What Theeee?...Olive Loaf, Pepper Rings and Tuna Fish All Over Again



Another culinary wish blog post...but what the heck, we CAN make our own rules when it comes to these posts for the simple reason that there might not be an audience for them in the waiting.  Real writers, mass audiences, means you had better produce something that is readable and sells.  What I wish is that I could do genetic taste bud tests, or maybe another way to put it, figure out a family taste bud tree.  I want to know what my ancestors loved to eat during the Civil War Period.  I want to know if Aunt Janey, when she lived in New York for that brief moment in time, before she got hauled off onto the pioneer trail and into the sandier pastures of North Dakota, found a brief hankering for ritzy food.  Maybe more specifically than all that theoretical taste bud geneology, I want to know where my Janet found her love for Olive Loaf?

We can all handle the black finger olives at T-day, no problem, understandable – a little adolescent plaything that also happens to taste pretty good.  But I want to know much much more about the appeal of bulbous pink fake meat stockpiled with halved Manzanitas (sp.? I'm not spellchecking a blog post!).  Yesterday I jogged in the rain past Holmen Meat Locker after I dropped Carly and Addie Lee off at gymnastics, saw that the store was still open, so returned after I finished my run.  I ordered some normal meat – Greek Kabobs and Country Ribs – when I saw the 'loaf' sitting in the case staring out at me

with its thirty-eight eyes.  Bye Crackey, that's right, Jan likes this stuff.  Because it was a minute from closing time, the butcher told me the meat slicer was already cleaned and he couldn't use it.  I told him I'd take the whole hunk of loaf.  What kind of a soggy, rain-drenched, desperate man would do such a thing, really?  A slice or two, ok.  But a three pound block?  I brought it home and sure enough, there was slight glee in Jan's eyes, "Ohh, I love this stuff!"  The girls, looking at the same thing: "what theee.  What is this? Does it move?  Bark?  Play fetch?"  The truth be told, the 'corn-oil' browned meat strikes a nice contrast up to those salty olives...........whatever.

Pepper Rings and Tuna Fish taste bud geneology to come...