Food Fight

Have you ever noticed how controversial some foods can be? 
Mention that you just tasted the “best whatever” in the whole world and somebody’s ready for an argument. 
It’s not all foods that cause trouble though.  Just a select few. 
Here’s a short list of those that come to mind.

Potato Salad

I’m the only one I know who can make decent potato salad.  
My traitor daughter says my sister’s is better because she puts more hard boiled eggs. But what does she know?

Barbeque

(Any meat. It’s the sauce and the method that stir up trouble.)

I have eaten “World Famous BBQ” all over this country that tasted like turpentine. What are those misguided people thinking? 
And one time when we were driving across Texas for what seemed like forever, we passed a little gas station with a smoker going full blast in the parking lot. A hand lettered sign said “Pulled Pork and Brisket.” Of course that stopped my husband on a dime. 
The meat was delicious but we couldn’t understand the two pieces of white Wonder bread that came with each order. 
I asked the friendly BBQ guy about it, saying “Hey, I’m from Arizona. We’ve been driving across Texas for nearly a week now, trying to get to Florida. Every time we stop and somebody orders barbeque they get two pieces of Wonder bread. What’s the deal? I mean cornbread or biscuits or even garlic bread I can see.....but two pieces of Wonder bread?”

He looked at me like I’d lost my mind or never had one in the first place, and said with a slow Texas drawl, a steely glint in his eye, and all friendliness evaporated;

“Lady........... in Texas, that’s the way the good people do.”

“Sure thing, Mister,” was all I felt it safe to say.

Cole Slaw

I make the best coleslaw I’ve ever eaten, too. Just ask anybody. There’s no mustard in coleslaw.

Deviled Eggs

Deviled eggs are simple. Don’t be messing around with capers and pimento.

Cornbread

Sorry purists from Missouri or wherever.....cornbread has to have sugar in it.

Baked Beans

I can’t make ‘em but I know beans.

Fried Chicken

Once a kid told me, “It’s not like my mom makes but it’s still kinda good.”  High praise in my opinion.

Stuffing for Turkey

Cornbread’s just wrong.

Brownies (Nuts or not, fudgy or cake)

A good brownie is just a vehicle to hold nuts together. Who doesn’t know that? Fudgy or cake is beside the point.

And don't forget foreign countries and their fighting foods. Many of them have found their way across the border and are now Americans.

Guacamole

Get away with the lemon juice. Bring on the fresh garlic, not powder. 

My daughters made some really good guacamole once for a faculty dinner when I was teaching in the mountains. We were 17 miles from home and the dinner was in half an hour so they made it in some science beakers in my classroom. They ran to the only little store in town and all they brought back were avocados, garlic, sour cream, and a can of El Pato. I found some salt packets in my desk. 
It was the hit of the dinner and people still ask for the recipe.

Salsa

Fresh pico is best. 
But once a kid in a sixth grade class I was teaching made salsa for a demonstration speech that I’d assigned. He made it out of all canned ingredients except for the chopped onion. It had vinegar in it too, and dried chile flakes like you shake on pizza, neither of which I’d ever heard of before in salsa. But it was quite good.

Fish Tacos

Fish tacos are the food of the angels. 
They should never have shredded lettuce anywhere near them. Where were those lettuce people born anyway? Not Mexico, that’s for sure. Always finely shredded cabbage, cilantro and fresh lime wedges, for Pete’s sake. I eat these for breakfast so I know.

This brings to mind regional peculiarities with Mexican food, a food which no red blooded American can live without, by the way. 
In my experience the only place you can get “real” Mexican food is in Arizona. 
Texas, California and New Mexico make stuff that they call Mexican food but, trust me, it’s not. 
(Exception to this rule...there’s a little taco stand on the Pacific Coast Highway just north of San Diego that has the best fish tacos on the planet.)
To get the real Mexican food otherwise you have to go to the bario in Glendale. 
My husband is still searching for enchiladas as good as the ones made by the cafeteria ladies at Glendale Unit One when he was a kid. None of them spoke English so that’s where he learned to say, “Mas, por favor.” 
No enchilada has measured up in fifty years.

Then there’s the whole spaghetti, lasagna, pizza controversy which is too much to deal with right now.

There are other fighting foods that aren’t strictly foods, too. 
Sometimes it’s a duel like the mayonaise vs Miracle Whip thing. (Mayo for sure!)

Is it ketchup or mustard on hot dogs? (Mustard of course.)

Crunchy or smooth? (Crunchy)

Big fat french fries or little skinny ones? (Fat)

Jam or Jelly on a peanut butter sandwich?

Whole berry or jellied cranberry sauce?

Chocolate, strawberry or vanilla?

The list goes on and on.

People have strong feelings about this, too. 
Once when my husband and I were newlyweds I asked him if he’d like a bologna sandwich. We had a discussion about how he likes his bologna sandwiches and he said to put ketchup. Of course I was shocked and pointed out how wrong this was. 
I told him that a proper bologna sandwich had mayo, lettuce and tomato. Everybody knows that.
He insisted that he likes ketchup. 
So I went to make his sandwich. 
Knowing that he would like it better, I made him a proper one with mayo, lettuce and tomato, the standard BLT2, and proudly gave it to him.
He thanked me, absentmindedly took a bite, then took the top slice of bread off, studied the contents, and threw the sandwich on the floor at his feet! I couldn’t believe it.

I guess there’s no accounting for taste.

*Note

Just to humor him I put ketchup on his bologna sandwiches now. That still doesn’t make it right.

I was thinking about this food fight thing one day, and the strong feelings that people have about it, and I decided to expand the idea and incorporate it into my high school classes. 

So I gave my students a test, which I explained was weighted heavily toward their semester grade. They were to circle one of the two choices in each question that was the best response. Some of the questions were:

                  

Summer or Winter?

Baseball or Football?

Movie or Bowling?

Pizza or Tacos?

Dog or Cat?

Motorcycle or Car?

Mountains or Beach?

Creek or River?

Black or Brown?

Ice Cream Cone or Fudgesicle?

Jack in the Box or McDonald’s?

Friday or Saturday?

Burgers or Hot dogs?

Sunrise or Sunset?

Rain or Sunshine?

                     

There were around a hundred choices. After the kids took the test I told them we were grading it in class. 
I began to give them the correct answers. 
It wasn’t long before someone asked why mayo was right when they always had Miracle Whip at their house.
I said it was because we always had mayo at mine. 
We went on grading until another kid finally said, “Mz Dub, this is stupid. You can’t give us a bad grade just because we don’t like the same stuff you like.”

“Why not? I see people do it all the time. Keep checking your papers.”

After a while somebody else would pipe up. “Mz Dub, just because we don’t like the same things you like or have the same opinions as you do doesn’t make us wrong!”

“Really? Bring your test up here."
Lupe brought her test up to me with a wary expression on her young face.  
"You get an A,” I said as I marked her paper with a red pencil.

“Now, everybody else turn your test over and write a short paragraph that explains why Lupe got an A. 
If you get that right you get an A too. 
And not just in this class either."