Cooking with Sustenance

Click to enlarge: A tin of generic luncheon loaf, which we'd otherwise likely call Spam. Generic foods obtained some popularity when I was a boy. They promised lower prices and comparable quality without the name brand. I worked at Loblaws and we had an entire aisle of them, everything from cigarettes to napkins. Some generic packaging was white, like this tin, but the variety we sold was yellow with black lettering. My family tried many of them. Crackers and canned goods seemed to be okay most of the time. Most of the others had such poor quality, you only needed to try them once to be convinced there was something behind a brand.

I've always had the idea that there is a market for those who don't want or like fancy food. This decidedly practical food would be called "sustenance," would be block-shaped and light so it's easy to store, would be shelf-stable, easy to cut, and available in a variety of flavors, like pizza, fajita, chocolate, etc. It would satisfy quickly, contain only as many calories and nutrients as needed, and would stick to your ribs, as my family used to say.

This kind of food would be great for writers, in fact artists of any sort who don't like taking time away from their work to eat.

Oh, and there would be only one reality show devoted to food. It would be called "Cooking with Sustenance," and it would involve only dishes you can make with sustenance and what you could do with all the time you saved not making a mess in the kitchen and cleaning up.

[2013-05-13]
 

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Click to enlarge: Are we not men? We are Devo. "Devo" stood for "de-evolution," a term which presumes that evolution is "up" or "better" in some way, which is not a helpful biological concept, and in fact has contributed to support of racism from some academic quarters that were likely unaware of the influence. All that aside, there was something hypnotic in Devo's techno-new wave sound. I didn't care for it, but like generic foods, it had some fans, and similar quirky notes.

It's common for folks, especially young people, to say stuff like Someday we'll figure it out, someday if we all try really hard, we'll fix the world.

I thought so once. I was young and optimistic and thought the right people at the right time could make the right decisions.

But we never will. The world is permanently broken. (Or evolving from one state of disrepair to another, your choice, the metaphor doesn't matter.)

It will remain that way and you can't fix it. You can bandage it, but it won't heal.

Souls are different. Souls you can heal.

But hate and fear and mistrust?

No.

We have our eyes in the front of our heads. We are descended from predators.

Hate and fear and mistrust are needed for survival in a world bereft of love, kindness, and trust.


Jocko Homo (original version)
a.k.a. "Are we not men? We are Devo."

[2013-04-25]

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