Leave It Be

A few years ago Brian Regan, one of my favorite comedians, had a bit which revolved around America's obsession with cranberries. Specifically, he wondered why we suddenly felt the need to add cranberries to every single juice available. It was no longer good enough to drink apple juice, you had to drink cranapple juice... or cranorange... or crangrape. You get the point. It was as if we had just figured out liquids could be combined and were making up for lost time. Fortunately we have since backed off that to some degree (either that or we ran out of other juices to combine cranberries with) but since nature hates a vacuum we quickly started to do the same things with pumpkins. Even worse, when it comes to incorporating pumpkins we don't stop at liquids. From September through October you are hard pressed to find a single beverage or dessert which doesn't have pumpkin flavoring added to it. That's great if you happen to love the taste of pumpkin but not everyone feels that way, as some of us just want a regular coffee cake and are out of luck. I though we were finally out of the adding-things-which-don't-need-to-be-there woods once the calendar turned to November but that feeling of relief only lasted until I started flipping through some recipe magazines, looking for a new dish to attempt this holiday season. On every page I turned there was a recipe which claimed to either improve on a holiday favorite or change it altogether. As it turns out, people can't help but mess with perfection.

For reasons I can not explain, people seem to think Thanksgiving is the perfect time to start messing with foods. Recipes go unchanged for almost the entire year and then suddenly people just start going crazy with the items which have worked well for the last 11 months. Look, I'm not above this myself because as I mentioned I was looking for something different to make this year. The difference is that I'm looking to make something I have never had before if I find a recipe that works for me, that is going to be how I make that item until the end of my days. These people have recipes that are already crowd favorites and are changing them just for the sake of change and I've always felt that is a waste of time. I know change is how society moves forward but let's not go overboard here - these people aren't trying to make us safer or cure a disease, they aren't doing anything more than trying to look more sophisticated than the rest of us. I can almost understand the people who work for food publications trying out new ways to make old favorites because, frankly, they have to justify their existence. As it is they already have the very strange job which involves, much like movie critics, having a large enough ego to assume that everyone is going to like food exactly the same way as they do, even though the odds of that happening are impossible. If they just rolled out the same 15-20 recipes which are the most popular around the world they will be out of a job after six months, so sitting in a kitchen and trying to imagine a new twist on an old favorite could just be a way to look busy. All I am saying is that just because they came up with it, that doesn't mean we have to follow their lead.

[Sidebar: While browsing around these websites I have also noticed another food trend appears to be making things which are supposed to taste like other things. For example, everyone is raving about this new lasagna soup, which apparently tastes exactly like the real thing. Well, you know what else tastes like lasagna? Regular lasagna and it is not like it is exotic or particularly hard to make. I have never been eating lasagna and wishing it had a broth. I mean, I would be all for this constant messing around if someone out there had figured out a way to make ground beef taste like Kobe beef but that is not what is going on. This is just messing around for the sake of being difficult. They aren't even doing these new recipes as a way for them to be slightly healthier. Even though I think trying that would be a waste of time because nothing tastes as good as the real thing, at least that I could understand. (I find the whole "healthy" version of food to be cruel anyway. You ever have "sugar free" chocolate? I get what they are trying to do but I'd rather we just tell diabetics they can't have chocolate anymore. Teasing them with the idea this could resemble the good stuff is just mean because it isn't even close.) Nope, this is just trying to get the same flavoring in a different form. You may remember a few months ago I had a post regarding how intricate I thought toothbrushes were getting and wondered if we have reached the tipping point where we just started adding stuff on for the sake of adding and not trying to actually improve an item. With lasagna soup we may have reached the same apex when it comes to food.]

Look, I think it is pretty obvious to the people who know me that I am not a particularly adventurous eater. I know what I like and I know how to make those items well. However, I am also not so self-absorbed that I can't understand why people wouldn't like a little variety in life. I just think when we do this experimenting matters. It used to be that people were clamoring to find their dead relatives' recipes so they could try and make something which tasted just like it did when they were kids. Instead they're taking their recipes and mixing in a whole bunch of stuff that doesn't belong. Also, this is when I would remind you that it is impossible to un-mix items. So, rather than add a whole bunch of random ingredient to experiment with things which are already tried and true favorites, just leave them be. If you really feel like people may want some additional flavoring than put that in a bowl to the side and have them mix it in themselves. If they won't put in the effort than they clearly don't really want it in the first place. My point is that Thanksgiving is not the time to get crazy. It's pretty simple to me - if you look at the standard Thanksgiving table you see a mix which has been perfected through years of experimenting and tweaking. I know the idea of falling into a repetitive food rut can make you want to shake loose and try something new but messing with the traditions which have been established for Thanksgiving are just crazy. Go crazy with your baking on a holiday that allows for it - such as the Fourth of July - and leave my mashed potatoes alone.