Tuesday, June 30, 2015

eating like a lumberjack

During the "quiet time" we've been having recently, while so many bloggers are busy LIVING instead of writing, I started reading Dana Carpender's blog archive.

I have NO IDEA why I didn't do this before:  she is, after all, my favorite living cookbook-author!  Since I started reading blogs so much (which started while my husband worked out-of-town, and I had gobs of time to call my own) and ultimately discovered her work, she hasn't been as prolific a writer as she was six or seven years ago, and I didn't have a chance to get hooked on her "voice." 

I'm making up for it, now.  :-)  Enjoying it, too!  I became acquainted with her in real life, on the low-carb cruises, and I really like her and her husband both.  My daughter observed that Dana reminded her of my eldest sister, and she's right -- D and S have similar personalities which I find entertaining and stimulating.

Some of her blog-posts recount what she eats on a daily basis -- well, she creates and publishes recipes, so she has a lot of "experiments" to "dispose of" and is too frugal a person to want to let any food go to waste.  If her mother was like mine, who grew up during the Great Depression, she comes by it naturally....

Once when she asked for reader input, someone "accused" her of having a small appetite, saying that some days she seemed to eat not much more than a chicken-thigh during the course of half a day;  Dana responded that on the contrary, her reader had been mistaken, and elaborated on the sort of meal and its preparation, which the reader had misinterpreted.  Further, in the comments, another reader agreed with Dana having a decent-sized appetite -- she herself ate similarly and had been accused of "eating like a lumberjack."

This is what spurred me to write today.  It aggrieves me to hear people passing judgement on not only WHAT other people choose to eat but HOW MUCH ... especially right in their faces ... and most especially to women.  And as we see daily, online, much waspishness goes on and much conclusion-jumping too.  So-and-so MUST eat less (or more) than they claim to, because they're losing (or gaining) weight on what a NORMAL PERSON would not!  Or -- and this is the perennial annoyance -- SHE eats like a lumberjack ... with the underlying, unspoken condemnation that such a woman is gross and unfeminine.

For millennia, "Neolithic" culture has been up-in-arms about anybody having a good time, and it's a particular crime for women.  Women should be delicate and pure, abstemious, chaste and sober, and "eat like a bird."  For a woman to enjoy her food (or, god forbid! SEX) has long been considered just appalling.  All a woman SHOULD enjoy is service to others.  :-P

Though this attitude began to relax a bit during the 20th century, it is still going strong now.  Want to cast aspersions on some woman?  Say things like she's strong as an ox (implying "fat cow"), or flaunts herself (dresses for warm weather and exhibits joye de vivre), or EATS LIKE A LUMBERJACK (the shameless hedonist!)....

Appetite is driven by powerful biochemical processes.  Anybody with experience of the world sees that repressing appetite for food (ie, on a calorie-deficient diet) can only last so long before one's hormones take charge and Nature's protective directives MAKE them give up and EAT.  If we are burning a good deal of energy, a symphony of biochemicals is turned loose within us, demanding that we replenish our resources.  If, thanks to insulin, we can't access our stored resources and we have to take in nourishment though we're still over-weight, the howling chorus screams "lumberjack."

It is STILL Nature's Way that we enjoy food ... despite the puritanical forces which condemn hedonism for purely unhealthy (psychopathic) reasons.  It is Nature's Way that we have a drive to remain alive, even if our hormonal balance as been thrown off by our unnatural modern foods and lifestyles.  We're wired to obey Nature in a way that puritanical entities (religions and cultural mores) find infuriatingly enviable.  They WANT us to obey them as we must obey Nature, and Nature says NO because those puritanical forces are antithetical to Life Success.

Nature seems to have made women's biology to evolve during our lifetimes, so we can more effectively shape society for the better.  When we're young we're more prey to our female hormones and neurotransmitters like serotonin -- we're softer and more placating.  When we reach midlife, we're less estrogenic on the one hand, and more dopamine-motivated on the other -- we care less about how others like us, and are more driven to do something about conditions we find intolerable.  As I say -- female humans are different from other mammals which do not lose their reproductive capabilities two-thirds of the way through life as we do.

WE need to be a driving force for improving the world ... and one of the easiest ways we can do this is to stop supporting the kind of culture that thinks it's okay to backhandedly insult those who are only obeying Nature.  She's eating like a lumberjack, is she?  ... Gee, I wonder why -- must be something about her biology.  Flaunting herself?  Maybe something about the summer weather, her energy level, her youth and vibrancy....  Cattiness and eating like a bird SHOULD have gone out of fashion a LOOOONG time ago!

