I seem to be an immigrant from the past

[nancylebov]

Last night, I bought kumquats at the Whole Foods, and this led to a conversation with the clerk--I forget the lead-in, but she mentioned that she was a picky eater when she was a kid, and she wouldn't eat the skins on the kumquats though she can't remember now why she wouldn't. (I suspect it's because you don't eat the skins on oranges. When I was a kid, I wouldn't eat sweet potato because I assumed I'd dislike it as much as I disliked cooked carrots--same color.)

I said that when I was a kid, we didn't even *have* kumquats, and we owe a lot to the yuppies in terms of food.

She suggested that when I was a kid, people couldn't afford to get as much exotic stuff. I said that oranges and bananas were standard--we just weren't as interested in having a wide variety of food. (I'll grant that transport may have been relatively somewhat more expensive, and it's likely that maintaining complex inventories was a lot more expensive.) This didn't seem to register--she kept giving me variations of her theory. I don't think she was disbelieving me because I was older than she is (she seemed to be about thirty)--the impression was more that she just didn't have the mental flexibility to get that people were a little different 40-odd years ago.

Incidentally, I didn't check the kumquats at the time, but they were from Florida. The pathetic impoverished past of 1963 could have managed them in Delaware, really it could have.

We could have afforded nose rings, too (she had a nose ring), we just didn't want them.

I don't use a cane, so I can't hit her with it. However, if I see her again, I will point out that she's going to be on the other side of this conversation much sooner than she expects.

This is a "weird thing happened and I'm peeved" story, not a "people are so stupid" story. I've been stupid that way myself. I remember just not getting it multiple times when I was told that in classical China, they didn't believe in progress, just cycles, and the best you could hope for was to damp the swings down.

Free association: If you'd like a pretty good novel about actual immigrants from the past in a moderately future Philadelphia, check out Rebecca Ore's _Time's Child_.

Comments

[hummingwolf.livejournal.com]

It's not necessarily an age thing--different cultures play into it as well. My parents seem to have eaten foods from entirely different worlds when they were growing up. My father grew up in a fairly rural area and somehow managed to learn to love kumquats when he was a kid (I actually associate the fruit with him), but never even saw broccoli till after he moved away. My mother lived in an urban area, often fed by a German cook her mother hired when my grandmother had to go to work outside the home. I'm not actually sure what Mom's favorite foods were growing up, but she could make a mean waffle.

[libertarianhawk.livejournal.com]

Culture can dominate. My grandfather had been in America for over fifteen years the first time Grandma served him spaghetti. His response: "Where are the potatoes?" (in Kilkenny brogue). To his dying day he got potatoes with spaghetti.

[dcseain.livejournal.com]

Kumquats came to be widely available here in DC when i was in High School - the mid-80s. But yogurt has always been available here from my POV. Kholrabi has always been available here, but rhubarb was a rare treat until HS again. In cleveland, where my grandparents all live, both kholrabi and rhubarb have been available as long as their parents could remember. Same where my dad grew up east of Columbus. Where, as well as when, make a difference, as you pointed out.

I do agree that there is much more produce choice today than when i was young.

[thnidu.livejournal.com]

With all respect:

kohlrabi

Dr. Whom
Consulting Linguist, Grammarian, Orthoëpist, & Philological Busybody

[dcseain.livejournal.com]

Ah, okay. I spelled phonetically based on how my Hungarian family pronounced it. Apparently, English spelling is from German. Good to know. Thanks! :)

[thnidu.livejournal.com]

My pleasure.

Brother Cream Pie of Impassioned Reason

[madfilkentist]

Kumquats have been around for a while. The Fantasticks, which dates from the late sixties, has the wonderful line: "You're -- standing -- in -- my -- KUMQUAT!!!"

[starmalachite.livejournal.com]

1960, actually, according to the official web site (http://www.thefantasticks.com/).

[dsgood.livejournal.com]

I was surprised to find out that pizza wasn't known in the US outside Italian neighborhoods till after WWII.

I've read that in the 1950s, in the Twin Cities, bratwurst turned out to be too exotic to sell. At a German festival.

Pizza

[(Anonymous)]

Growing up in East Tennessee, I never saw a pizza until I was in graduate school (in Blacksburg, Virginia) in 1964.

David Bellamy

I had my first kumquat in St. Louis in the 60's

[dakiwiboid.livejournal.com]

It really WAS a transport problem, not lack of interest in a variety of food, I think. If you went to a farmer's market in those days, you could still find good old varieties of things, and in season, you could get neat varieties of apples and peaches that you don't see nowadays, often a little neighborhood groceries. I think you were being a curmudgeon. ;)

[(Anonymous)]

Of *course* one eats the whole kumquat...