Huh.
Today's topic may prove to be one I won't be able to handle with brevity, comedy, or gravity.
Alas, away we go.
Let me take you back to, oh, the year 1996. I was in college at Iowa State University, studying to be an English teacher, and I was enrolled in an upper-level creative writing class. The professor would have us read short pieces by professional writers so that we could discuss technique...which we would then practice in our own pieces.
I can remember one heated discussion centering around the use of the word 'Oriental'. A writer had used it to describe someone of Asian descent...and some of my classmates were outraged.
"We're not rugs, we're people!" is one comment I distinctly recall among the many.
It's an interesting word, really. Oriental. Is it racist? Certainly, it doesn't carry the connotations of other, more insulting words other races have been called over the course of human history. But, Oriental? From the Orient? Can a geographical adjective be racist or demeaning? Definitely - context is everything. These days, describing someone as Oriental seems to have fallen out of usage, and probably is an age gap issue more than anything.
Enter a parade of housewives from Southern Living magazine, circa 1979.
I received a 1979 cookbook from my sister-in-law for Christmas, and I'm getting a huge kick out of reading the recipes...with titles like "Congealed Vegetable Salad" and "Out Of This World Cottage Cheese Salad" and "Irresistible Salmon Mousse". Also, there is a lot of margarine usage, as well as mayonnaise-fruit salad combos. The late seventies were wild-and-crazy times, indeed.
Other indicators that I'm on a culinary time travel trip? The recipes have been submitted by readers, some of them using their own names (i.e. Margaret L. Hunter from Princeton, KY or "Audrey Burnham from Delaware), but many, many others going only by names such as Mrs. Doug Hall or Mrs. James Sutton.
This recipe to the left is an obvious attempt by Randall DeTrinis (interesting, did a man submit this or his wife who wished to erase herself altogether from cookbook credit?) to "exoticize" meat loaf. Noble effort, Randall, and we applaud that.
However, the only things in this recipe that might be considered "Oriental" is a.) soy sauce and b.) water chestnuts. Today, soy sauce is a ubiquitous condiment, as common as ketchup (or catsup) and salsa, but maybe that was not the case in 1979? I wouldn't know - I was only four years old. I'm pretty sure my parents did not stock the Kikkoman in the fridge on a regular basis, though.
Looking over this recipe, I get the feeling that Randall DeTrinis, while looking to "spice" up his/her ordinary meatloaf, didn't want to get too crazy. Additions of things like ginger or green onions or Chinese five-spice might have just been too, too much. *That* would explain the safe use of ketchup.
Well, you know me...can't let well enough alone. Can't look at a recipe without thinking about all the tweaks I'd make. Starting with the title. Honestly, it's really not a crunchy meatloaf - the onions and bell pepper soften considerably with the hour-plus of cooking time. The water chestnuts do stay crunchy, but it's texturally not significant enough to warrant CRUNCHY being the first word. So I added chow mein noodles to the loaf's top in the last few minutes of baking. Now, we have crunchy!
Second, if I'm going to call it "Oriental", which I feel vaguely ashamed about anyway, then I ought to add some ingredients that boost the level of authenticity.
Out with the ketchup, in with the hoisin. Hoisin is sort of like a sweet, fermenty, Chinese barbeque sauce. Better than ketchup, for sure. I grated in some ginger, because yum. I left out the milk because the mixture was moist enough without it. Baking directions I followed as above. The last few minutes of baking I added a sweet Thai chili glaze and the chow mein noodles.
And in the end, it tasted like meatloaf. Meatcake with some seasoning. I wasn't wowed by it...but I try to remember that at least Randall DeTrinis was attempting fusion cuisine before that was even a thing, and we applaud him (or her?) for that.
If I ever do this recipe again, I'll up the ingredient factor and add sesame oil, fish sauce, and maybe some ground-up Szechuan peppercorns for heat.
Final judgment: Not going to discard this cookbook yet...it's too much of a valuable historical culinaria for me to throw out. Besides, there's far too many recipes in it with the word "Surprise" in the title, and you know I got to solve those mysteries.
Today's topic may prove to be one I won't be able to handle with brevity, comedy, or gravity.
Alas, away we go.
Let me take you back to, oh, the year 1996. I was in college at Iowa State University, studying to be an English teacher, and I was enrolled in an upper-level creative writing class. The professor would have us read short pieces by professional writers so that we could discuss technique...which we would then practice in our own pieces.
I can remember one heated discussion centering around the use of the word 'Oriental'. A writer had used it to describe someone of Asian descent...and some of my classmates were outraged.
"We're not rugs, we're people!" is one comment I distinctly recall among the many.
It's an interesting word, really. Oriental. Is it racist? Certainly, it doesn't carry the connotations of other, more insulting words other races have been called over the course of human history. But, Oriental? From the Orient? Can a geographical adjective be racist or demeaning? Definitely - context is everything. These days, describing someone as Oriental seems to have fallen out of usage, and probably is an age gap issue more than anything.
Enter a parade of housewives from Southern Living magazine, circa 1979.
Other indicators that I'm on a culinary time travel trip? The recipes have been submitted by readers, some of them using their own names (i.e. Margaret L. Hunter from Princeton, KY or "Audrey Burnham from Delaware), but many, many others going only by names such as Mrs. Doug Hall or Mrs. James Sutton.
This recipe to the left is an obvious attempt by Randall DeTrinis (interesting, did a man submit this or his wife who wished to erase herself altogether from cookbook credit?) to "exoticize" meat loaf. Noble effort, Randall, and we applaud that.
However, the only things in this recipe that might be considered "Oriental" is a.) soy sauce and b.) water chestnuts. Today, soy sauce is a ubiquitous condiment, as common as ketchup (or catsup) and salsa, but maybe that was not the case in 1979? I wouldn't know - I was only four years old. I'm pretty sure my parents did not stock the Kikkoman in the fridge on a regular basis, though.
Looking over this recipe, I get the feeling that Randall DeTrinis, while looking to "spice" up his/her ordinary meatloaf, didn't want to get too crazy. Additions of things like ginger or green onions or Chinese five-spice might have just been too, too much. *That* would explain the safe use of ketchup.
Well, you know me...can't let well enough alone. Can't look at a recipe without thinking about all the tweaks I'd make. Starting with the title. Honestly, it's really not a crunchy meatloaf - the onions and bell pepper soften considerably with the hour-plus of cooking time. The water chestnuts do stay crunchy, but it's texturally not significant enough to warrant CRUNCHY being the first word. So I added chow mein noodles to the loaf's top in the last few minutes of baking. Now, we have crunchy!
Out with the ketchup, in with the hoisin. Hoisin is sort of like a sweet, fermenty, Chinese barbeque sauce. Better than ketchup, for sure. I grated in some ginger, because yum. I left out the milk because the mixture was moist enough without it. Baking directions I followed as above. The last few minutes of baking I added a sweet Thai chili glaze and the chow mein noodles.
And in the end, it tasted like meatloaf. Meatcake with some seasoning. I wasn't wowed by it...but I try to remember that at least Randall DeTrinis was attempting fusion cuisine before that was even a thing, and we applaud him (or her?) for that.
If I ever do this recipe again, I'll up the ingredient factor and add sesame oil, fish sauce, and maybe some ground-up Szechuan peppercorns for heat.
Final judgment: Not going to discard this cookbook yet...it's too much of a valuable historical culinaria for me to throw out. Besides, there's far too many recipes in it with the word "Surprise" in the title, and you know I got to solve those mysteries.
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