How do you like the snow? On Wintersong I mean? Neat, huh? Enjoy it until sometime in January when it’ll disappear until next year-end. Thanks WordPress.
Every year I do the best I can not to get all caught up in the frenzy of the season. And I’m mostly good at it. The weather has been so severe the past couple of weeks, however, that we’ve been housebound for several days in a row, so when we do have some warm days (today around 42 high), both Hubby and I tend to have itchy feet. There’s plenty to do around the house but we just have to get out when we can. That’s making it difficult for me to continue to post pre-India trip reflections of my first visit there in 1980. That plus the fact I’ve misplaced (temporarily I’m sure) most of my physical photo files from that trip.
I’m still working on it when I can fit it in, and hope to finish my reflections on then and now, the reason being that I suspect things have changed a lot since then. In fact, probably since our last trip–at least mine–around 1997 when I already could see significant changes beginning. If Americans aren’t at least a little concerned that the U.S. is slipping big time in too many ways to count here, it’s because they don’t travel enough to see the changes themselves. Too many stubbornly cling to the America #1 myth without really understanding what made our country great in the first place. But that’s another story. Unlike a certain woman we know who is now the author of three books written in the space of about a year, I know that I don’t know enough about politics here or abroad to write about it, and certainly not to twit about it, but I’ll know what I see. That’s one reason I look forward all the more to seeing India again with new eyes, and hope to continue my reflections soon.
While I was grumbling about the snow and cold and stuff and not being able to find the photos for my post on India, my friend ML sent us prints from some old ads which are too funny not to share. So here is the digression to lighten the mood, old ads labeled “ads you’ll never see again.” For very good reasons.
My family were farmers when I was growing up in the deep south of the U.S. in the 1950s, and we produced most if not all the food we consumed. Besides our vegetables, that included growing our own beef, hogs, chickens or other fowl as well as the occasional deer or other wild animal in the woods where we lived, courtesy mostly of one of my brothers who liked hunting. We were poor but as I look back I realize we were pretty happy. I just didn’t realize why.
As you likely know already, lard is the fat rendered from the white fat of the abdomen of the hog. Among its attributes is that it fries up a delicious chicken out of the drippings of which come the richest gravy–better than the colonels even–and, though I prefer the taste of real butter in my pie pastry, lard makes far flakier ones. The reputation of many country cooks I knew were probably made by their regular use of lard. Food establishments have known it for a very long time–just as sex sells almost everything, fat and lots of it makes food taste good. I’m pretty sure many people where I grew up are still using lard today. Old habits and preferences die hard. What do you suppose we’re using today, that’s considered a healthier alternative, will we be ostracizing in 30 or 40 years.
And no wonder women growing up in those years had such a distorted sense of who they were.
This must be the reason I don’t look cute anymore. When Hubby retired, I did too. Sorta. These days I designate and we both work just a little bit to keep the house just clean enough it would fool the health inspector were he/she to drop by.
What about all those women you know with muddy skin. Heaven forbid. Not to mention pimples and blackheads!
But we all know the real culprit is fat, just as much now as it was the century this ad came out. Which more or less brings us full circle to the happy couple above who eat lard.
Once we banish all that fat with the sanitized tape worms, get the muddy skin all whitened, then we were ready to go out in the world and capture a man to take care of us, as long as we work hard keeping house for him of course. If we were real lucky, he would buy us stuff. To cook. ‘Cause that’s what we’re for. (Hubby only wishes!) 😛
Finally, being mindful of the season (I was out Christmas shopping in the afternoon, after all) I couldn’t resist throwing in this hint from none other than our 40th president, Ronald Reagan for a fine gift suggestion this Christmas. No wonder health care costs rocketed. It’s a wonder half of us are even alive.
My Wintersong 
The ads are a hoot!!!! And I remember my mom — the farmer’s daughter — using lard for pie crusts.
We just got our first snow in my part of Ohio earlier this week — a whopping inch! Weird. As you know too well, we’ve usually been buried at least once by now.
I’m excited about your trip to India and look forward to your new memories.
Be prepared, Kay. Your turn’s probably coming! Every state I’ve ever lived in has been known for fickle weather, and Ohio’s one of them! I’m really looking forward to India, too. This time we fly direct from NY to Delhi. Way better than the old 18 to 24 hours of flying and layovers 40 years ago. Enjoy the nice weather while it lasts! Love hearing from you–I know your mother and I could have talked and talked and talked about growing up on a farm. We were lucky in a way few would understand if all they think about are the hardships.
Oh boy, I loved those funny ads. You’re right, it’s amazing we are here at all the way those items were pushed in the old days!
It’s cold down here in sunny St. George … about as cold here normally as when it is warm enough for you to want to go out and have fun on your good days! We’ll take our weather over yours any time … but yours is certainly beautiful!
Edna, you should enjoy those cold days. As long as they come without snow, they’re pretty bearable, especially if the sun is shining. When Hubby and I snowshoe here (not this year yet) sometimes we have to slip our jackets off if the sun is shining on the trails and there’s no wind. I would probably miss all this if I moved somewhere warmer. Hope you’re feeling better.
