#Weird Food Culture

[whywouldyouaskthatpod]

Ep 28: Ghosts of Jell-O Past

CW: War, Poverty

"Even if you can’t cook, you can make a Jell-O dessert!” Ads promoting Jell-O in the early 1900s gladly declared the gelatin treat to be easy and quick, a delight! But things got weird in the 1950s when the jiggly food started to be introduced with a more savory profile… Join us this episode to talk about the history of gelatin desserts, the flavors, the inclusions, and the all-important Weird Food Culture that surrounded Jell-O!

If you prefer to listen on a podcast app instead of in video format, here's the embedded audio.

[fandomsandfeminism]

As we move towards the summer months, this is a healthy reminder that:

BMI is misapplied at best and pseudoscience at worst.

That genetics have far more affect on body type than any other factor.

That a "healthy weight" varies wildly from person to person.

That your body's actual healthy weight shouldn't require constant dieting to maintain.

That some studies have shown that being slightly "overweight" based on BMI actually makes you more resilient against injury and illness.

That unless your weight is actually directly causing you mobility issues or pain, it isn't a problem.

That movement and food should be a source of joy, not self discipline and stress.

That everyone looks better in clothes that fit properly.

That being hydrated and well fed is far more important to your health than you realize.

That fed is best.

That chiseled abs are only really visible if you are dehydrated.

That feeling the sun on your skin and bird song can heal the parts of you that years of dieting and weight watching and self criticism has injured.

That you have no obligation to be sexy or beautiful.

That you should never say things about your own body that you wouldn't say about a friend's or a partner's.

That it is not a moral imperative to be healthy or mobile or skinny.

That the people who judge you for your weight are fighting their own demons.

That People are absolutely terrible at guessing a person's weight. How you dress and carry yourself has far more impact on perception.

That You don't have to be beautiful to enjoy a beautiful day.

Better happy than skinny.

Feeling good is better than looking good.

[marlynnofmany]

Food Choices

Normally when I’m in a room with the entire crew of the courier ship, it’s either for an important debriefing by the captain or because of some emergency. We’d never all been at a restaurant together before. I kept having moments of worry that the ship was unattended, and having to remind myself that it was fully locked. Any of our biometrics could unlock it, and no one else would get past the hatch. It was fine. We could celebrate how good business had been — with the captain paying for everyone’s food — and there was no need to fret.

It was still bizarre, though. Almost as bizarre as some of the food I’d seen on other tables as we made our way to this one. The city was a cultural hub like few others. (Well, probably like many others, but they were very proud of themselves on that count. And this restaurant was a fine example.)

“The server will bring appetizers first,” said Captain Sunlight, scaly hands folded on the table in front of her with infinite dignity. “There’s no charge for these, and the server will likely decide for you what you want. They were pretty good at guessing last time I was here.”

“We shall see,” Zhee said with a flick of his antennae. He sat on an angled mat instead of a chair, since the restaurant had seating accommodations for all body types, including praying-mantis-shaped bug aliens. The mats were even adjustable, which was good because Trrili was taller than he was. She sat on the other side of the circular table — whether that was for more elbow room for the pinchers, or to make a maximum tripping hazard for people walking past, I couldn’t say. Either seemed in character for her.

“What’s the panel in the floor for?” Paint wanted to know. She sat next to the captain, scales a shiny orange to Sunlight’s yellow. I think she polished them before leaving the ship. She pointed now at the seam that I hadn’t noticed: a smaller circle inside the open center of the table.

Captain Sunlight said, “That’s the server’s entrance. They bring the food up from the kitchen downstairs.”

“Oh, nice!”

At my left, Mimi the mechanic grumbled about what an unnecessarily flashy choice that was, and how the restaurant had better keep on top of their maintenance. He gestured with his tentacles as he talked, sounding like he spoke from experience. “Anything that moves can stop moving, and usually at the worst time.” He also sounded like he gargled with engine grease, but he always sounded like that.

Fast-moving tentacles from further down turned out to be Wio and Mur, who’d discovered a game I didn’t recognize on the digital menu panel set into the tabletop. They were slapping away at something with competitive speed, and Mur seemed to be winning. Which was probably nice for him, given how often he lost at card games against the captain.

On my other side, Blip wrinkled her fishy nose. “I was about to say something smells good, but…”

“Then you smelled that?” asked Blop. “What is that?” He turned to look at neighboring tables, nearly elbowing Coals in the head and immediately apologizing. It was a good thing he’d missed, since that much muscle would have hurt.

“No harm done,” said Coals with his usual calm. I don’t think I’d ever seen the little lizardy guy upset. Which was probably for the best, given that he worked on translations with Trrili, and that had to be an exercise in patience.

