"American food"

American food is obviously bigger than the sum of its parts. I get that. It's like trying to define Australian food by eating only a Four 'N' 20 and a Chokito. And I am aware that I was in The South, the home of deep fried coke, but I have got to say that most of the meals I ate in Florida defeated me with the sheer size.

Now, as most of you know, I am pretty good on the fang, but as you can see from the above breakfast shot, the Yanks do it BIG.

The above pic was a small serve of corn beef hash and eggs. And, as you can plainly see, it came with toast, several slices of thick, hot ham, toast, sweet butter and apple sauce. AND a hash brown. The actual corned beef hash is peeking out under the ham, to the left of the toast in the pic.

AND, the hash had been served into patties and fried.

One of the first problems I encountered was the American idea of appetizers. In my feeble, jet lagged brain, I thought of small plates of tasty nibbly bits to whet my appetite. This was also promoted by the fact that after the Appetizer section of the menu, comes the Entree.

Erm. No.

Appetisers and entrees and entrees are mains.

And appetizers are freaking HUGE.

I ordered an appetizer of fried green tomatoes, naively thinking I'd get a wee tapas-like taste.

Newp.

I got 4 whole sliced tomatoes. Deep fried and covered with cheese and salsa. Absolutely delicious, bit terrifying when I realised that I had also ordered another "appetizer" and an entree while I searched vainly for "mains"

That first night in Florida, I ate for Africa. I ate for King and country. I ate for my very reputation. Like a foie gras goose, I was pushing those last little bits of seared tuna with wasabi mayo, and those blackened grouper cheeks down with a stick.

And the other cah-WAAAZY restaurant thing I took a while to get my head around, was the sheer amount of choices.. both in supermarkets and restaurants.

Would you like fries, soup or salad with that? (Soup? With a sandwich?) White, brown, multigrain, farmers grain, rye or sourdough? Toasted or fried? Butter or mayo? Dressing with your salad, ma'am? Ordering a Coke became a battle of wills to see who would crack first. Cherry? Vanilla? Diet? Ice? Lemon?

Invariably, everyone I met was amazingly polite, but the number of choices and decisions I had to make simply to get a salad sandwich and a Coke, left me feeling quite wan.

I went to the supermarket (and yes, they do actually have Piggly Wiggly's in Florida!) and stared like a numpty at a whole aisle devoted to more than 30 TYPES (not brands) of Cranberry juice. Low-fat, added fibre, Cran-apple, Cran-respberry, Diet Cran, Sugar-free Cran.. the list went on and on.

Later in my trip, a bucket of steamed shrimp (no, that is not a typo.. I mean it.. a BUCKET of banana prawns) was ordered in the vain hope of consuming something neither fried nor covered in condiments.



I admit to developing a penchant for chips and ranch dressing while I was away, but only Lay's Kettle Chips, any other chip I tried was just too salty... like cave-your-mouth-in-seawater salty.


I was fed fried green tomatoes and cheese grits with boiled salted ham for breakfast, by two Southern Belles called Aunt Wee and Aunt Tee. I had iced tea, I ate a hotdog from a roadside diner. I had my very first coke slurpee, I ate a 7-Eleven Cherry pie, consumed mojhitos, Apalachicola fried oysters, soft-shell crab legs, Michelob beer and more.

And loved every damn mouthful!

Although, there was one thing I found, in a roadside gas station cum fast food joint, deep on 98, in the middle of the panhandle, that even I didn't attempt.

And no, they're not strange candies. They REALLY are what they say they are.

Finding your pack...

Us humans like to "belong". We like to add little labels to our ego to help us fit in with a group. We like to belong to a pack.

There are many ways we do this.. with our clothing, body adornments such as uniforms and tattoos, wedding rings, and ways of speaking.

Did you ever wonder why a doctor says "I want an MSU and an FBE, and throw in a FOB STAT"? It's not because it's quicker, it's because its esoteric, identifying him or her as a member of an elite group who uses language to identify that they are somehow different from the hoi polloi.

And we all do this in some way.

Some of us (well, not me!) like to identify with sub-groups that most of us wouldn't be seen dead associating with. The anti-intellectualism of racist bigotry and misogyny done up as nationalism is one that springs to mind.

Then there is that other one.

The redneck.

I drive to work along the busiest arterial road in Melbourne and every morning I see a van, a hotted-up ute proudly displaying the esoteric identifier of Australian rednecks everywhere.

The bumper sticker.

Only this chap is clearly OVER-identifying with his pack, because the entire tailgate and back window of his car is covered with said bumper stickers.

I know about the Denny Ute Muster, the Yakandandah B&S Ball ("It's an Aussie thing!"), No Fat Chicks, An R. M. Williams sticker and even an Eureka Stockade flag, topped with a fetching wide-brimmed Australian-style cowboy hat. Did you know that Mountain Cattlemen Care for the High Country?

