06 Aug 2005
Fresh from the can

In an otherwise excellent article on the degradation of the American Way of Food, I would only disagree with the authors assessment of pre-WWII food as "awful". Maybe it was bad in the cities and the soup kitchens, but just talk to any rural denizen from the Depression Era and they'll tell you how good their food was. Locally, many of them are my customers - because they remember how eggs and milk really taste.

A shimmering canned ham, spiked with dried cloves and disks of canned pineapple. A side of molded Jell-O salad, pregnant with pimentos and shredded cabbage. And maybe a nice cake for dessert, made from a mix and spackled over with hot-pink frosting. This was modern cooking, 1950s-style.

(link) [U.S. News & World Report]

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