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A Square Meal – Foods of the ‘20s and ‘30s

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Re: A Square Meal – Foods of the ‘20s and ‘30s

#201

Post by rootusrootus »

dismantlethesun wrote: post #91
asguy wrote: post #2

Reading this, I feel like I’m seeing the past through the eyes of a US-based zoomer. This person should spend 6 months living with the locals in any 3rd-world country.

But why? Speaking as someone from a '3rd world country' [1], the traditional food preparation has been unchanged since the 1920s. The last great change in diet occurred when tomatoes and corn arrived from the America's to W. Africa, then later again when rice became a staple. The US has a fantastical food culture because it's a large country that can natively produce almost every crop, and was historically agrarian.…

> [1] We do not love that phrasing. The Cold War is over. Just say which continent you mean specifically.

I wonder how many people are thinking of a particular place when they say 'third world country.' In my experience they're just using it as a slightly less offensive way to mean 'shithole'. Which of course we also see when Europeans want to talk shit about America, so they call it a third world country.

Re: A Square Meal – Foods of the ‘20s and ‘30s

#202

Post by MisterBastahrd »

jhbadger wrote: post #129
ufo wrote: post #120

Is milk being on every relief menu a sign that people had a derranged love for milk? Or just the strength of the milk lobby?

I don't think you can easily separate the two. Things might start as a marketing campaign but then catch on in general culture. In modern culture, this would be true of bacon. Bacon was falling out of favor in the US in the 1980s as people were beginning to become heart and weight conscious. But then there was a massive marketing push and now bacon is everywhere even on things like donuts. People think bacon is the m…

People in the 80s were specifically told that animal fats were bad, and so everyone got fatter as the adjunct for fats in foods was sugar. All those years of having to put up with oat bran muffins because it was "heart healthy"... yuck.

Don't get me wrong, I love bran flakes as a cereal. But that's where they belong.

Re: A Square Meal – Foods of the ‘20s and ‘30s

#203

Post by OJFord »

gattilorenz wrote: post #100
OJFord wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting, I've never heard anyone say anything than 'ugh, it's UHT' (e.g. in hotels) before! I wonder if it's at least partly the temperature, since UHT milk is shelf stable (for a good while anyway) you might be drinking it significantly warmer than milk from the fridge?

> I wonder if it's at least partly the temperature, since UHT milk is shelf stable (for a good while anyway) you might be drinking it significantly warmer than milk from the fridge? Hardly. When I was younger I used to have UHT milk at my grandma, and she stored it in the fridge (after opening), so it was same temperature of what I drank home. Still a very noticeable difference with "normal" milk.

Oh I agree it's noticeably different, just wondered if that was contributing to your preference.

Re: A Square Meal – Foods of the ‘20s and ‘30s

#204

Post by kurthr »

R0b0t1 wrote: post #178
kurthr wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's similar in the US. I'd note that even the crystal clear (highly recyclable) plastic you see does not contain the phthalates you're looking for. There was a fad in the early 00s for using polycarbonate water bottles that probably contained BPA, but those were then (rightfully) banned. You can't even use BPA or ortho-phthalates in children's toys since they very likely put them in their tiny mouths. https://www.nc…

Plastics still need a plasticizer, so those BPA-free plastics simply use a chemical like BPA but not studied.

I don't know about PolyCarobonate, but for LDPE and HDPE (and PET) that sounds incorrect. Certainly, chemists are worried about much smaller amounts of contamination (ppb) than humans and they would definitely know (and measure) how much plasticizer was leaching from their bottles.

It appears to be almost none:

https://www.thermofisher.com/us/en/home/life-science/lab-pla...

Re: A Square Meal – Foods of the ‘20s and ‘30s

#205

Post by skrtskrt »

bobajeff wrote: post #197
shaky-carrousel wrote: post #142

I was reading the article and I was thinking over and over how enjoyable was reading it. I even continued reading it after having a pause because I got distracted by something else (something that almost never happens). Then I remember how "monetized" (meaning ad-ridden) articles are full of filler to artificially keep you on the page. And reloaded the page without ad-blockers. And there it was, the page has no ads.…

That's why I like Twitter. It challenges you to communicate what you need to say in as few words as possible. That is if you don't cheat by chaining posts.

I still like chained posts on twitter a lot of the time, I think when used well they still really focus the writing.

Re: A Square Meal – Foods of the ‘20s and ‘30s

#206

Post by astura »

noir_lord wrote: post #172
astura wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is because for some reason the organic milks are almost always UHT (ultra-high-temperature processing) where the milk is heated to a higher temperature for a shorter time. Some people notice a significant taste difference between UHT milk and non-UHT milk.

> Some people notice a significant taste difference between UHT milk and non-UHT milk. You mean some people don't? They taste radically different (I like both btw).

Well, I might be broken but I can't tell the difference.

Re: A Square Meal – Foods of the ‘20s and ‘30s

#207

Post by brimble »

bluenose69 wrote: post #192

As a child, I remember noticing that milk would taste different sometimes. My father explained that this was because the cows had been put out to pasture. I can't explain the difference, but it was quite noticeable. This was local milk from a few km away. It came in glass bottles, brought to our house by a milkman. I can still remember listening for his steps on the front porch, when I got old enough to be able to ru…

> This was the '60s and '70s, not the '20s and '30s, but it still seemed like another world, compared to today. Most food was local and full of taste, having been on a farm just hours before it appeared in the store. People knew what was in season, and took delight in what was available.

I grew up in the 80s and 90s and remember there still being a lot of seasonal variation in produce availability in supermarkets, up to at least the mid nineties. Now there's hardly any. Fresh cranberries have limited availability. Gourds of various kinds are a little bit seasonal. That's about it.

But I've also noticed produce is cheaper and the resulting food is better (probably the produce tends to be fresher) if you go with the seasonal flow. Helpfully, most cuisines are built around seasonality, so it's unusual to find a traditional dish from most cuisines that will call for, say, Summer and Winter produce in the same dish.

Re: A Square Meal – Foods of the ‘20s and ‘30s

#208

Post by brimble »

JKCalhoun wrote: post #170
justsomehnguy wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> modern packaging But the packaging itself matters, eg soda in a Al can and a glass bottle is perceived quite differently. If the milk came in a plastic bottle I have no problem drinking directly from the bottle, if it came in TetraPak... If I bothered to cut it with scissors I would probably be fine drinking milk directly, but if I just ripped the corner by the perforation then I would definitely drink from the mug…

> But the packaging itself matters, eg soda in a Al can and a glass bottle is perceived quite differently. I agree with that. When container-touches-mouth I think there surely must be some electrochemistry involved that makes the drink from the aluminum can taste ... metallic. Or it's all in my head. (But that too is important.)

With carbonated beverages, canned seems the most strongly-carbonated to me, followed closely by plastic bottles, then glass which seems much milder. Maybe the caps on glass leak more CO2.

... of course that could all be in my head.

Re: A Square Meal – Foods of the ‘20s and ‘30s

#209

Post by [deleted] »

bluenose69 wrote: post #192

As a child, I remember noticing that milk would taste different sometimes. My father explained that this was because the cows had been put out to pasture. I can't explain the difference, but it was quite noticeable. This was local milk from a few km away. It came in glass bottles, brought to our house by a milkman. I can still remember listening for his steps on the front porch, when I got old enough to be able to ru…

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