Now I take no umbrage at any of these sentiments, not even the fat chick one, because, as a fat chick, I personally wouldn't go anywhere near you and your car. In fact I am GLAD you deny fat chicks the use of your vehicular mode of transport, as I'd rather dress in blackface and crash a KKK convention than sit in your piece of shit crap-box . I'd bet a dollar to a bent penny any "chick", fat or otherwise that you graciously DO allow in your car would be expected to put out for the privilege and I wouldn't shag you if you were the last man on earth and I could borrow a Linda Lovelace flaps-on-it-like-a-circus tent, actively diseased ladypart to do you with.

Anyhoo. .. I digress.

So, the owner of this fine specimen of vehicular pack mentality got me thinking.

All sorts of packs have bumper stickers. The Christians have got their smug "Christians aren't perfect, just forgiven" or their fish symbol (giving rise to the term "freaky fish people" in our family lexicon). Hell, even the athiests have their scarlet A or their Darwin fish. Pagans have their chirpily nauseating "The Goddess is Dancing" and "Magic Happens" (I am all for Tim Minchin's response to these stickers, BTW) and then there are the "Poverty is owning a Horse" crowd and the "Baby on Board" brigade.

Bumper stickers are designed to identify us to like-minded souls. Maybe they are some sort of mating signal?

So (and here we come to the point of this post).

Why aren't there more foodie bumper stickers? Why aren't there any at all, actually. I can honestly say I've never seen a food-related bumper sticker. I once owned a Long Gully Winery bumper sticker, but I couldn't put it on my car, as it was grammatically incorrect. "Life is to short to drink bad wine".

I mean, the foodie and the word nerd in me battled it out, and unfortunately the word nerd won.

**sigh**

Even a quick google only throws up one obvious food quote on a sticker:

"I didn't fight my way to the top of the food chain to be a vegetarian".

Not even remotely funny, IMHO.

Google for "Beer bumper stickers" and you get thousands of hits, same with "Relationship bumper stickers", but "Food bumper stickers"? not to much. As well as the above vegetarian one, I also found "You mean chocolate is NOT one of the four food groups?" and it was cross referenced under "diet and weight loss".

So here are some I want to see on the back of your hybrid cars in the near future, ok?

Your Mise En Place or Mine?

Your Pad Thai or Mine?

Hollandaise can smell your fear.

The poets have been mysteriously silent on the subject of cheese. ~G.K. Chesterton

I come from a family where gravy is considered a beverage. ~ Erma Bombeck

Maybe we need a symbol.. you know.. like the pink ribbon, or the WWJD bracelets. JUST so we don't feel so left out of the mob-identification thing.

My choice would be:

And yours?

A trip to Rosedale.

There is a chapter in that most ubiquitous of "self-help" books, "Men are from a, Women are from Venus" entitled "Women Talk and Men Go To Their Caves"

Now I freely admit to never having read the book, but for some reason the fact that this chapter exists sticks in my memory.

And it is, I believe, a universal truth.

When men are working through "Stuff" they get all quiet and insular and like bears, they hibernate until they're ready to come out.

Women?

We talk.

We head off with our nearest and dearest besties and talk. And rave. And plot. And scheme. And talk. And bitch.

Rinse.

Repeat.

And the girls would never dream of offering solutions. They just sit and listen, and refill your glass, and pass you the tissues and tell you "it's not because you're fat" and refill your glass and hold you while tears trickle down your face.

And if your friends are really all they are meant to be, all they should be after 30 or so years of supporting each other through marriages (good and bad), births (good and bad), cheap tawdry one-nighters (good and bad), they know what you'll need to pick yourself up, dust yourself off, hoik up your Big Girl's Boggers and SUCK IT UP, TIGER.

For some women it's chocolate. For some it's wine. For some it's a new man, for some it's a day spa.

For me, well, you can probably guess.

It's food.


Herbs still fresh and warm from Tee's garden. Her idea of being one of my oldest friends?

"I bought them so you could cook for us"

Oh Goddess, does that girl know me!!





Chicken in Pajamas at the Rosedale Pub, courtesy of Sue. Good, hearty country pub fare. No pretentious twattage, no bullshit. Just food and non-judgemental company.

Her idea of being one of my oldest friends?

"come to my house and just be."

It's not Chicken Soup that nurtures a Soul, it's chicken parma and a pot, and the deep, abiding laughter of someone you've known more than 30 years.



And then to come home to Widdie, who doesn't bother to bring anything but the main ingredient because "I know you'd have everything else I need", and smoked salmon roulades, to talk about being mad old cat ladies together.

Her idea of being one of my oldest friends?

Nodding in ALL the right places.

In 2010, make sure you forget the crap chain emails, and the bullshit forwarded Face Crack status update, and remeber to tell your 'festy besties" that Women Talk, and that is what nourishes our souls.