tablespoon cinnamon
2 teaspoons ginger powder
½ teaspoon nutmeg
½ teaspoon allspice
¼-⅓ cup molasses
2 tablespoons to ¼ cup brown sugar
¼ cup ground flax seed
⅓ cup wheat germ
1 cup unsalted nuts
½ cup dried fruit, such as prunes
¼ cup chopped, candied ginger (optional)
Preheat oven to 300. In
a large bowl, combine all ingredients from oats through nuts. Bake in a 9x13 inch pan in the oven for 30
minutes. Stir ingredients and continue
baking until the oats begin to brown, another 20-30 minutes. (Alternatively, you can use cookie sheets to
bake the granola in a thinner layer, but reduce the baking time to 15-30
minutes, stirring a couple of times.) Once
the granola has cooled, stir in the dried fruit and candied ginger, if
using.
