Visions of Sugar-free Sugarplums
Practice a little moderation now and then to increase the pleasure of the blow-outs. - advice given to writer Adair Lara by her father
Since August:
Google “How to not gain weight at holiday season” and get 47 million results. The average weight gain ranges from “a pound or two” (Web MD) to five pounds (The Telegraph UK) to seven pounds (Meltdown.com). Advice varies from drinking water and eating slowly (Reader’s Digest) to “snaffling some cocoa-rich slabs for a Christmas day elevenses” (menshealth.uk). Health.com compiled a slide show of “50 Holiday Foods You Shouldn’t Eat” (if you’re feeling masochistic, it’s here ).
(Disclaimer: For people with eating disorders or chronic health conditions, the burst of rich foods that appears at this time of year can be a complication. This is not for or about them; they should follow whatever program they need to maintain stability. Nor does this apply to such religious rituals such as the Nativity Fast.)
Writing in the San Francisco Chronicle, chef Shelley Handler (a veteran of Chez Panisse Cafe) asked why we cannot trust ourselves to return to regular eating habits after the indulgence of the holidays is over. Why do the once-a-year treats bring on admonishments and finger-wagging for enjoying Aunt Frieda’s rosette cookies and some crisp turkey skin? What is wrong with us that one of the elements that binds us together - the sharing of food - has become a moral failing, shameful, toxic and fear-inducing?
This scorn of holiday foods is not without precedence. 1664 saw Puritan-dominated Parliament banning Christmas pudding as “a lewd custom… not fit for God-fearing people,” as well as mince pies and Christmas celebrations in general. (This has never been rescinded, so the consumption of mince pies in England is technically illegal.) And in an excellent example of hyperbole, the Quakers went so far as to call Christmas pudding “the invention of the scarlet whore of Babylon.”
Either because they are associated with specific legends, rituals, or religious festivals, or because they’ve achieved what Karl Marx labeled “commodity fetishization,” many holiday indulgences are meaningful because of their special occasion status or because of their links to memory, family, and history. Celebratory dishes such as prime rib or oil-fried latkes, caramel popcorn balls or eggnog with a tot of Jack Daniels - those are not going to kill you on an infrequent basis. No one’s going to say they’re as healthy as steamed organic broccoli, but the healthy factor isn’t the criteria when choosing what to serve on the Eight Nights of Hannukah or at the school Christmas pageant.
Self-denial may be healthy in many instances, but fretting about the lack of nutrients in a candy cane is obsessive and neurotic. Perhaps the burden of excess has rendered us insensate or even fearful toward that which is truly special.
In Marcella Hazen’s essay, “Christmas in Cesenatico, 1945,” she described her family’s return to their nearly destroyed home in Emilia-Romagna after the end of WWII. Their house was stripped of furniture, radiators, and pipes, but Hazan’s father - who had lost eighty pounds in the five years of war - managed to acquire a terra-cotta kitchen stove, wood-fired range, and a dining table and chairs. Christmas dawned, “a morning such as we had doubted… we could ever live again… I had never before, nor perhaps since, experienced such a sense of life being full and right and wholly unblemished.”
She detailed the menu cooked that morning from fowl, flour, and produce that was the gift of a tenant farmer: stuffed pasta in broth, broiled capon, chicken fricasee, cardoons, and bread pudding, plus dried fruit, nuts and homemade Albana wine. “This was the greatest Christmas I would ever know… through the recaptured flavors of our cooking… the gift of life regained.”
Since August:
- It took 45 minutes for Olive Garden to sell out of their promotional $100 for 49 days of The Never Ending Pasta Bowl.
- The lucky winners paid a hundred bucks and get to eat as much pasta, salad, bread, and Coca-Cola branded soft drinks as they want for seven weeks.
- Red Lobster brought back their Endless Shrimp promotion. $15.99 gets diners all the shrimp, salad, and Cheddar Bay Biscuits they could eat.
