It's A Challenge

I went shopping yesterday for a few things for Easter dinner.  It's the easiest of holiday meals, or should be.  As I've mentioned before, my family are hidebound traditionalists and holiday menus never change.  We can be as inventive and experimental as we choose throughout the rest of the year, but not at Easter, Christmas, Thanksgiving, etc.  One thing I do try to do is work within certain dietary restrictions that have cropped up over time with health issues.  I certainly don't want to be the cause of doing someone in.

A mandatory dish at Easter is Jell-O folded into a cloud of whipped cream.   Easy peasy, right?  Except that one of the Kids is lactose intolerant.  I searched for some nondairy substitute for cream without success.  All I could do was warn the Kid to bring the pills that would forestall discomfort.

It got me to thinking.  Back in the day, no one questioned ingredients in anything.  We ate everything.  The only warning I can remember was to cook pork until done, done, done, because trichinosis was still a possibility then; thankfully, no longer.  The thing is, there were no chemicals in anything.  We shelled peas, baked cakes from scratch, and "fast food" was a freshly prepared sandwich at the drugstore lunch counter.  There was no need to read labels because almost everything canned was in water with maybe a little salt and no other additives.  Now you need a degree in chemistry (and good glasses) to know what you're eating.

I was discussing this with a friend the other day and the subject of bread came up.  I mentioned that one year I had bought a cheap brand of bread to make stuffing for the Thanksgiving turkey because I make a lot of stuffing, six or eight loaves worth.  One slice of this bread was missed and sat out on the counter.  I went to pitch it and noted it hadn't dried out.  As an experiment, I left that slice of bread out for six months!  In all that time, it had not gone stale or moldy.  What the heck had I fed my family?!  The upside is, we'll be well preserved.

Easter is the only time I mix boiled potatoes and peas together, and add a lot of butter.  Why?  Because that's how my mother did it.  One of the Kids has an aversion, not an allergy, to peas, but I can't help that.  The Kid can pick around them.  He's a grownup now and I'm not in charge.

Cooking nowadays is certainly a challenge.