can't talk about this without that, part 2: food and smoking
It's inevitable that when you discuss an issue you're probably leaving out some vastly important factor. Counting everything that really counts is so hard, you're bound to miss something. But sometimes it's glaring: no discussion of a piece of music can be complete without at least acknowledging the elements of rhythm, harmony, and melody. (I'm lookin' at you, Rolling Stone.) Sometimes you just have to say you can't talk about this without that.
Food, for instance: specifically, the much-repeated opinion that food in mid-century America was at an unimaginative low. Frozen meals that resembled field rations more than real food, Spam, gelatin monstrosities, a drastic reduction in varieties of fruits and vegetables and coffee and beer, a thousand yellow-and-brown casseroles.
How is it that so few of these opinions make any mention of the fact that the air in mid-century America was uniquely smoky? Smoking, which famously blunts the taste buds, reached a peak just as stuff for the taste buds reached that low.
What was life like in the Fifties and Sixties? I'm amazed to think about it: every public place you went smelled like smoke. Offices, restaurants, hotel lobbies, even schools — everywhere you went, there was cigarette smoke. Time-travelers from 1860 and from 2060 alike would be struck by the smokiness of 1960. Whether you were a smoker or not, your closet was full of clothes that reeked of smoke. (Catherine and I got a taste of this in Beijing, where public places were often filled with cigarette smoke. After only a couple of weeks, Catherine gave up on the possibility of clothes that didn't reek, and from then on out ventured to many more places there than she would have here.)
Then, several factors began operating, and within a couple of generations smoking was not only illegal in most public places in most American cities, but, far more importantly, it was also looked-down-on when done in most public places. If you light up in a restaurant, you'll get a waiter or manager rushing up to you to politely explain that it's not allowed, but not before you've gotten several glares and pointed coughs and perhaps even sharp comments from surrounding people. It's truly been a change of minds and hearts and not just a change of law.
Right during that time, from the Nineties to the Aughts, there was a flowering of taste in food. Suddenly, the field rations and Spam and gelatin monstrosities seemed awful and out-of-date, and we had twenty different kinds of apples and twenty different kinds of coffee and an untold variety of beer.
Hm. Now that I'm writing it down, that thesis might be a bit strained. After all, other innovations and changes happened in our economy and culture. But, surely, the blunting and return of the average (even non-smoking) person's taste buds has been a factor in all of it. And I've been unable to find any mention of it anywhere!
Food, for instance: specifically, the much-repeated opinion that food in mid-century America was at an unimaginative low. Frozen meals that resembled field rations more than real food, Spam, gelatin monstrosities, a drastic reduction in varieties of fruits and vegetables and coffee and beer, a thousand yellow-and-brown casseroles.
How is it that so few of these opinions make any mention of the fact that the air in mid-century America was uniquely smoky? Smoking, which famously blunts the taste buds, reached a peak just as stuff for the taste buds reached that low.
What was life like in the Fifties and Sixties? I'm amazed to think about it: every public place you went smelled like smoke. Offices, restaurants, hotel lobbies, even schools — everywhere you went, there was cigarette smoke. Time-travelers from 1860 and from 2060 alike would be struck by the smokiness of 1960. Whether you were a smoker or not, your closet was full of clothes that reeked of smoke. (Catherine and I got a taste of this in Beijing, where public places were often filled with cigarette smoke. After only a couple of weeks, Catherine gave up on the possibility of clothes that didn't reek, and from then on out ventured to many more places there than she would have here.)
Then, several factors began operating, and within a couple of generations smoking was not only illegal in most public places in most American cities, but, far more importantly, it was also looked-down-on when done in most public places. If you light up in a restaurant, you'll get a waiter or manager rushing up to you to politely explain that it's not allowed, but not before you've gotten several glares and pointed coughs and perhaps even sharp comments from surrounding people. It's truly been a change of minds and hearts and not just a change of law.
Right during that time, from the Nineties to the Aughts, there was a flowering of taste in food. Suddenly, the field rations and Spam and gelatin monstrosities seemed awful and out-of-date, and we had twenty different kinds of apples and twenty different kinds of coffee and an untold variety of beer.
Hm. Now that I'm writing it down, that thesis might be a bit strained. After all, other innovations and changes happened in our economy and culture. But, surely, the blunting and return of the average (even non-smoking) person's taste buds has been a factor in all of it. And I've been unable to find any mention of it anywhere!
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