Free Does This Taste Funny? A Half-Baked Look at Food and Foodies by Michael Dane

define myself .
    After
all , I’m also a member of the mint family, and some people say I remind
them of thyme. These are all just labels. Do labels really matter?”
    “Well, actually we—need
the labels so we know what’s in the different jars—
    “But
do we ever really know what’s in any jar? Nobody knew I could talk ,
because nobody cared. Well, now I’m giving an interview! I don’t hear oregano
talking!”
    “On a less . . . confrontational
note, how long have you been in the seasoning game? I know you’ve been around
since at least 2008, because that’s when I got most of my spices. But I
understand you’ve been around longer than that, am I right?”
    “First,
let me correct you. I’m an herb, not a spice. A lot of us are, we just get
stuck with the spices because nobody makes an ‘herb  rack.’
    As
to your question, lemme just say that, in ancient Egypt, I was used to appease
the gods during embalming. THE GODS THEMSELVES, I TELL YOU! Anyway – yeah, I’ve
been around a while.”
    “Many people believe
you have healing powers, and it’s said that you can cure dozens of conditions from
sleep apnea to tonsillitis to anxiety, in addition to assuaging grief and
deflecting bad luck. Do you support these outlandish claims?”
    “Look,
I may be a plant, but I’m not stupid. Of course I can’t cure somebody’s
tonsillitis. I was just talking with my friend Rosemary about these
whack-job aromatherapy people.”
    “I
think it all started with one loony-tune herbalist in the sixteenth century,
who claimed that smelling me “mundifieth the brayne.” Not that some people
couldn’t benefit from a little brain mundifying . . .
    So
I’m not claiming to be medicinal, alright? I will say that if you use me
as part of a nice rub on some leg of lamb, that might cure a lot of your
ills. Oh, and if you find me on top of a grave, the dead person is guaranteed a
good afterlife. That one’s true.”
    “Some would say that
you’re too sensitive, and that may have led to your image problem. How do you
respond?”
    “I
don’t think I’m overly sensitive. Sure, I don’t do well with frost, or even cold,
and I prefer well-drained soil, but who doesn’t? And I really need full sun
exposure. And, I need a lot of room to spread out. Other than that, I think I’m
pretty easy going.”
     “Let’s get back to the
subject of cooking. At the moment, you’re thought of as an unusual spice—sorry, herb —but you’ve been popular in the past. How do you plan on regaining
your popularity?”
    “If
people knew how versatile I am, we wouldn’t have to have this discussion.”
    “Trying
French cooking? There’s a little thing called herbes de Provence that
you can’t even DO without me.
    Feeling
like sausage? Hell, in Germany I’m known as the ‘sausage spice.’ I know
I’m an herb, but you can’t tell the Germans anything . And if you’re into
British food, you can always try me with goose and chestnuts.
    Just
. . . try me on something. Please. I’m getting desperate. At least try me in
some meatloaf, would ya?”
    There you have it. A
revealing, even heartbreaking look at one herb’s fight for respect. But on a
deeper level, isn’t marjoram speaking for all of us?

That’s Not Really Food
    I have accumulated a
small library of weird old books, mostly from thrift stores, and was delighted
to remember some vintage cookbooks in my collection. I thought I’d look through
them for some ideas.
     After all, it’s not
like food has changed much in the last hundred years. We eat pretty much the
same stuff our grandparents did, right? It’s just the technology that’s
changed, right?

    When
I looked at my 1927 Piggly Wiggly Cookbook, I had the idea to do a “Julie and
Julia” sort of project, where I cook all the recipes in the book.
    I
didn’t get much farther than the ‘jellied chicken and oyster consommé.’ That’s
wrong on so many levels. Jellied chicken . . . jellied anything in soup . . .