generational shift

[adrian_turtle]

Last year, I bought something called a "soup sock," that isn't as silly as it sounds. It's a cheesecloth bag, big enough to hold an entire chicken. If you want to make chicken soup and strain it through cheesecloth for a clear broth, you don't need to pour the pot of soup through a strainer. You can just put the chicken in the cheesecloth bag before cooking it.

They include a recipe in the package, because of course they do. I've kept the recipe card because it IS silly, especially for something called "Mama's Old Fashioned Chicken Soup." It contains a whole chicken, 2 onions, and 2 tablespoons of fresh cracked pepper. So far, so good. It also contains 3 cups of diced celery, and 2 packets of sugar substitute.

It shouldn't feel so very peculiar that "Mama's Old-Fashioned" could refer to a Boomer or Gen-X woman who relies on artificial sweeteners (because she doesn't have a teaspoon of sugar in the house? Because she can't imagine using a half a cup less of celery?) But on the other paw, I know my grandmothers used saccharine tablets everywhere it was appropriate and some places it wasn't, and my mother preferred aspartame. I have cousins-in-law who are already mothers of college students, and they cooked with sucralose for decades, though generally the kind that can replace sugar cup-for-cup.

Comments

[evalerie]

I too usually don't find celery bitter, though when I grow homegrown celery I've gotten a much wider variety of tastes, and some years it is a little bitter, while in most years it is very far from bitter. Though even in those years the leaves are often very strongly bitter.

Are you the Pamela Dean who wrote the book Tam Lin -- one of my all-time favorite books? Just curious! If it is yours, thank you very much for writing it!!

[pameladean]

Yes, I am! Your very welcome. I'm glad you liked it.

P.