Eggskin sat on his other side, similarly scaly and calm, but with far more opinions about food, since they were the ship’s cook as well as medic. I was only catching snatches of conversation from where Eggskin discussed the menu with Kavlae, but it sounded like a lengthy explanation for something. Kavlae didn’t look bored, though (head frills waving with interest), so it was probably good information. As a pilot, she didn’t spend much time on food prep.

I’d helped Eggskin in the kitchen plenty, both as part of the assistance rotation and because I found it interesting. The crew ate a range of foods, and most of it was edible for humans, though there were a few dishes that I wouldn’t touch on a dare.

A gentle chime sounded. Before I could ask what it was, the trapdoor sank down an inch then slid aside. A column rose into view that turned out to be a Waterwill, the gelatinous aliens that followed very few biological rules that I was familiar with. This one had less murky innards than most, with a bunch of things floating in there that could have been organs, recent meals, or personal belongings. The voice sounded vaguely male, and it hardly burbled at all.

“I hope you are all having an excellent day/night cycle! May your experience here only improve things.” He kept raising up, then when the platform cleared the floor, it folded out into a ring of serving dishes. The Waterwill sank back down in the center and everything locked into place. “Now, whose idea was it to dine at our fine establishment?”

Everyone pointed at Captain Sunlight.

“Ah, then I will serve you first!” The Waterwill didn’t turn, since he didn’t have visible eyes or even a mouth to be talking with, but somehow I got the impression that he had focused his attention in that direction. A stubby armlike shape reached out to set a bowl in front of the captain. “Our finest Heatseeker cuisine. And for you as well, madam. Also you, and you; don’t think I missed you over there.” Several arms passed out similar dishes to the other lizardy members of the crew.

I tried to peek around Blip and Blop for a look at Coals’ food, but couldn’t get a good angle. Might have been pasta and meatballs; might have been worms and worse.

“And!” announced the Waterwill, turning back to Zhee, “I hope this will be to your liking. And yours as well.” Goo arms set identical plates in front of the two Mesmers, and I could see from a distance that they held dead animals with the heads removed.

Zhee’s antennae were doing a complicated dance, but I couldn’t figure out if he was pleased or not before the server moved on.

“Only our best for the Frillians present!” He set festive arrangements of shrimp-things in front of Blip, Blop, and Kavlae. Really artistic; good presentation. The variety of colors and sizes made the plates into works of art. I hoped they tasted as good as they looked.

I murmured, “Ooh, fancy,” as the server came up with three more dishes.

“The Strongarm special!” he announced, laying them out in front of the three tentacle aliens to my left. Meat and plants of some sort; I couldn’t tell what.

Then he was back in front of me, and I realized I was the only one without food yet.

“Last but not least,” he said, “Featuring ingredients straight from Earth, we have a meal our chef has named the ‘Mother and Child Reunion.’”

The plate held a chicken breast, a hardboiled egg, and a pile of corn.

While Captain Sunlight thanked him generously, I stared at the plate with my hand over my mouth. When the server had packed everything up and disappeared back into the floor, I still didn’t know what to say.

Mimi spoke up from my left. “All right, why is it called that?”

I pointed. “This is the unhatched young of that species. And this is food they eat.”

Mimi tilted his octopuslike head to get a look at whatever expression I was making. “Isn’t that a weird thing to name it? Aren’t humans famous for pack-bonding with animals?”

“Yes and yes,” I admitted.

His rough voice was gentle. “Should we get you something else?”

“No, it’s okay,” I said, forcing a laugh. “It’s just a name. This is human food; I just wasn’t used to thinking about it like that.”

“If you’re sure.”

I looked around the table, expecting to find the rest of the crew enjoying their food. To my surprise, there were complaints.

“They overcooked the worms and the fruit!” Paint said. “And these beetles aren’t even shelled. Who eats something with that many spikes straight?”

Wio grumbled, “How do they know enough to pick out shorebirds and air lettuce, but not enough to know what an insulting assumption that is?”

“Right?” Mur agreed. “No self-respecting Strongarm would choose something from the shore when there are inland foods available just a little farther away.”

The pair of them griped about the species’ history of walking out of the sea, and everything that meant to them, while Mimi added murmurs of agreement.

Zhee, meanwhile, was complaining louder. “They took out the good parts! What nonsense is this? Did they mean to put the intestines in a separate dish and forget?”

He looked across the table for agreement from Trrili, and found her scooping paste out of a jar that had come with the meal. She dumped the last of it onto her plate and spread it around while Zhee sputtered. “Really, Trrili? That much? Would you like some fursqueak with your sauce?”

“Soursauce is the only reason to eat fursqueak,” Trrili retorted. “If you don’t want yours, pass it down.”

Zhee exclaimed that the brains were everyone’s favorite where he came from, which was clearly more cultured than whatever backwater moon she was hatched on, and they bickered across the table.