- Jack in the Box began offering The Grande Sausage burrito for breakfast, clocking in at 1044 calories, 2131 mg sodium, and 391 mg cholesterol.
- Applebee’s introduced an all-you-can-eat ribs special for $11.99 including fries and coleslaw.
- Unsold Halloween candy is marked down 50% and the endcaps in supermarkets boast gift canisters pyramids of tri-flavored popcorn and gingerbread house kits.
- The November - December issues of health and fitness magazines have hit the shelves. The overriding message on the covers: How to not gain weight over the holidays.
Google “How to not gain weight at holiday season” and get 47 million results. The average weight gain ranges from “a pound or two” (Web MD) to five pounds (The Telegraph UK) to seven pounds (Meltdown.com). Advice varies from drinking water and eating slowly (Reader’s Digest) to “snaffling some cocoa-rich slabs for a Christmas day elevenses” (menshealth.uk). Health.com compiled a slide show of “50 Holiday Foods You Shouldn’t Eat” (if you’re feeling masochistic, it’s here ).
(Disclaimer: For people with eating disorders or chronic health conditions, the burst of rich foods that appears at this time of year can be a complication. This is not for or about them; they should follow whatever program they need to maintain stability. Nor does this apply to such religious rituals such as the Nativity Fast.)
Writing in the San Francisco Chronicle, chef Shelley Handler (a veteran of Chez Panisse Cafe) asked why we cannot trust ourselves to return to regular eating habits after the indulgence of the holidays is over. Why do the once-a-year treats bring on admonishments and finger-wagging for enjoying Aunt Frieda’s rosette cookies and some crisp turkey skin? What is wrong with us that one of the elements that binds us together - the sharing of food - has become a moral failing, shameful, toxic and fear-inducing?
This scorn of holiday foods is not without precedence. 1664 saw Puritan-dominated Parliament banning Christmas pudding as “a lewd custom… not fit for God-fearing people,” as well as mince pies and Christmas celebrations in general. (This has never been rescinded, so the consumption of mince pies in England is technically illegal.) And in an excellent example of hyperbole, the Quakers went so far as to call Christmas pudding “the invention of the scarlet whore of Babylon.”
Either because they are associated with specific legends, rituals, or religious festivals, or because they’ve achieved what Karl Marx labeled “commodity fetishization,” many holiday indulgences are meaningful because of their special occasion status or because of their links to memory, family, and history. Celebratory dishes such as prime rib or oil-fried latkes, caramel popcorn balls or eggnog with a tot of Jack Daniels - those are not going to kill you on an infrequent basis. No one’s going to say they’re as healthy as steamed organic broccoli, but the healthy factor isn’t the criteria when choosing what to serve on the Eight Nights of Hannukah or at the school Christmas pageant.
Self-denial may be healthy in many instances, but fretting about the lack of nutrients in a candy cane is obsessive and neurotic. Perhaps the burden of excess has rendered us insensate or even fearful toward that which is truly special.
In Marcella Hazen’s essay, “Christmas in Cesenatico, 1945,” she described her family’s return to their nearly destroyed home in Emilia-Romagna after the end of WWII. Their house was stripped of furniture, radiators, and pipes, but Hazan’s father - who had lost eighty pounds in the five years of war - managed to acquire a terra-cotta kitchen stove, wood-fired range, and a dining table and chairs. Christmas dawned, “a morning such as we had doubted… we could ever live again… I had never before, nor perhaps since, experienced such a sense of life being full and right and wholly unblemished.”
She detailed the menu cooked that morning from fowl, flour, and produce that was the gift of a tenant farmer: stuffed pasta in broth, broiled capon, chicken fricasee, cardoons, and bread pudding, plus dried fruit, nuts and homemade Albana wine. “This was the greatest Christmas I would ever know… through the recaptured flavors of our cooking… the gift of life regained.”