Reply #100: we're really spoiled out here! [View All]

[Lisa]

My folks received a "make your own tofu" kit from relatives in Japan, and they were relieved because it saved them a long drive to Toronto to stock up. I moved here in the 1990s, and have noticed not just a wide variety of locally-grown Asian vegetables in not just the Chinese-owned but also the mainstream grocery stores. Plus, organic produce is widely available (and not just at the seasonal farmer's markets).

When I went back home to see my folks, I was actually a bit shocked by how drab the food selection was. My hometown was recently cited by Health Canada as having a major obesity problem, and I don't think that it's a coincidence, that it's also the place where Tim Horton's donuts got its start! The Italian-run grocer had some nice fresh produce, and so did the farmer's market, but even though my hometown is bigger than where I live now (and barely half an hour from some of the richest farmland in Ontario), a lot of stores were rather disappointing. My mom gets bulk grains and beans at a local health-food co-op, but this is not how the majority of people around town eat. Many of the people I went through high school with are still rather conservative about their meals ... even those with college degrees were wary of "funny" Asian dishes, or even of tomatoes which were a color other than red! I could not get two of my friends to try the sushi I'd just made (even though one is an epidemiologist and the other has a background in early childhood education, including nutritional training). They apologized profusely, because they didn't want to hurt my feelings, but they literally could not bring themselves to eat "raw fish" (actually it was smoked salmon), even once they'd unwrapped and discarded the seaweed -- which is packed with nutrients and quite savory.

The kids with Italian, Portugese, East Indian, Asian, or Mennonite background tended to have a healthier mix of foods. But a lot of people were still eating stuff right out of the 1950s (fried or over-boiled), with modern junk food (chips, Big Gulps, etc.) mixed in.

What you said earlier -- I agree that a lot of people just don't have information on how to cook -- and aren't being encouraged to do so. There are a lot of direct and indirect social factors (including but not limited to poverty) which are probably playing a role. For example, my home-ec class in an underfunded school with makeshift cooking facilities, was dismal -- with an emphasis on recipes like pork chops in mushroom-soup sauce, and NOTHING on reading labels or doing meals from scratch. In my blue-collar town, cooking was viewed as "women's work", and guys were actually proud of not knowing their way around the kitchen. (An interest in cooking, as in art, music, and books, was seen as "too gay".) I think it makes a difference if there's already a cultural interest in food, since the guys from Mediterranean backgrounds were just as macho, but expressed more interest in learning how to cook their favorite foods. The last time I saw our high-school president and athletic star, he was behind his family's booth at the downtown market, doling out "the best Italian mozzarella" and questioning the freshness of the rapini offered by the guy opposite!

My mom was a public health nurse, and reported that she was seeing an inordinate number of old widowed (or never married) males who did not even know how to make tea, because "the wife always took care of it". Both my folks were alive during the Depression, and their families survived by eating garden and wild-picked vegetables (and knowing how to "stretch" a pot roast or chicken with rice, beans, etc.) -- but that generation is rapidly dwindling, and it's understandable that people born afterwards would not have been as interested in how life was like back then. Practically our whole society has been fed this story about how prosperous our society is now ... how convenient everything is, including the food ... and "home cooking" is a disagreeable chore done in the olden days. As other posters have pointed out, having a "hippie", "farming hick", or "ethnic" background (and being proud enough to assert it even when derided) can actually be an advantage when it comes to accepting a wider variety of foods (many of them cheaper and more nutritious than the mainstream North America diet). It's interesting to compare early 20th century textbooks with the types of meals nutritionists advocate today. Even Fanny Farmer was short on things like broccoli (not accepted until well into the 20th century, possibly due to the growing influence of Italian cooking). Believe it or not, there was a time when salads and even pasta were viewed as either too posh or too ethnic for most households.

p.s. one summer I worked up north, and the cook at our camp was "old school". He became quite indignant when some of us suggested rice as a substitute for the endless potatoes and gravy (he strode around the kitchen wearing logging boots, grumbling about "damned southern kids"). When he finally did make rice, he insisted on adding large dollops of butter to it. (It's quite possible to cook rice without oil or butter, and not have it stick to the pot ... as I learned from my Japanese parents.) I've since learned that his starch and fat/laden recipes were pretty representative of a lot of cooking in isolated parts of Canada, even today. There are certainly locations where getting store-bought vegetables can be difficult (and expensive), even if you go with frozen or canned. That's where supplementing groceries with "country foods" you hunt or pick yourself in the wild can be crucial not just for nutrition, but affordability. One reason why the Inuit and northern Indians are so concerned about being able to maintain access to their traditional lands.