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Matthew Freeman is a Brooklyn based playwright with a BFA from Emerson College. His plays include THE DEATH OF KING ARTHUR, REASONS FOR MOVING, THE GREAT ESCAPE, THE AMERICANS, THE WHITE SWALLOW, AN INTERVIEW WITH THE AUTHOR, THE MOST WONDERFUL LOVE, WHEN IS A CLOCK, GLEE CLUB, THAT OLD SOFT SHOE and BRANDYWINE DISTILLERY FIRE. He served as Assistant Producer and Senior Writer for the live webcast from Times Square on New Year's Eve 2010-2012. As a freelance writer, he has contributed to Gamespy, Premiere, Complex Magazine, Maxim Online, and MTV Magazine. His plays have been published by Playscripts, Inc., New York Theatre Experience, and Samuel French.

Tuesday, July 15, 2008

Food Chatter

I need to get a few utterly unreasonable things off my chest:

I want to be put to death when I read some foodstuff referred called "kissed." As in "Sugar Kissed Butterscotch Cookies" or "Orange Kissed Fillet of Sole" or "Nutmeg Kissed Cream Tart."

I despise such dainty idiocy. Nutmeg kisses nothing. Is there nutmeg on the damn cream tart? How about calling it a nutmeg cream tart. Or just stop talking and give me the cream tart. The discussion is pointless.

I also find it infuriating when the word "fresh" is used with an upturned nose. "We only use fresh basil." This word too often betrays a sort of snobbery, i.e. "Perhaps those tomatoes are good enough for the peasants, but we only eat fresh tomatoes here." Asking if the pie is "fresh" is bullshit. It's pie. You like pie? Eat the pie.

That is not to say one cannot enjoy fresh fish. Just don't make a goddamn issue of your refined taste and freshness radar in public. Eating an orange should not be an re-enactment of The Princess and the Pea. A day old orange didn't kill your grandmother.

And finally, when you call wine "jammy" you are a tool. Everyone around you thinks so. Unless they, too, are tools. I have called wine "jammy" in weak moments. In those moments, I was a tool. Complete and utter.

That is all.

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

I'm with you on the kissed and the jammie, but not on the fresh.
There is a huge difference between fresh herbs/vegetables/meat and dried/canned/frozen. It's the difference between quality and mass produced. The difference between real food and mere sustenance.
If you're only looking for food as fuel, you can eat mass produced over processed preservative loaded crap. If you're looking for food as a means to enable life (using the widest definition of life), you need fresh.

David D. said...

And with this post, blogger Matthew Freeman officially enters what will later be called his "Andy Rooney Period".

Anonymous said...

Given these thoughts, I think you might really enjoy Posh Nosh . . .

Episode 1

And remember to always interrogate your lemons and embarrass your vegetables . . .

Philucifer said...

"Jammy"?!? What the fv@K does that MEAN!?! I have never heard this term before.

Well, that's not entirely true. The only "jammy"s I know of are what I wore to bed when I was 5, and what you might do late at night with musician friends. However, if you were to call what you do late at night with your musician friends by that term, you would [rightfully] get beaten to death with your own musical instrument.

Anonymous said...

A quick Google search reveals that there are umpteen zillion reviews of wine in which "kissed" "fresh" and "jammy" appear in the same sentence.

I don't know what the significance of this is, but there you have it.

David Johnston said...

I have never heard wine called 'jammy.' Truly. I have only heard jam called 'jammy.' Or pajamas.

Freeman said...

It means that the wine "tastes like jam." Example: I was in a wine shop in Park Slope when a ParkSlopeMommyBorg in sweatpants waltzed in, walked directly to the counter without looking at a single bottle of wine, and said "I'm in the mood for a fruity, jammy wine."

I did not do what I imagined myself doing, in that moment.

Anonymous said...

This here is the blog I actually read every day:

http://www.101cookbooks.com/archives/saltkissed-buttermilk-cake-recipe.html

Yum!

Freeman said...

You taunt me, Kyle. And will pay for it.