I have continued my casual research into the history of food over the last two hundred years or so. My particular interest at the moment is the impact of the combination of improved transport with industrialisation of the food sector.
Victorian era food has had a very bad reputation. This is one example. This view has now been challenged by scientific research: Forget paleo, go mid-Victorian: it’s the healthiest diet you’ve never heard of.
Part of the argument in the paper is that the English diet changed during the second half of the nineteenth century as a consequence of new processed food stuffs, affecting health and life expectancy.
I was curious when the meaning of diet as in too diet or dieting or diet as noun for particular weight reduction came in. It seems that that meaning was there earlier, but its popularity really dates to the second half of the nineteenth century. The first really popular diet, the Banting diet, dates to 1863.
There has been some crazy diet ideas. I wonder what your favourites, pet hates or worst remembered experiences are? As always, feel free to go in whatever direction you want whether on or off topic.
Update
While there were not a lot of comments on this Forum, at least not to this point, I thought that I should bring a summary up into the main post. kvd reminded us of the Diet of Worms.This has absolutely nothing to do with food, but like kvd this stuck in my mind from school because of the title: who would eat a diet of worms?Then I thought, are there such a thing as edible worms? The answer appears to be yes. Mind you, when I was in Beijing I had a chance to eat fried insects. I fear I passed. Maybe the same for edible worms?
Now it appears that 2tanners is suffering from a slight plumpness problem and has therefore turned to 5:2 diet, aka intermittent fasting. Now I weighed myself a few days ago and I'm actually at the bottom of my normal weight range. I should certainly take some weight off round my tum, but I really need to add weight elsewhere.So intermittent fasting is not the answer for me. I do that anyway: it's called laziness!
2t also found a rather good cartoon on paleo diets. Do click through. I think that you will laugh.
Meantime, all this discussion on food sent kvd south with his daughter. Now the ostensible reasons for the trip were (a) the aforesaid daughter, (b) horses, but nevertheless, food came in. Here I must quote:
Stumbled upon a small eatery and sampled the following:
Daughter started with (typing from the menu which I swiped) “Scallop Caipirinha: Scallop Cevice, black beans, cachaca, lime, chorizo oil and coriander” whilst I made do with “Mosaic of ponzu tuna: cucumber, wasabi, garlic chips and avocado”
After she’d eaten her Pirahnas, daughter decided to join me with each having an extremely rare “Beef eye fillet, mushroom velvet, tempura shallots, smoked daikon, horseradish & nori gnocchi”.
Food great – and bugger your PC diets. .Most of those ingredients were new to me. I thought that the first was Mexican, but 2t advises that Caipirinha is a Brazilian dish. Poor 2t. Despite his remarks on his 5:2 diet, his reaction to kvd's menu? "The beef fillet sounds gorgeous - I'm drooling as I type."
14 comments:
As a kid, I always liked the Diet of Worms. Dunno why, just appealed somehow. And I bet I'm not the only one who can roll that phrase off the tongue, almost like a Pavlov dog.
Here endeth my thoughtful contribution.
kvd
One Continuous Picnic is a history of food (for the Europeans) since 1788. Really worth reading.
I am a little overweight, and a little more rotund than is actually recommended. I am using the 5:2 diet (eat very minimally or fast two days a week, Rafferty's rules for the rest). It is supposed to have beneficial effects aside from weight control. For anyone interested, Dr Michael Mosley did a fairly entertaining TV series on this for the BBC.
Patent medicines in the early 1900s essentially promoted weight gain, picturing children who we would now view as unhealthily fat, probably obese. Here in Timor, to call someone fat is complimentary, slender is OK and thin is an insult (equates with poverty). I can't easily find a good example, but this rather illustrates the point.
Here is the best comment I've seen on the Paleo diet.
I had the same reaction, kvd. It was sort of who would eat worms! But, in fact, it appears that there is such a thing as edible worms - https://edibug.wordpress.com/list-of-edible-insects/!
I have the book, Evan. I found it very useful in looking at the history of food in Australia and especially the industrialization process.