Loved the ads! I can remember that fried chicken and wonderful gravy, also bacon grease in cooking vegetables! Loved my mom’s and aunts’ cooking.
Oh yes, bacon grease in the peas! Yum! Funny thing happened though. I married a vegetarian (or a non-meat eater), and had to learn to cook a whole new way. Life throws the challenges at us that we need I think sometimes. I miss those grease flavored veggies, and have created a fairly good mock version with a tiny bit of liquid smoke in the cooking liquid. And I make a great version of “French” onion soup sans the beef broth. There are ways. And they may actually be healthier–jury’s still out on that one. Happy eating!
These ads CrACk me up. They are worse than my 1950s politically-incorrect valentines that I wrote about. I remember seeing “Ronnie’s” ad when I was younger. I thought I had tried EVERY weight-loss remedy every created, but I did missed the sanitized tape-worms! Where do I sign up???
Thanks again for adding humor to my day.
That was a new one for me, Renae. Not only were those worms sanitized, they were packed tight in there! Humor is what gets me through. I love to share it and am always doubly pleased when it’s appreciated. Thanks.
If you wait long enough all those good bad things will become good again!
I think you’re probably right, Grannymar. The beauty of growing older is that we can quit those knee-jerk reactions to the latest studies and trends. If we ain’t down yet, we, or our parents, must have been doing something right.
Great images that didn’t tell the truth. The truth was, and always was, the the wife worked and the husband worked. It wasn’t just with the advent of Rosie the Riveter, Most woman have always worked. Only a certain class of women didn’t work, and with the advent of social consciousness they then did volunteer work. 🙂
Can’t argue that fact Mage. Trouble at our house (farm) was that when Daddy got home at night from the field, he put his feet up and rested. Mama worked alongside him in the fields and still had to come home and get dinner together. Who was expected to help with the kitchen duties? My sister and me of course! And guess who got called on to go fetch at the dinner table when something had been forgotten and left off the table? That’s right, me, because I was the youngest, therefore the least tired. Whoever would have believed then that I would be in that class of women who, after the kids came along, volunteered their services and left the paying jobs for others who needed them more. But you’re right. Everyone did work.
I’m really looking forward to Christmas day, discovering that Santa had left me a box of lard.
You’ll be so happy! 🙂
I remember my mum used lard to make pastry way back. Later on she found the store bought stuff nearly as good, particularly the “butter puff pastry” (which I use these days) so she switched to that. No one complained (well, they wouldn’t, would they?)
Y’know, Peter, you’ve given me an idea for another “reflective” post. The women I grew up around, including my mother, having grown used to cooking EVERYTHING from scratch as we say as shortcuts were unavailable or unknown to them, really “took” to mixes, cakes, pies and pastries, that came out later on. So as their personal economy improved, they were happy to exchange the scratch cooking to mix cooking and felt like they were making it in a wonderful improved world of cuisine. I came along and got stuck somewhere in the middle. Now, with all the new things we’re learning about health benefits of cooking from fresh, my own daughters are going back to scratch. Interesting, huh? I’m not sure we have “butter puff pastry” here. Is it something like those (Pepperidge Farms here) puff sheets and cups that come frozen? I love those and use them a lot. So nice chatting with you here.
Yes, it is the sheets. The brand here is Pampas. They have puff pastry (in sixes) and butter puff pastry (in fours). This latter one is the one to use.
I meant to comment earlier but forgot…
I’m glad I waited as the comments are almost as good as the post!
Thanks Colleen. I think so too. I like, no love, reading all the comments that are like mini posts in themselves.
I can get puff pastry here in Spain but not shortcrust pastry so I’ve learned to make it myself. I would really like a food processor because it seems like that takes all the work out of cutting the butter into the flour! Anyway, my family like the fact that I make my own pie crusts and tell me that it tastes better than the storebought ones (I don’t think they can tell the difference but its nice of them to try).
and even though I haven’t tasted it, I can believe it. My pie shells (made with butter) don’t always look so good but they get eaten up–not left on the plate.
I don’t remember the tape worms (before my time), but I surely tried every other weight loss gimmick. The commercial I always think of is this connection is Betty Furness making love to a vacuum cleaner on TV. This was an example for us women. Thanks for a good laugh. It made the icepack easier.
Glad to oblige! I remember Betty for her refrigerator commercials. Like women I knew really wore high heels to cook dinner! 😆
Sorry to spoil the fun, but that ‘They’re happy because they eat LARD’ ad is actually a spoof from the UK’s Viz comic magazine – I think it was from the late ’80s / early ’90s – I remember it vividly and still have the copy of the magazine somewhere. They had several different versions, including my fave: “What’s for tea? I hope it’s lard!”
The bottom of the picture has been cut off – it actually says ‘Issued by the Lard Information Council’, an obvious joke. Or maybe not? 🙂
Now that I look back at it, I’m sure you’re right. Thanks for setting us all straight, and especially giving credit where credit’s due. ❗
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