I peeked over my shoulder at the other restaurantgoers, hoping they weren’t glaring at us. I found a pair of elderly Heatseekers watching with interest, for all the world like they had been hoping to get dinner and a show. Their plates held something that looked like green popcorn.

Next to me, Blip heaved a sigh. “I’m actually kind of tired of shrimp.”

Blop laughed. “I know what you mean. It’s great! The best food out there! But… I don’t know, I guess I was looking forward to something more exotic.”

I eyed the fancy plates. “Ever tried chicken?”

They both looked at me. “No,” said Blip. “Does it have a strong flavor?”

“I wouldn’t say so. It is good, though. Popular on Earth for a reason. Here, I’ll trade you a bit.” I separated a chunk and handed it over while Blip put a bright pink jumbo shrimp on my plate.

“Can I try the egg?” Blop asked tentatively. “Is that okay? It looks so different from fish eggs.”

“Sure!”

Captain Sunlight caught sight of what we were doing, and loudly asked if Wio wanted to trade seabird for worm jerky. She did.

After that it was a cheerful chaos of swapping and sampling. Mur thought Zhee’s fursqueak was tasty, if tough; Zhee happily cracked open Paint’s spiky beetles; Trrili found that her favorite sauce was also good on shrimp; Eggskin and Coals both liked the corn. Kavlae said that a wrapping of Mur’s air lettuce elevated her shrimp from tasty to god-tier.