Loved the paleo diet cartoon, 2t. Very funny. On the first link, body perceptions do change. I've talked about this before in the context of women's shapes. Norman Lindsay's paintings are an example. Lots of curves. I had heard of the 5:2 diet, but didn't know much about it. Humans are not designed for a sedentary life style!
Turning the conversation across several threads, was the original artist starving in a garret a talented painter who was rubbish as a hunter trying to bring more game into the area?
All this talk of food, and a “Monday go-anywhere topic”, made me both hungry and restless – so early Tuesday I drove the couple of hours from home to Canberra and grabbed my daughter (by prior arrangement) and we headed off on a ‘road trip’ down to a horse stud, about 2 hours south of Albury to look at some horsies – my second favourite secret pleasure.
An hour and a half with the hooves, then a couple of hours back to Albury for the night and there comes the ‘diet link’. Stumbled upon a small eatery and sampled the following:
Daughter started with (typing from the menu which I swiped) “Scallop Caipirinha: Scallop Cevice, black beans, cachaca, lime, chorizo oil and coriander” whilst I made do with “Mosaic of ponzu tuna: cucumber, wasabi, garlic chips and avocado”
After she’d eaten her Pirahnas, daughter decided to join me with each having an extremely rare “Beef eye fillet, mushroom velvet, tempura shallots, smoked daikon, horseradish & nori gnocchi”.
Food great – and bugger your PC diets – and also there were no hooves as far as I could tell in the radish – despite the lovely ones seen earlier in the day.
I must say regarding this spur of the moment trip that I was very much saddened by the journey Canberra-Albury which I have enjoyed several times over the years. Yass, Gunagai, Jugiong, Holbrook, even Albury itself: all bypassed by freeway travel; and I wonder how these small communities (some not so small) survive with the passing of the ‘passing traffic’ economic injection? Maybe nobody these days stops to read the inscription on the Holbrook submarine, or has time to think about the virtual flood plain spread out before Gundagai – and just how much water that involved, or travel too fast over the mighty Murray to admire just how vibrant, and fertile and productive this stretch of Australia is.
And I continue to marvel at the early explorers, opening up this country by foot and horseback – just so that these days I can get from Canberra to Albury with a minimum of contact with that which I bypass.
kvd
Good morning, kvd. That sounds a good trip and the time with your daughter would have been great anyway. However, the menu was one of those that makes me realise how little I know! From what I can work out, the first sounds Mexican, the second a variant of Japanese, while the third also sounds Japanese influenced. But all sort of a blend! I'm glad that you enjoyed it.
The expressways are convenient, but they do turn the country into a series of road linked cities with everything else increasingly unknown.
Caipirinha is a Brazilian dish. The beef fillet sounds gorgeous - I'm drooling as I type.
All good tanners - I drooled as I ate :) All this talk of diets, and in fact any time I read same, always brings to mind the old advice to never eat anything bigger than your head. I swear by that.
But, because it was so good, and because I'd never struck it before, allow me to expand upon one small part of my first course: the menu simply denotes, in part, "cucumber, wasabi" - but what was involved was an icecream scoop-sized serving of ice (made of pureed cucumber) struck through with 2 or 3 dashings of wasabi. I cannot adequately describe the shock of the sweet ice, offset by the heat of the wasabi hit.
Checking the menu, I see the place is called "Border Wine Room" - so if you really want to stuff up your 5:2 diet, you can check the menu on Google.
kvd
kvd,
That ice dish sounds wonderful, and if I can find a source of wasabi here I'm going to try and recreate that. One of the best summer drinks up here is ice water with lots of shaved cucumber - easy and really cooling.
My diet is so good because on 5 days of the week, I could eat your meal, but I'll never see the meat up here that's tender enough to serve like that. The only tender meat is served sous vide. Time for a home trip, roast pork, glorious beef and good wine at a decent price.
Diets, food, eating - with no comments from your female commenters? Maybe this will assist - http://www.library.ucsb.edu/OBJID/Cylinder7876
"a nice rice pudding reminds him of the day that he was wed"
kvd
- and yes I know, I know - and that's exactly why I posted it.
Brave man, kvd.
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