I Love You, Tomato Sandwich ♥🍅♥
I love tomato sandwiches.
Funny thing is, I never used to like tomatoes. I have some sensory issues with food, but my opinions on some things have changed - some for the positive, some for the more neutral. One of the foods that I now view more positively is tomatoes. And, well, the sandwich is so easy: you slice up a tomato, put some salt and pepper on them, put some mayo on a couple pieces of bread, and slap those tomatoes on there. Wow. Amazing. Spectacular. Couldn't be easier. You pair that motherfucker with some potato chips and iced tea, and that's lunch, babe.
Anyways, my love of tomato sandwiches aside, I'm trying to gradually build to a bigger point here, but I'm just gonna drop it in your lap: food can be scary. Many have a complicated relationship with it for a variety of reasons. One of my OCD themes for a long time (and still kind of now) was a fear of improperly preparing food. Any food, not just meats. I was afraid I would cook something wrong, or accidentally use something expired, or that even if a food seemed fine a day past its date, it was automatically bad. It took a lot of work and food waste to get past that, and I'm still working on the guilt part of enjoying certain foods, and that's what I'm mostly trying to talk about here.
I am no dietician, and you should not take advice from me on that matter, but I will say that something I've discovered about myself is that I really like learning about what "regular" people eat and food history. Back in 2019, right before the pandemic, I found this channel called Great Depression Cooking. As you might have guessed, the channel is an old woman - Clara Canucciari - showing her audience how to make the food she and her family ate during the Depression. The vast majority of the recipes are naturally simple and cost-effective: pasta with peas, garlic noodles, dandelion salad. It's food that comes from a time of hardship, from a cultural place, from "regular" people.
These videos are very relaxing for me, with its easy pace and good food and kind tone, and for a lot of people. Even though she passed in 2013, Clara's videos still gets tons of views, the channel makes occasional updates, and there are always new comments saying how they enjoy her stories and her food. I've tried her baked apples, and they're for sure yummy, but they're also simple baked apples. You know? It's just baked apples. But they have that connection to that period in our history, and she took the time to share it with us, and that's cool. She mentions that some of her recipes are ones she hasn't made since the Depression, but others she makes frequently, like her pizza, bringing that piece of the past to the present.
It's the intersection of history and regular, everyday life.
So, even though food can be scary, and complicated, it can also be comforting - hence the term "comfort food." Even the simplest food can get you through hard times. And comfort food can be...whatever you want it to be. Me, I like...well, tomato sandwiches. Avocado toast and PSLs (to piss off Dave Ramsey and the conservatives.) Chicken noodle casserole and hot ham-and-cheese sandwiches. Grilled cheese and tomato soup. Lucky Charms and Honey Nut Cheerios. M&Ms. Qdoba's chicken quesadilla with chips and queso and Culver's cheese curds. Bacon. Hawaiian pizza. Fried chicken and mac and cheese and mashed potatoes. Sweet potatoes. Cheez-Its. Fruit smoothies. Mangoes and peaches and nectarines.
You get the point.
What I like isn't necessarily what you would like. What you like isn't necessarily what I would like. For example, I think those restaurants that serve you tiny portions for an exorbitant price are a waste of money, but you may love it, and that's great. It's not my place to tell you it's no good.
When I was working on my food issues this past year, my therapist pointed me to a registered dietician on Instagram called No Food Rules that introduced me to this idea that food that doesn't have any morals attached to it; that some food feeds your body, and some feeds your soul. All of it has its place, and its still a framework I'm getting used to so I can eat these foods and not feel all that guilt - just the happiness.
And in the meantime, I still want to learn and try. I like to learn about what people ate in colonial America, in ancient Greece, in other countries. I have no desire to get into arguments about other food cultures, about seasoning, or if there's a superior cuisine. It all has its place. Everyone will have their own opinions, their own foods that feed their body and soul. There's no need to police that - what they eat, how their bodies look, whatever. My mom thought it was weird I wanted to try SPAM with ramen, got all judgy about it, but I've heard it's good and I want to try it for myself without people thinking it's weird. I mean, I try not to do that to others. Not saying I haven't, but I'm saying that I'm trying not to judge her for liking braunschweiger.
So, I'm going to have my fucking ramen with SPAM someday. And I'm going to try Clara's poor man's meal, even though I don't really like hot dogs. If you're curious about the recipe, here it is so you can try it, too:
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