I have a “relationship” with a psychology-based food control application. It is more often food for thought than it is thought for food. In reading the discussion about how we are influenced by food, especially the sights, sounds, and smells associated with eating, it came to me that open plan homes and kitchens have contributed to our obsession with, and generally obesity from, food. It used to be that food, and the cooking of it, was sequestered. One did not walk past or through the kitchen during the day; one went to the kitchen to cook and present that food to the participating eaters. When I was young, there was no snacking and I believe (without a smidgen of research) that snacking is a marketing-driven construct. A section of a book I am reading (just a week after my own aha moment) has a brief discussion of this in a different manner. The opening of kitchens brought women out of the drudgery and into the light, probably literally and figuratively.
As women began to have lives of their own, either in their marriage or due to divorce, they sought something more than the service of meals, child minding, and housekeeping. I remember, in my life, that meant finding my own way around the kitchen. But this is not so much a discussion about the socio-politics of the family meal as another idea that came to mind as I pondered these situations.
What we cook with also changes how we eat. What brought this to mind was the lunch I just made. Tuna fish on a Thomas’ English Muffin, sprinkled with cheese and broiled. It’s been wet and gray and this is sort of a comfort meal. One that I have not made in decades. It was then that I realized it had been a food choice designed for the toaster oven. That was a safe way for teens to cook for themselves. Then, it was a convenient way to cook for one when I had my own kitchen. In the late 60’s through 70s, a toaster oven was one of my central kitchen tools. When that went the way of, well I suppose, better choices, so did the many innovative meals I must have made. Right now, only the tuna on muffin comes to mind. Oh, oh, that’s not true. Mini frozen pizzas. I burned my mouth so many times on toaster oven pizza!
Then too, overlapping that time is the electric frying pan. I still have one. It’s my second one as the first gave up the ghost after being THE central cooking implement. Funny, and now I don’t ever use one. The first would have been purchased at the PX sometime in 1976 or thereabout. The second, sometime in the early 80s. I ran into it (actually, drug a Christmas tree box across it, but that’s another story) just a few weeks ago and thought that I should decide on keep or donate or toss. Do people still use/want an electric frying pan? Turns out they are still sold, although much different in style. And my actual Farberware goes for somewhere in the neighborhood of $30-$50 on eBay. Hmmm…
What I thought of, that day it became a project blockade, was the meals I had not made since it was relegated to “across.” That is what I say about things that are housed on the Flipside, because it is across the driveway. Flipside being the name we gave the outbuilding. We even have a neon sign as designation. The “lounge” on the flipside was a place to listen to records. Yes, vinyl! Anyway, back to food implements. My favorite memories of the electric frying pan are beef stroganoff, pork chops with apple rings, and easy-peasy pancakes. Of the three, only a rare sighting of pancakes happens without that pan. If I had a place to put it, besides the counter, I’d probably eat too many noodles with sour cream (the stroganoff), apples with sugar (the chops), and butter on pancakes.
It is as if these implements are like our toys and as we set them aside, we move onto more grown-up or advanced implements such as full-size stoves, fancy Instant Pots, and the ubiquitous microwave oven. With apologies to C. S. Lewis in my paraphrasing of “When I became a man I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up” which, in turn, the Internet tells me is actually his own version of a Bible verse from 1 Corinthians 13:11 (of which there are versions, so having my own seems appropriate).
But these cooking implements were not childish, really, as much as they were of-a-time for me. That time being single, not yet a gourmet, and before I had a marvelous kitchen. I’m simply fascinated by the way that foods that were “standard” at the time went with the tools and did not stay in my repertoire. A crock pot held a larger position than today during the 90s, but it must not have had the same impact as I do not remember anything that is missing now because it doesn’t come out often. Oh, and the good old fondue pot. That never did make much sense outside of party fare, but I still have one from the 70s, across.
Even once I settled into this home, for the first couple of years I cooked exclusively with the electric frying pan and a microwave because it came without a stove. I think the simpler eating made controlling my intake much easier. And the kitchen was a separate room that didn’t beckon 24-hours a day. Then the most influential kitchen addition happened. No, not the stove. The chef. I married a man who would cook the most delightful meals and desserts. By this time, the Keebler elves of my past and the nonsensical 6-meals-a-day plan had fully captured my cells. We almost never ate the same thing twice, we almost always ate snacks and desserts, and my fate was sealed. I have not, however, set aside the influence of that particular part of the kitchen. Turns out that our minds are often taken in by the influence of novelty and now I find it to be a true psychological challenge for me to establish a pattern. To stop foraging and grazing, thus maintaining a heightened desire for food. My food is healthy, it’s just too much influence.
So today I found myself wondering if the toaster oven could be an implement of portion control, the electric frying pan a tool for pattern over novelty, and a kitchen door the commander of the space to prevent drive-by-eating. Not to mention that some tools provide a chance to re-establish the rotation of foods on the menu. I don’t know if any of those make sense or would happen. I do know that I enjoyed my first-in-decades taste of tuna fish on English muffin with a topping of broiler-melted cheese, and that it 1. Was filling and 2. Spurred me to write so I didn’t eat more. In the spirit of mindfulness (will that implement go on the shelf as well?), at least I am thinking about the how of my psychology as well as the tools.
Oh, I almost forgot the Mother Earth News influence of toaster oven electricity usage for such a meal vs. whole oven usage. Of course, I had to determine if the modern-day oven is more efficient, and it turns out a toaster oven would have saved electricity. Ah, but what price for counter space? Mother Earth News…a thought for another day.