May 7, 2009

Deep Thoughts, With Chaviva E.

As I sit here, watching television, nursing a stomach thing slash head cold thing, unable to consume anything but fluids and crackers, I'm beginning to notice how un-Jewish and uber-treyfy commercials are.

Now, don't get me wrong. I don't expect lots of Manischewitz commercials or odes to kashruth. The Hebrew National commercials are hilarious enough for me. But the amount of fast-food and dining out restaurant commercials that advertise shrimp and bacon double whoppers as big as your head slowly has begun to shock me. Every commercial highlights bacon-wrapped shrimp or bacon double whatsits or scallops or ... you get the drift. I never realized how pervasive seafood and bacon burgers were until, well, I was really going kosher. For years I've not eaten shellfish or pork or beef/dairy. It's only in the past year or few months that I'd started keeping kosher in the home, only eating kosher meat, really going the whole 613 yards. So it isn't like I was salivating over shrimp last year, or even five years ago. But it's just now that I'm realizing how pervasive the shrimp consumption really is!

What accounts for this odd realization?

It's almost like how you wake up one day and suddenly, everything is green. That happened last week. Suddenly, the entire world was blossoming and green was the primo color. How weird. Does the brain delay such realizations? Or are we just not prepared for such things visually? Maybe we're mentally aware that everyone else in the world eats treyf or that things have gone green because it's spring, but our eyes haven't caught up with our brains?

7 comments:

Mottel said...

Bacon is an in 'thing' for whatever reason these days . . . every tech podcast I listen to mentions bacon on an almost regular basis -just check out sites like http://bacolicio.us/ !

it aint no kosher world!

The good news is that most kosher restaurants have their kosher equivalent - Pastrami!! I know a restaurant in LA that will Pastrami anything you order . . .

gruven_reuven said...

The next step is you will loose track of restaurants as landmarks. Folks at work will be talking about places like "cheese burgers in paradise", and you will have NO CLUE where that is as it's not part of your world.

KosherAcademic said...

Adding to Mottel's comment: Or beef fry, which is better than pastrami (although I've only ever seen it in Chicago...prbly you could get it in NYC as well...)

This, Chavi, may be a very good reason to turn the tele off, and perhaps when the kids come along, B"H, you won't want them to watch it at all. And then forget the food commercials, it's the products that are the worst with them -- every toy, every brand (OMG, Maman, SKETCHERS!!), everything. Stick to PBS and library DVDs, IMO, or just drop the TV altogether.

Rivkah said...

I had this same revelation about recipes. I had come across some great recipes online, but the frustrating thing was that not one of the main dishes was kosher! Either it was pork, or it was seafood, or it was meat/dairy. The prevalence of pork dishes just astounds me. My mother wasn't one to do much with pork, so it's only as an adult trying to keep kosher that I realize just how much the "other white meat" figures into non-Kosher cooking.

I had to laugh at your reference to spring popping out green everywhere...it seems as though that's exactly what happened this week. Suddenly the trees have leaves!

Stephanie said...

I totally know what you mean! I've only recently started keeply strictly kosher and only then have realized how much pork and shellfish there is in the world! It seems like every restaurant menu is wrapping everything in bacon these days...I guess bacon is the new black.

Daniel Saunders said...

nursing a stomach thing slash head cold thing, unable to consume anything but fluids and crackersI wish you a refuah sheleimah.

Chaviva Gordon-Bennett said...

I'm so happy to know I'm not alone here ... it'll be Uncle Moishy all the way!

I don't get what the deal is with Bacon though. I grew up eating it, and I hated it. The only pork my mom made that I could eat was pork cutlets and that was because she DROWNED them in lemon-pepper seasoning. Seriously. Bacon is no thing.

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