The Golden Age of Frozen Food.

This morning I began prepping our Yosemite menu.

Oh, I love cooking outdoors! Nothing wakes you up like bacon sizzling on a Coleman stove. Throw on a few eggs, a thin slice of ham, toast a couple of English muffins in the grease, place a stick of butter just close enough to soften without melting—the memories were so vivid I had to close my eyes.

That’s when I heard a small “um” at my elbow. I looked and found Chip leaning on the kitchen table.

“Can’t you just taste it?” I asked, knowing the answer. Chip loved camp food as much as I did.

But he had something different on his mind. “When we’re in Yosemite, I think we should eat the kinds of food that John Muir ate.”

Uh oh. Was Chip getting carried away by Muir’s ecstatic prose? I knew how he felt, but he was messing with my camp menu!

“What’d you have in mind?” I asked.

“Well,” Chip said, counting off on his fingers, “I was thinking fruits, vegetables, nuts, bread and ...” He searched a moment, then held up his thumb, “grains, like rice and pasta. What do you think?”

“I don’t know, son—”

“But, Dad, don’t you want us to be like John Muir?”

Oh, boy.

So, of course I agreed to think about it, to find common ground between my All American menu and Muir’s All Wilderness fare.

Later that day, I thought back on my own childhood diet. I grew up in the Golden Age of Frozen Food.

Our freezer was stacked with Swanson’s TV Dinners. Pre-heat the oven, pop in the foil-covered tray, and in 35 minutes you were eating.

Sure, the chicken legs and Salisbury steaks were a little chewy, the green beans a little mushy, the sweet corn squishy instead of crispy, the mashed potatoes (with that pat of still unmelted butter on top) wasn’t quite mashed, and the tiny dessert tray filled with Apple Pie was really just a dollop of pie filling in a half-baked crust.

But it all tasted delicious to us.

Why? Because we weren’t just tasting food. We were tasting an idea. We were told the food was healthy (so our bodies were being served) and we were told the food was fast, creating the leisure time we all needed (so our souls were being served as well!)

We believed it all, just like our parents’ generation believed the doctors who said cigarettes were good for you.

It would appear I have a long history with bad food.

​Maybe I can use this Yosemite trip to rethink the way I eat. Because let’s face it: I now eat more like Ronald McDonald than John Muir. I’m acting in opposition to my own values, and that’s not the way I want to be remembered by my son.

Comments

Media Jean: That’s great, Chip. Your dad is thinking about healthy food!

Chip: Yeah. I’m curious to see where he ends up on all that.

Johnny: I’m happy your dad’s going to lose a few pounds, but what about me?

Media Jean: The Capitalist’s Mantra: What About Me?

Johnny: I’m serious! Doesn’t that sizzling bacon sound good to you?!

Media Jean: My parents are vegan, remember? I don’t eat meat.

Johnny: For a vegan, you sure eat a lot of junk.

Media Jean: That’s because I’m a junk food vegan. I say no to meat and dairy, but I say yes to salt and sugar.

Chip: And fried food.

Media Jean: And processed soy products.

Johnny: All right, already! How about you, Chip? The sizzle and smell of bacon! Butter melting on grease-grilled muffins!

Chip: Sigh. Yeah, I’ll miss all of that. But I really need to get my dad to eat healthier. I think Yosemite and John Muir can help.

Johnny: So we’re going to go all the way to Yosemite to eat, what, berries and nuts?! It’s un-American!

Media Jean: What’re you talking about?

Johnny: Unhealthy, processed, packaged foods were invented and perfected in America! They may be bad for your personal health, but they’re great for our economic health!

Media Jean: You just want your bacon.

Johnny: It’s bigger than that! Billions of dollars are generated every year to manufacture, package, distribute, market and sell bad food!

Media Jean: I think you’re finally cracking up, Johnny.

Johnny: I’m just getting started! We haven’t even discussed the middle and end of the product cycle!

Chip: Middle and end?

Johnny: Bad food creates bad health, which in turn creates a middle-market for supplements, vitamins, diets—you name it! We’re talking Billions with a capital B!

Media Jean: I’m afraid to ask about the end of the product cycle.

Johnny: It’s not pretty, but facts are facts. Bad food creates a massive and perpetual customer base for the healthcare industry.

Media Jean: I still say you just want your bacon.

Johnny: Not just bacon! Bacon in Yosemite! Bacon on a Coleman stove! Waking to bacon and birdsong!

Chip: Ha ha! Bacon and birdsong, that’s funny.

Media Jean: Ha ha! Bacon and Birdsong, a poem by Johnny Green!

“When bacon sizzles on the Coleman stove
birds sing in the shady grove.”

Chip: Ha ha!

“I wake as if from a coma
to Yosemite’s greasy aroma.”

Media Jean: You add a verse, Johnny.

Chip: Yeah. It was your idea.

Media Jean: Show us the poetry of capitalism.

Johnny: “John Muir feels sad and forsaken
but I don’t care, I got my bacon!”

Chip: Haha!

Media Jean: That’s hilarious!

Chip: This is going to be a great trip!

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