Warning Seasonal Food Rant: Real Simple=Simpletons?
I have a confession to make. I read Real Simple.
Real Simple, I feel, is like Cosmo for homemakers. The layout/reader stories/recurring themes are all a tad corny, yet every time I pass the magazine rack in the supermarket check out, I cannot resist picking it up.
Except yesterday - it really really really pissed me off!
I starting flipping through my new February 2008 issue when I come across an article entitled: "Rescuing Winter Produce." Immediately my eyebrows raise, because the 3/4 page gigantic picture above this headline is a tomato with a band-aid on it. Hmm...winter? Tomato?
The sub-line continues: "Transform out-of-season fruits and vegetables - like mealy tomatoes, tough green beans, and woody carrots - into these five lush, delicious dishes.
Huh, so now winter produce, (the season we are in), is suddenly equal to "out-of-season fruits and vegetables." Makes perfect sense to me!? (Oh sarcasm).
The following pages offered recipes to doctor and transform green beans, carrots, zucchini, tomatoes, and strawberries. Save the recipe for the carrots, which one might have kicking around in their root cellar, not a single one of these crops scream winter to me. Let's see summer, fall, summer, summer and SUMMER! No kidding all of this produce tastes like crap, Real Simple! BECAUSE IT'S NOT IN SEASON. BECAUSE IT'S ALREADY BEEN DOCTORED AND MODIFIED BEYOND RECOGNITION TO SURVIVE TRAVELING THOUSANDS OF MILES TO OUR GROCERY STORES. GAH!!!
When Real Simple is telling us that we have to mask our food with spices and sugar and all sorts of cooking wizardry just to make it edible, I think that that might be indicative of a problem with our food consumption in this country. If it tastes like crud to begin with - it's going to taste like crud wallowing in some sauce/syrup when you cook it. Seems to me that the effort to make these foods taste good in February is not so "simple."
I would prefer biting into a green bean when it's green, a zucchini when there are a million of them proliferating the farmer's market, a tomato off the vine and a strawberry when it's RED and not white or pasty pink on the inside.
Real Simple - as of this moment, I just might be over you.
Real Simple, I feel, is like Cosmo for homemakers. The layout/reader stories/recurring themes are all a tad corny, yet every time I pass the magazine rack in the supermarket check out, I cannot resist picking it up.
Except yesterday - it really really really pissed me off!
I starting flipping through my new February 2008 issue when I come across an article entitled: "Rescuing Winter Produce." Immediately my eyebrows raise, because the 3/4 page gigantic picture above this headline is a tomato with a band-aid on it. Hmm...winter? Tomato?
The sub-line continues: "Transform out-of-season fruits and vegetables - like mealy tomatoes, tough green beans, and woody carrots - into these five lush, delicious dishes.
Huh, so now winter produce, (the season we are in), is suddenly equal to "out-of-season fruits and vegetables." Makes perfect sense to me!? (Oh sarcasm).
The following pages offered recipes to doctor and transform green beans, carrots, zucchini, tomatoes, and strawberries. Save the recipe for the carrots, which one might have kicking around in their root cellar, not a single one of these crops scream winter to me. Let's see summer, fall, summer, summer and SUMMER! No kidding all of this produce tastes like crap, Real Simple! BECAUSE IT'S NOT IN SEASON. BECAUSE IT'S ALREADY BEEN DOCTORED AND MODIFIED BEYOND RECOGNITION TO SURVIVE TRAVELING THOUSANDS OF MILES TO OUR GROCERY STORES. GAH!!!
When Real Simple is telling us that we have to mask our food with spices and sugar and all sorts of cooking wizardry just to make it edible, I think that that might be indicative of a problem with our food consumption in this country. If it tastes like crud to begin with - it's going to taste like crud wallowing in some sauce/syrup when you cook it. Seems to me that the effort to make these foods taste good in February is not so "simple."
I would prefer biting into a green bean when it's green, a zucchini when there are a million of them proliferating the farmer's market, a tomato off the vine and a strawberry when it's RED and not white or pasty pink on the inside.
Real Simple - as of this moment, I just might be over you.
posted by Geek+Nerd at 8:50 PM
3 Comments:
Okay, FIRST, your description of Real Simple as "Cosmo for Homemakers" had me giggling so hard, I dribbled tea. Nail, meet Head.
And second, what an egregious and irresponsible idea, encouraging people to eat out-of-season produce. Clearly, nobody at the Real Simple office has read the Kingsolver family's book. Genetically modified, trucked-thousands-of-miles-to-your-market veggies are faaaaaaar from simple.
Great post! I'm all fired up to do battle with something now. . . .
I live in SoCAL and yes, some of these foods you mention can be had right out of the ground...but as you say, if they are to be eaten by anyone not living SoCAL they will travel a few days and after that...ICK!
GOOD post, excellent points.
SOOOOOOOO funny that you posted this! I must confess that I not only read Real Simple, but I am a subscriber! Eeeek.
I did the same thing you did when I saw "Rescuing Winter Produce," namely, got all excited about how a national publication was going to jump on the bandwagon.
Then I saw the tomato. Then I shut the magazine. Then I gave my copy away. Argh.
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