I lived on Capitol Hill for five years, splitting my time between the Lincoln Park area of SE and the Union Station area of NE. I only moved away a few years ago, but the change in the local culture has been extraordinary. Maybe I just didn’t notice it before, but there’s an off-putting aura of pretense and pomposity that permeates the air, especially around Eastern Market. It’s like all the fashion-chasing trendsters who were too poor to buy a place in Dupont or Adams Morgan suddenly decided to migrate their herd to the Hill. I asked my friends who still live in the region if they noticed a change and they all agreed that the community was becoming a monochromatic melange of like-mindedness.

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I very rarely blog about political or cultural issues, but this commentary was so dead-on accurate that I just had to comment on it:

In a recent episode of Top Chef, the American cooking show I appear on, I complained about the other judges’ insistence on pronouncing ‘paella’ as ‘py-ay-a’. ‘You don’t say “Bar-the-lona” or “Me-hi-co”,’ I pointed out. ‘So why say ‘py-ay-a’?’ I thought this was fairly uncontroversial, but it was as if I had just produced a white hood and a burning cross. [...] the only people who take offence if you Anglicise foreign words are upper-middle-class Caucasian Americans. They imagine that other, less fortunate people will be insulted by your ‘imperialist’ attitude and they get offended on their behalf. In fact, to imagine that non-English-speakers are a poor, victimised group, requiring the protection of the American elite, is far more condescending than mispronouncing non-English words.

I don’t know why, but this is a huge pet peeve of mine. I’ve even had a similar conversation.

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True believers will no doubt find it difficult to accept that they’ve been paying a premium for Food A over Food B even though the only difference between the two is the label:

Organic food has no nutritional or health benefits over ordinary food, according to a major study published Wednesday. [...] A systematic review of 162 scientific papers published in the scientific literature over the last 50 years, however, found there was no significant difference. [...] “Our review indicates that there is currently no evidence to support the selection of organically over conventionally produced foods on the basis of nutritional superiority.”

As with any myth that is debunked, many believers will either discount the scientific research that invalidates their superstitions or they’ll reshuffle their supposed motivations.

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This piece from Bon Appetit reads more like a parody of the emoted eating habits of the chattering class than a serious guide to getting your children more involved in the kitchen:

We started our kids on organic pureed butternut squash baby food and now they’re chopping summer squash for succotash with a butter knife. They started by eating string cheese and they’re now savoring Stilton. We avoided ancho chiles, but they unexpectedly taught us that they love anchovies. The moral of the story is: don’t cook down to your kids. Cook with them.

The writer is trying a little hard for alliteration (pun intended). This is from Rule 1, “Feed Them Perfect Produce”

Buy the best, ripe, in-season, local produce you can find, whether at a grocery store or farmer’s market. Asparagus in spring to teach your kids the essential less [sic] of eating seasonally and locally. Strawberries in summer. Apples in fall. Citrus in winter. Perfection. Perfection. Perfection.

Here’s more from Rule 6, “Be Honest’”

Chicken is from a bird. Beef is from a cow. Pork is from a pig. Tell your kids the truth about animals and they can make their own choices about what they’re comfortable eating (old Macdonald [sic] had a farm and he had an oink oink for bacon; remember that one?). Our 7 year old omnivore Violet knows the deal and has come to the decision that she doesn’t like the deal, but she still hasn’t given up good old cured meat like bacon or prosciutto. It’s too yummy for now. We’ve taught her about the difference between happily raised animals and sadly raised factory farm ones, but her heart’s just not into the carnivore thing right now.

In a perfect world, all parents would engage their children about food in this manner… after the au pair has read them this week’s chapter from The Omnivore’s Dilemma and before the whole family kneels and begs Gaia to absolve them of their exhalations.

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USA Today ran an article about an emerging trend they call Economic Survivalism:

When the economy started to squeeze the Wojtowicz family, they gave up vacation cruises, restaurant meals, new clothes and high-tech toys to become 21st-century homesteaders.

Now Patrick Wojtowicz, 36, his wife Melissa, 37, and daughter Gabrielle, 15, raise pigs and chickens for food on 40 acres near Alma, Mich. They’re planning a garden and installing a wood furnace. They disconnected the satellite TV and radio, ditched their dishwasher and a big truck and started buying clothes at resale shops.

“As long as we can keep decreasing our bills, we can keep making less money,” Patrick says. “We’re not saying this is right for everybody, but it’s right for us.”

The piece points to growing interest in Stockpiling, Gardening, Canning, Sewing and Relocating as signs of the emerging trend.

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