By the time the server appeared again to take our orders for the rest of the meal, we were all ready. I have never seen a Waterwill look that surprised as when he heard some of our choices.

~~~

(The meal name comes from the Paul Simon song, which was apparently inspired by something on a Chinese restaurant menu.)

Anyways, these are the ongoing backstory adventures of the main character from this book. More to come! And I am currently drafting a sequel!

[chongoblog]

Do you think white people cooking & eating food from other cultures counts as cultural appropriation or nah?

I think someone who thinks this much about this choosing to ask a white guy this question is very funny

[thedreadvampy]

The thing is. Bad/gross food is rarely a DISH - when food is bad it's because it's been badly made, whether because of skills or available ingredients. but a dish p much only exists recognisably and has a name because someone likes at least one version of it.

which is to say. there isn't really a way of naming a dish, school of dishes or specific food culture and going EW ISN'T THIS DISH UNILATERALLY CONCEPTUALLY DISGUSTING without denigrating quite a lot of people.

like you don't have to like it in any form. but it's eaten and shared because it's good to a not insubstantial number of people when cooked right.

(and I don't really understand how you approach that with total incuriosity when it's a dish you haven't tried like. ARE rocky mountain oysters good? Maybe! I would very much eat some to find out!!!!)

this is actually something the British food poll did in a way the American ones I've seen haven't really - they described how the food they're imagining is, specifically, badly prepared (grey meat and veggies; unseasoned shepherd's pie). which is wildly tipping the scales by calling it British Food but. like. that is an on point definition of why that food is gross.

(this also applies to American chocolate, which like. Broad category but I think most of us understand this refers to low-cocoa high-sugar chocolate, probably with bucolic acid. so we are being invited to imagine Badly Made Chocolate not. the concept of chocolate)

personally I just think it's very rarely a good or funny idea to shittalk how gross any given food culture is. partly because food is important and culturally evocative for most people, partly because it's very...alienating? to be like WHO COULD EAT SUCH A THING? just because you wouldn't, and largely because to be frank it says more about you than about the food that you have so little imagination or curiosity that you can't imagine why a food might be enjoyable to folks who aren't you.

yes this includes jello salad, I would like to try it. ONCE. if it wasn't appealing to someone it wouldn't be so widespread.

[weirdly-specific-but-ok]

Hey does tumblr have an Official Plant because if not I have a submission to make, a very strong contender for this site!

May I present to you the genus: Amorphophallus.

Yes, Amorpho-phallus, literally Greek for the 'shapeless penis' plant.

It's the tallest flower in the world! The magnificent Shapeless Penis, dwarfing grown-ass adults with a flower that grows up to 8.2 feet, is a sight to behold.

It's also called the corpse flower, or corpse bride flower, because this beauty has "a strong odour of rotting human flesh". We love that here on tumblr.

Edit: Just found out that it is also known as the Devil's Tongue and Voodoo Lily or Voodoo Plant. So. Do with that what you will.

The root of some of these Amorphophallic beauties is edible (I've seen them lurking creepily at grocery stores, the grocer usually grabs an axe and slams it into the root to split it and sell a part). This root is known as the elephant foot yam, which is fitting, because it is large, malformed, and disturbingly hairy.

Idk a plant named shapeless penis that has an eight foot flower that smells like rotting human flesh and a hairy edible root that can grow heavier than a toddler seems very on brand for tumblr.

Here you go:

@queermarzipan thank you for inspiring this by teaching me about bell peppers.

[tothepointofinsanity]

[I genuinely don’t think anything makes me more upset than seeing people on the internet go, “wow isn’t this food from [a south East Asian region] so weird guys! It doesn’t even look good!” and it’s them freaking out over traditional sweets and meals that we like to have on occasion.]

[alexmey-does-an-arts]

ghhh i am just. sinophobia its fucking everywhere on the western internet it is just SO widespread and accepted. and even when people aren't actively sinophobic they're just utterly ignorant about. any aspect of chinese (hell, even pretty much all asian) culture and i never see people even ATTEMPTING to learn about it. i have not met a single white person who has pronounced my last name correctly. It is one of the most common family names on the goddamn planet. GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR

[falmerbrook]

“A teslore post about falmer! This should be interesting and-“

[witchofthesouls]

Cybertronians vs kudzu

Who would win. Aliens or very invasive plants?

Cybertronians will win the battle, but they'll lose the war.

It's one thing to comprehend that plants grow fast, it's another thing to witness it.

If Cybertron ever establishes a sister city or university on Earth, then many Cybertronians will flock over to study applied agricultural sciences because someone at some point had managed to successfully crossbreed a potato with a Cybertronian one that feeds on their planet's radiation.

Someone needs to save Cybertron's soul if a well-meaning idiot takes something like kudzu or mint and manages to get viable crossbreeds on the metal planet.

[churchsideblog]

I guess I just...I know there's a lot in our history that we've done wrong, but is wanting to be proud of my culture really so much to ask? To say who I am in public without being treated like an object of pity for how I grew up? i'm terrified to tell my friends what I believe in case they reject me over stereotypes. the catholics think we're not Christians, the liberals think we want gay people dead, my brother's best friend moved to evangelical country and started talking like we were monsters, and I can't even find solidarity within the church because everybody's too busy trying to assimilate with people who want us dead.

[rotting-creation]

I love Tumblr bc all of my insecurities have simply vanished like

'i feel kind of insecure ab how big my thighs r and how they touch...'

*proceeds to see post ab how pretty big and squishy thighs r*

'i rlly don't like how my hair curls, I wish it was straight...'

*proceeds to see post ab how gorgeous curly hair is, and sees people talking about trying to get their hair to curl just like mine does*

'i wish my gender wasn't weird, I wish I was a more 'normal' form of trans...'

*comes across post about how cool all the different types of gender are, and about how using labels or not using them is completely optional to u*

'my nose looks weird, I wish it looked like xyz' person's nose...'

*post about how pretty """"weirdly shaped"""" noses are*

like r u insecure ab something?? Just get on the body positive side of Tumblr and istg it's all gonna go away, I went in suuuupperrrr insecure about my body and came out feeling like the hottest shit evrrrrr

[silverselfshippingchaos]

hm.

[orkbutch]

shockingly enough, raising cane's is a chicken joint, not a burger place. and yet it still somehow has the weird brand of americanism that mega enthusiastic burger places have. the chicken isn't even that good. :(

i see. thats a shame about the chicken

[fatuifucker]

glad you said about the asian erasure part because i'm blasian and i see no reason for erasing an east asian character to make them black if you can make them have both heritages! it's the same thing for lgbt headcanons, if it compliments the character then it's nice, but, if it erases their original characteristics, than it's erasure

example: it's okay to headcanon a lesbian character as ace, because they continue to be a lesbian. however, it's not okay to headcanon a bi character as gay for example, because you are erasing their bisexuality.

if people think turning an anime character (stated as EA, not mattering their looks) only black is not erasure, then they are confirming they see asian characters (with asian names, asian cultures and backgrounds that influence their experience of race/ethnicity) as white, and that is not okay. race goes beyond that.

yeahh I feel like a lot of people see asians in media and games as white, even at some point I saw people saying there's no problem in turning them black because people with pale skin and asians are already heavily represented in media anyway like hahahahahaha *takes out knife*

it's just so weird to make characters like yunjin or scara black as their clothing and identity are very tied to their race. yunjin is a representation of chinese opera singers and scara's appearance and lore in intertwined with buddhist values, which is one of the major religions of japan. personally, when I look into posts about scara's appearance and the cutural links to it, I end up learning new things about japan that I otherwise may not have known. this is good representation! (a lot of people still don't get that his hat is a cultural item and make fun of in) don't get me started how weird it is to make any of the archons black when they are a representation of their nation's culture.

I actually like when people turn asian characters blasian it's kinda cute as long as you don't remove the existing cultural parts. representation is more than just skin colour!

[bijoumikhawal]

Happy Shom Ennesim, may you not be subjected to the horrors of someone trying to kiss you after eating fesikh.