Responding to Food Inflation
MAKING THE KITCHEN MORE RATIONAL
When I first subscribed to Cable TV with its expanded networks, FoodTV became a favorite channel. How to’s with explanations of food that I might access and uses with just a little advancement of my skill opened my mind to the possibilities of one of my personal pleasures. That didn’t last long. Soon FoodTV degenerated to what it has become, a swamp of people just as attracted to the kitchen as me but now competing with each other when their network ancestors focused on advancing each other. Talent became replaced by stardom. Within this civilization reversal, the prototype of the competitive cook-off remains on its pedestal. The original Iron Chef, that Japanese version which displayed skill and imagination more than any desire to tag an opponent less worthy, has never been surpassed. It’s premise, choose an ingredient and see what the masters can do with it, may have found its unanticipated value in my kitchen, partly as hobby, partly as a fairly recent American reality with food.
Groceries remain diverse, plentiful, often on sale or in season, though in recent months no longer a great purchase value. Trips to the megamart exact an irritating expense. Even as a prosperous male baalaboosta, once the price exceeds what I am willing to pay, it does not go into my cart. I have banned items before. The non-kosher for decades, as maintaining kosher has been a cultural norm for my adult lifetime. In the last few years, there has been no squishy bread, commercial cookies, chips, or soda with minimal targeted exceptions. Many of these items could be had at bargain prices. My health could not be adequately maintained at bargain prices. So, a laudable number of kg less, those really have no place in my cart, irrespective of any teaser prices. But even amid hyperinflation of the 1970’s when I did my first serious food shopping, I never denied myself what I’d like to have because I balked at the price. That has only happened now.
At first glance this might change my diet, but it really hasn’t. I look for what’s on sale that week and let that inspire what I will make. Unfortunately, though, often I do not make the designated item. That leaves me with a lot of food accumulated much faster than it depletes. The US Postal Service helped me out this week to change my thinking. While I can pay higher prices if I need to without any jeopardy to my life style, millions of Americans do not share that food security. Our mail carriers got together to designate a day for which they will facilitate food collection. All I need to do is leave a bag of nonperishables and non-breakables at the mailbox. They will deliver it to local food banks who can then sort what meets their standards. Being Jewish helps with this. It is not really a food donation if I would be unwilling to eat the same food myself. After some sorting, my plastic grocery bag got filled with pasta of several types, some boxes of cake mix that I had gotten on sale, tuna, some condiments, some beans. All easily replaceable and all of which would have been converted into meals for me had they not been purchased to excess. Maybe I’ll declare a tax deduction next spring, maybe not. I am obligated to share. Our mail carriers just made it easier to perform what I should have been doing anyway.
Thus, I find myself at a crossroads. Fondness for my kitchen time attributable to some creativity and the satisfaction of sharing primarily with my wife but also a reminder that I’ve neglected to invite people to my table. And higher prices that drive what I purchase. And by Iron Chef masters who create inspired by a designated ingredient. Their focus ingredient is generated by a rich benefactor who funds Kitchen Stadium. Mine could be generated by Shop-Rite coupons, closet contents, and what’s been languishing indefinitely in my freezer. Same concept. Pick an ingredient or two as the centerpiece for a main meal. I can do that, with a self-directed incentive of frugality and avoidance of wastage.
As I went to Shop-Rite and Trader Joe’s this week, as I selected each item for purchase, my mind transferred to what I would do with it. Frozen fish sticks, portioned frozen salmon and tuna, and garden burgers become fast food. Swiss cheese becomes a quick lunch. Hebrew National hot dogs usually get boiled or grilled, not at all healthy, but versatile when mixed with other things. Cheese blocks, which I bought two, become four meals worth of Macaroni & Cheese in the style of Horny Hardart z”l, if I have some tubular pasta and a can of chopped tomatoes, which I have several in the closet. Even without special provisions for the special preparations of Shabbos and yontif, which have their own traditions, using the Iron Chef method of food preparation by ingredient, I will not have to add to my inventory for a while. I bought and then found canned salmon. Makes croquettes with the addition of eggs, onions, matzoh meal and oil, all staples kept at hand. Apples and sour cream on sale so there will be Apple Walnut Pie in the manner of Philadelphia’s iconic Fish Market, of blessed memory, where my wife and I occasionally overspent to celebrate a landmark occasion. Cream cheese on sale, next week at Shop-Rite, generates classical Shavuot Cheesecake. Kosher meat gets marked down as its expiration date nears. A chicken will become several shabbatot of chicken cacciatore or crock pot chicken. Whole chickens and half turkey breasts are versatile, the centerpiece of elegant occasions. Beef cubes when marked down become multiimeal stew or cholent.
Sometimes the accessories become the focus. What can I do with maple syrup or honey? What about brownie mix? Or spaghetti when I’ve also accumulated three jars of pasta sauce. Kugel Yerushalmi to evoke my Hungarian roots from the branch that relocated to Jerusalem instead of New York. Never saw the Iron Cheap select generic Crisco as the focus ingredient. I have an ample container so latkes, pastry, maybe falafel. Starches come in the form of rice, barley, flour, maybe beans both dried and canned, kasha, couscous, matzoh and its variants. Side dishes mostly, but also the inspiration for kugel, cholent, coulibiac, maybe even rice pudding someday. Doubt if the Iron Chef master ever challenged his kitchen mavens with Matzoh, or perhaps in one show he did. I sort of do this as the focus ingredient each Pesach.
And condiments rarely get used up, last indefinitely, and while are not central, they add color to everything else. I guess I could use paprika or Jerk Chicken spice or jarred harissa as the use it up focus ingredient.
Recent grocery travails aside, in many ways I am forcing myself to adapt to a very successful food industry that invests in figuring our what I and most others like, scouring the world for ingredients, enhancing shelf life, and getting those offerings to me with enough teasers via advertising or sale coupons to convince me I must not leave the supermarket without it. Somebody did an important psychological study on choice. Subjects were invited to choose an ice cream flavor, either among the31 of Baskin-Robbins or six from a small independent shop. Everyone made a choice. When satisfaction was then assessed, those who chose from fewer options seemed more content with what they selected, having fewer lost opportunities or regrets of not sampling the flavors left behind. It makes most sense to just pick something that I have or is on sale, neglecting everything else that I could have acquired instead. Once done, convert that into enticing kitchen creations. Much like Iron Chef, or with inflation driven selection restriction, Iron Cheap.