Amanda Jane is a 30-year-old writer, social media lover and pop-culture obsessed adult*. While she isn't working on her novel, she enjoys watching television shows, wondering about the YouTube business model for vloggers, movies and reading any books she can get her hands on. She might be made up of 20% coffee and 80% sarcasm.
*An adult when her parents are looking.
TINA. YES. THIS IS IT. This is Seb’s first word. I won’t accept anything else. He’ll say it first pointing at Aaron and Robert will laugh and laugh until it’s his turn to be called an idiot. I NEED THIS.
————– Seb sits in his high chair waiting for his breakfast. His eyes bounce back and forth between his two dads as they stumble around the kitchen. It had taken a long time to wake them up this morning, but eventually his cries had done the job. He just doesn’t understand why adults take so long to drag themselves out of bed. Wake up. Get up. How can it be any easier?
Daddy Aaron seems especially grumpy and disheveled this morning. He’s standing in the middle of the kitchen glaring down at the burnt toast in his hand and looking like thunder clouds on a rainy day. Then Aaron shrugs and starts scraping away at the black bread in his hand with a knife. Seb watches as he smears piles of butter on top of the very crispy bread and takes a large bite.
Daddy Robert’s face isn’t quite as grumpy as Daddy Aaron’s, but he still wrinkles his face up at the loud crunch the toast makes. “Are you really going to eat that? It’s burnt!”
Seb isn’t sure why Daddy Robert cares. He isn’t the one eating the toast, is he?
Aaron looks over at Robert and licks a spot of butter from his index finger. “It’s toast, Robert! Toast by definition is slightly burnt bread.”
Robert grabs a small jar of baby food from the kitchen counter and sits down in front of Seb’s high chair. Finally! Food is on the way. But instead of opening Seb’s breakfast straight away, Daddy R rubs his hand across his eyes and continues talking. “Slightly being the word, Aaron. That looks like it’s been incinerated. It’s disgusting!”
Seb looks closer at the jar his dad holds and opens his mouth wide in preparation. Peaches are his favorite! His dads may be having a bad morning, but his is looking pretty good! He smacks his palms against the top of his high chair in excitement.
Aaron smiles at Seb before turning back to Robert. “I put butter on it! It’s fine. It’s just toast.” Brown flecks fall onto the front of his jumper as he takes another large bite.
Seb sends his best glare at Daddy Robert. He hasn’t even tried to open the peaches yet! Why does Daddy Aaron get to eat and he can’t? He bangs his hands down harder and screeches a little. Maybe that will get him some attention!
It does. Daddy R finally pries the lid from the peaches, and Seb opens his mouth wide again. Then…..
Daddy R shakes his head and glances back over at Daddy Aaron. “Butter covers the burn, but it’s still there. Idiot.”
Exactly. Idiots, the both of them. Seb is hungry! “Idi!” Seb said.
Both of his dads swing their heads around to him at the same time. They do that all the time, move together like they were one person. Seb always wonders how they manage it.
Daddy R says, “Did he just say idiot?” He leans closer to Seb. “Seb, did you just say “idiot”?
Why does Daddy Robert sound so surprised? He said it first. And Seb has reason to call them that. He needs feeding! Maybe Daddy Aaron will understand.
Seb turns to look at his toast eating dad. Aaron is standing still with his toast halfway to his face and his mouth hanging open. Seb points at him and says again, “Idi.”
Aaron lowers his toast down to the counter. “Seb just called me an idiot.” He mouth still hasn’t closed all the way, and he’s looking at Seb like he has just done something amazing. Which is crazy, really. Daddy Robert calls Daddy Aaron that all the time. What’s the big deal?
“Our boy’s a genius, Aaron.” Then Robert laughs. And Aaron laughs. So Seb starts laughing, too. Why not? His dads have lost their minds.
what if i told you that a lot of “Americanized” versions of foods were actually the product of immigrant experiences and are not “bastardized versions”
That’s actually fascinating, does anyone have any examples?
I took an entire class about Italian American immigrant cuisine and how it’s a product of their unique immigrant experience. The TL;DR is that many Italian immigrants came from the south (the poor) part of Italy, and were used to a mostly vegetable-based diet. However, when they came to the US they found foods that rich northern Italians were depicted as eating, such as sugar, coffee, wine, and meat, available for prices they could afford for the very first time. This is why Italian Americans were the first to combine meatballs with pasta, and why a lot of Italian American food is sugary and/or fattening. Italian American cuisine is a celebration of Italian immigrants’ newfound access to foods they hadn’t been able to access back home.
(Source: Cinotto, Simone. The Italian American Table: Food, Family, and
Community in New York City. Chicago: U of Illinois, 2013. Print.)
that corned beef and cabbage thing you hear abou irish americans is actually from a similar situation but because they weren’t allowed to eat that stuff due to that artificial famine
❤ FOOD HISTORY ❤
Everyone knows Korean barbecue, right? It looks like this, right?
Well, this is called a “flanken cut” and was actually unheard of in traditional Korean cooking. In traditional galbi, the bone is cut about two inches long, separated into individual bones, and the meat is butterflied into a long, thin ribbon, like this:
In fact, the style of galbi with the bones cut short across the length is called “LA Galbi,” as in “Los Angeles-style.” So the “traditional Korean barbecue” is actually a Korean-American dish.
Now, here’s where things get interesting. You see, flanken-cut ribs aren’t actually all that popular in American cooking either. Where they are often used however, is in Mexican cooking, for tablitas.
So you have to imagine these Korean-American immigrants in 1970s Los Angeles getting a hankering for their traditional barbecue. Perhaps they end up going to a corner butcher shop to buy short ribs. Perhaps that butcher shop is owned by a Mexican family. Perhaps they end up buying flanken-cut short ribs for tablitas because that’s what’s available. Perhaps they get slightly weirded out by the way the bones are cut so short, but give it a chance anyway. “Holy crap this is delicious, and you can use the bones as a little handle too, so now galbi is finger food!” Soon, they actually come to prefer the flanken cut over the traditional cut: it’s easier to cook, easier to serve, and delicious, to boot!
Time goes on, Asian fusion becomes popular, and suddenly the flanken cut short rib becomes better known as “Korean BBQ,” when it actually originated as a Korean-Mexican fusion dish!
I don’t know that it actually happened this way, but I like to think it did.
Corned beef and cabbage as we know it today? That came to the Irish immigrants via their Jewish neighbors at kosher delis.
The Irish immigrants almost solely bought their meat from kosher butchers. And what we think of today as Irish corned beef is actually Jewish corned beef thrown into a pot with cabbage and potatoes. The Jewish population in New York City at the time were relatively new immigrants from Eastern and Central Europe. The corned beef they made was from brisket, a kosher cut of meat from the front of the cow. Since brisket is a tougher cut, the salting and cooking processes transformed the meat into the extremely tender, flavorful corned beef we know of today.
The Irish may have been drawn to settling near Jewish neighborhoods and shopping at Jewish butchers because their cultures had many parallels. Both groups were scattered across the globe to escape oppression, had a sacred lost homeland, discriminated against in the US, and had a love for the arts. There was an understanding between the two groups, which was a comfort to the newly arriving immigrants. This relationship can be seen in Irish, Irish-American and Jewish-American folklore. It is not a coincidence that James Joyce made the main character of his masterpiece Ulysses, Leopold Bloom, a man born to Jewish and Irish parents.
y’all write your fucking fanfiction and love your weird cringey shit and draw your goofy terrible furry drawings or something who cares who gives a goddamn just do whatever weird thing makes you happy on this goddamn bitch of an earth who caressss