14 comments:

  1. Eating like a lumberjack and eating like a bird is not mutually exclusive. I remember how I was often not eating on evening (while having substantial LC breakfasts and normal lunches) due to being exhausted when we went to a mountain skiing during spring, than some day my husband took me to a normal restaurant and I ate a half of a roasted duck , soup and a salad without any sensation that I overate. I think it is normal to not eat consistent portions day after day.
    I remember that you, Tess, mentioned some day a braised duck recipe developed by Dana. I remember that the duck had to be turned every at regular intervals. I turned mine every 30 minutes, it took three turns, the braising liquid was a sherry vine. Before I always cooked ducks only in an oven. However, inspired by Dana's idea you mentioned I did my own version of a braised duck, it was great. I salted it and left it aged in a refrigerator for 5 days before cooking. It was a birthday dinner for my husband.

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    1. Did I mention a braised duck recipe by Dana Carpender? I don't believe I've ever cooked HER duck recipe by any other method than the roasted one she calls Unsightly-But-Delicious Duck. The way I usually braise mine is with apples and wine (sherry? calvados? can't remember), in a dish called Caneton Normande.

      Did you add any kind of herbs/spices to yours?

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    2. Hmm, I remember taking a mental notice to braze a duck on a top of my stove next time when I cook it after reading your post. I remember you mentioned DC's recipe. I don't remember all details. Traditional Russian duck is oven-roasted with sour apples and nothing else. The aging idea was borrowed by me from Alton Brown.
      I often add a rosemary, sometimes lemon or orange zest, but in that case I only inserted thin slices of a garlic into the duck's meat . The aging adds a lot to a meat flavor, especially in duck's case.

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    3. OOOH -- that reminds me.... Can you recommend a Russian cookbook (in English, alas -- Russian is hard for an English-speaker to learn -- I tried once) that has really traditional recipes in it? :-) I love "eating around the world."

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    4. I received as a present the book "The Food And Cooking Of Russia" by Lesley Chamberlain. It contains amazing amount of recipes, many of which have run out of a fashion - sort-of old Russian foodie book. The interesting feature of an upper class Russian food tradition is the french-russian connection. Upper class in 18 century Russia spoke predominantly french language, dressed in a French fashion and employed professional French chiefs , but they were raised in an early childhood by Russian nannies and wet nurses who fed them old fashion folk food and told native tales, so Russian nobleman often requested from their french-trained kitchen staff to prepare the food of their childhood, they did, but with a french twist.
      I keep thinking about writing a book with LC Russian recipes, I have so many ideas, especially about gelated foods and cold summer soups.

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    5. that book sounds PERFECT -- thank you! :-D and YES! PLEASE write a LC cookbook! I'd be your first customer!

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  2. That dinner sounds a lovely idea for your husband Galina.

    Having earlier enjoyed a scrumptious low carb breakfast of scrambled eggs, mushrooms and tomato ... I will not be eating 'til dinner tonight, and with our current rather warm temperatures ... I'm sure it will be a salad evening meal, followed by some low carb fruit blueberries and raspberries and double (heavy) cream.

    Hop e everyone enjoys their day.

    All the best Jan

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    1. Thank you, Jan! Duck is my favorite choice when it is a celebration dinner of any kind. When there are a more than 3-4 people, it is a stuffed duck (a ground duck meat with a lot of sauteed onions and hardboiled eggs staffed into a duck skin) - it allows to slice equal portions.
      I often skip dinner or eat just a salad. I still feel exited about the fact that my previous dependency on eating often gone for good!

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  3. I'm of the same mind...I eat when it feels necessary sometimes a lot sometimes a little. Judgy people poke their noses into my business and I ignore their comments so much better now than I did as a youngster!

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    1. dammit!!! I had written out quite a long clarification of what I was trying to say -- and obviously failed to, in the body of this blog-post -- about the unhealthy cultural ideal we have of "eating lightly" "in moderation" and "like a lady." I hear that a lot of women, out on dates, often order salads or pasta when they'd rather have the monster steak, just because they think their boyfriends (and I use this term intentionally) will think they're unfeminine if they exhibit a HEALTHY appetite. :-( It's STUPID to think this way, on both sides of the dinner-date table. I swear to god, young women are usually their own worst enemies.








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  4. Great stuff. reminds me of a post (more like a rant) I did recently about the moralizing behind the low-carb backlash. There is a contingent of people who are just absolutely disgusted at the idea of fellow human beings -- *particularly* women -- eating rich, fatty animal foods. It's ridiculous. There's a reason young women subsisting on lettuce, Special K cereal, and fat-free yogurt so often struggle with fertility.
    www.tuitnutrition.com/2015/06/ftf-food-prudes-low-carb-backlash.html

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    1. YES!!! We have a thoroughly unhealthy culture, both nutritionally and mental-health-wise, because we're unwilling to view women as "human animals" as opposed to "earth angels." [grrrrr....]

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  5. Well, it IS unseemly to treat a social occasion (especially at someone else's expense) like you're trying to save money on your grocery bill by chowing down. That said, I've never heard any man complain about what entree his date ordered (unless it was exceptionally expensive). The "middle of the menu" used to be considered good manners.

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    1. oh, yeah, that's a whole different rule.... ;-)

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