Monday, October 13, 2008

From Ashy to Classy: A Ghetto-Pass Lament

I grew up on Devil Dogs and Yankee Doodles, Suzy Qs and Twinkies. Last week, when the wife and I passed through Jean-Paul Hévin – the famous French chocolatier – she was surprised I didn’t want any, and why was hard to explain. Pops came through for an extended weekend with his longtime ladyfriend, and when she didn’t recognize the couscous she ordered at Comptoir, I probably had a tinge of what my wife felt at chez Hévin.

Ever heard the one about “fat girl syndrome”? This may not fit the urban dictionary definition, but it’s said that women who once weighed a lot and manage to lose it still retain the same insecurity in their heads, like they’re always 200 lbs. in their minds. And but so by the same token, if my taste in cheese has changed to brie au poivre, to me I’m still the Bronx teenager who had to get the block of government cheese down to the deli to be sliced. Sure, I enjoy couscous now, but I was weened on Beefaroni. Don’t get it twist.

If your parents sent you to some private prep school back in the day, I’m happy for you, but that wasn’t me. My old Truman High has metal detectors nowadays. They didn’t play the supposedly ubiquitous “Stairway to Heaven” at our prom; they skipped Led Zeppelin for Super Lover Cee and Casanova Rud. You may know this about me, you may not, but my family didn’t take summer vacations to Europe. Pops had a nice job, but Grandpa wasn’t a doctor or dentist, he was a numbers runner. We used to drive up to Yonkers Raceway with him to bet on horses. So this Parisian life I’m living, I don’t see it through the eyes of some Jack & Jill kid with Martha’s Vineyard summers under his belt. Sometimes I don’t have the palate to prefer truffles from Jean-Paul Hévin to a value-pack of Kit Kats.

More on this later if you’re innerested….

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Comments

denitria at 5:19 PM on 10/14/08:

definitely understood… chris rock touched on the opposite of this in his comedy special. He said that women can’t go back in lifestyle. Basically saying that once we have something one way, there is no other way for us to have it. Once we date a guy with a car, we can’t date anyone who doesn’t have a car… once we date a guy that has his own place, we can’t date a guy that lives with his momma… etc. Pretty funny skit.

MML at 7:08 PM on 10/14/08:

haha! i hear you, denitria. there’s totally a part 2 to this story, i could delve deeper. like, i was eating some takeout at my mom’s a year or two ago, and i had to explain sushi to my stepfather. i think that for the civil rights generation, white people are really the boogeyman in a way. there are behaviors and foods they consider ‘white’ and are meant to stay away from. if eating couscous or sushi is something white people do, then you stick with what you’re used to or else you’re trying to be something you’re not. for any of us, i think ‘staying black’ can limit your curiosity about the world on a few different levels…

madeleine at 7:50 PM on 10/15/08:

I’d also interject that a suspiciousness of frou frou food/acting white comes from a socialist perspective as well.

Though my father isn’t ever accused of being too white (we are white) he is suspicious of certain kinds of food, as if by eating them, and enjoying them he is endorsing a (certain kind of) reprehensible worldview.

MML at 9:45 PM on 10/15/08:

now that’s interesting, madeleine. i’ve got to write a follow-up, because i think food & dietary habits can really reveal a lot. when my mom cooks fish, i know it means whiting, period. i’ve got my own household now, and we eat swordfish, mackerel, monkfish, red snapper and more. i think a willingness to try new foods is tied to the same curiosity about traveling to other places (or staying in one place forever), keeping the same exact friends your entire life (though you may have outgrown them) and more. i could be reading too much into it, but probably not.

madeleine at 5:48 PM on 10/16/08:

I think you are right on, especially for people of my father’s generation, cultural change wasn’t seen as good (social change, okay), or terribly necessary…so now, in his perspective, there is this huge influx of new and strange things which can (to him) only herald more “bad” news…so he clings more tightly to his meatloaf…

To return to my father’s brand of socialism, it is one that seeks to equalize things, while maintaining the place of the white male at the top…the rest of us can help out, but only Big Daddy should be steering the boat. I mean, in his worldview, we still live in America (well, you don’t but you’re an American dammit!) and should eat good, American food. Pass the mashed ‘taters please.

Term Papers at 11:10 AM on 01/27/10:

They didn’t play the supposedly ubiquitous “Stairway to Heaven” at our prom; they skipped Led Zeppelin for Super Lover Cee and Casanova Rud.

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