Food Freaks

I had sooo many things to potentially discuss today:

• President Genius and his Wizards of Smart deciding that kids on farms shouldn’t …work on the farms. You know, like has been going on since, basically, the invention of farms.
• The ongoing battle between Arizona and this Administration. 3 guesses which side Check Schumer is on…?
• Tony Robbins (yes, THAT Tony Robbins) coming out on video against our Populist Prez’s strategy of Eat The Rich.

NO, no, …with all of that and more at my disposal, I chose instead: food. Or, rather, the people who are complete FREAKS about food, and are ruining it for the rest of us.

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When I say FREAKS, I am not talking about your normal, everyday person who likes food. I’m not even talking about the person who enjoys the Food Network, or who has their kitchen looking like it’s ready to handle tonight’s dinner crowd at the Four Seasons.

Nope. I’m talking FREAKS, such as the ones discussed in the following letter/response on the cooking website ruhlman.com:

Dear Michael,

I am the mother of the bride. My daughter is a third culture kid, having grown up outside the US for her teen years. Consequently, she has been exposed to a wide variety of cultures and cuisines.

Her one request for her wedding day was to have a small luncheon for close friends and family to celebrate the occasion.

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Our problem is my husband’s siblings “special diet” issues. They embody the evangelical wacko dietary fads that consume a certain slice of the upper middle class. We have every variation of diet extremism from the paleo-diet to variations of the casein/gluten/lactose/sugar-free philosophies which means they are limited to brown rice, some grilled meats, and some fruits/vegies. Apparently they are worried about leaky guts and fingers swelling from gluten exposure. To compound the problem, there are quite a number of them who follow variations of this extremism—10 to 12 people out of a party of 75 or so.

Since we are hosting our luncheon at an Italian restaurant, we will embrace cheese, pasta, gelato (and wedding cake) etc. with gusto. My husband wants to include his siblings in our celebration. However I have no desire to pay hundreds of dollars for meals that will be picked at, ignored or otherwise snubbed because of their food fascism. I will not have them ruin my daughter’s day by taking up space refusing to eat. If it were a matter of vegetarian vs. meat eating–that’s easy to accommodate. However this dietary demand goes beyond mere plant vs. animal.

The letter-writer goes on to ask if there is a tactful way of getting these folks to self-select out of the meal, without being rude. And, the advice given seems solid.

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But, seriously, was this ever a concern in YOUR family when you were raised? Ever? A conversation along those lines would simply never have happened: “Hey, Ma? Rocky, Kell and Zan are all coming over for dinner, but just to remind you, Kell only eats brussels sprouts FROM Brussels, and Rocky is on that 1,452 hour cleanse, so right now he can only consume 3-day-old goat cheese and/or rainwater that was retrieved from a catch basin in the Himalayas. Zan has relaxed his diet, and is completely fine with organic, cage-free, summer raised, white meat/chicken breast, ….grilled only. And well-done, too: not soggy. You remember last time, right? He’ll have his own rub and spices, like normal.”

C’mon…… When we had meals that didn’t require a pair of scissors to access them, we were pretty pumped. And that was that.

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Where did this come from? I know it seems to be a metropolitan, elitist, over-educated thing, but even THEN it’s ….a tad overboard.

My suggestion? Round ’em all up, lock ’em in a hockey arena, put Gilligan’s Island up on the Jumbo-tron (all 3 seasons), and feed them nothing but grilled cheese, spam, Campbell’s soup, and cold cereal. Maybe some beef jerky, too.

Tap water; not bottled. And coffee: Folgers or Maxwell House; totally their choice.

Either that will recalibrate their brains-&-taste buds back to “socially acceptable human” level again, or their heads will explode.

Win-win, I say.