Karen Hess on Food, Faith, and that "Dithering Idiot" Julia Child ...(Orgasm)


	Karen Hess on Food, Faith, and that "Dithering Idiot" Julia Child ...(Orgasm)

ouyangwulong

12-29-2007 11:31 AM

282 views

tags:

orgasm, food, natural, organic, rustic, original, american, history, julia child is an idiot, faith

ouyangwulong says:

I have a soft spot for cantankerous Americans with borderline personalities. Probably because I am one myself. In this regards, Karen Hess is a true blue, red-blooded American original.

She called Julia Child a dithering idiot!

But I think it is interesting, the characteristics of the classic American crank:

Surly iconoclasm
A hate for anyone up on top of the hill
A pastoral nostalgia for the past
A mania for the rustic and natural
And a certain "messianic fervor."

It is interesting that what is true of Hess' thoughts on food is also true of many other Americans on many other subjects.

2 Comments |

Add a Comment

1-3-2008 7:10 PM

Kauaiguy

You should read Florence King's WITH CHARITY TOWARD: A FOND TRIBUTE TO MISANTHROPY
http://www.amazon.com/Charity-Toward-None-Fond-Misanthropy/dp/0312094140/ref=sr_1_6?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1199405320&sr=1-6

1-15-2008 4:00 PM

ouyangwulong

ORGASM

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<div style="margin: 12px 0px; font-family: arial; color: #333333; background: #ffffff; border: solid 4px #e5e5e5; width: 100%; clear: left;"><div class="CM_CTB_Content_Wrap" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;background-color: #ffffff;"><div style="border-bottom: solid 1px #dcdcdc; white-space: nowrap; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: #eeeeee ;background-image: url(http://www.clipmarks.com/images/source-bg.gif); background-repeat: repeat-x; height: 24px; line-height: 24px; vertical-align: middle; padding-bottom: 4px; color: #666666; font-size: 10px;" ><a href="http://clipmarks.com/clip-to-blog/" title="see clips that are hot right now"><img src="http://content.clipmarks.com/blog_embed/c5e7d5d4-c454-4ed6-9569-a6d927e91b15/3375C92D-0F1A-47B7-AD88-ACA5C53C5C6D/" alt="" width="19" height="19" border="0" style="vertical-align: middle; margin: 0px 4px; display: inline; border: none; float:none;" /></a>clipped from <a title="http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/30/magazine/30hess-t.html?ex=1356670800&en=f651addb682abb74&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss" href="http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/30/magazine/30hess-t.html?ex=1356670800&en=f651addb682abb74&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss" style="font-size: 11px;">www.nytimes.com</a></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/30/magazine/30hess-t.html?ex=1356670800&en=f651addb682abb74&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss">It was 1977 when Karen Hess and her husband, John, hurled “The Taste of America” at us with the gleeful abandon</blockquote><div style="height: 2px; font-size: 2px; background: #dcdcdc; border-bottom: solid 1px #f5f5f5; margin: 2px 4px;"></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/30/magazine/30hess-t.html?ex=1356670800&en=f651addb682abb74&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss">like other zealots in America’s long history of food reformers, from Bronson Alcott to Adelle Davis, they preached a vision of lost Eden with the messianic fervor of born-agains.</blockquote><div style="height: 2px; font-size: 2px; background: #dcdcdc; border-bottom: solid 1px #f5f5f5; margin: 2px 4px;"></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/30/magazine/30hess-t.html?ex=1356670800&en=f651addb682abb74&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss">they also advised us: “Buy the best butter you can find — we make ours, but decent cream is getting more and more difficult to find. . . . As for the fish, catch it.”</blockquote><div style="height: 2px; font-size: 2px; background: #dcdcdc; border-bottom: solid 1px #f5f5f5; margin: 2px 4px;"></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/30/magazine/30hess-t.html?ex=1356670800&en=f651addb682abb74&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss">As despoilers of America’s promise, all were fair game to the Hesses. “If one is making enemies,” the Hesses said, “one might as well go whole hog.”</blockquote><div style="height: 2px; font-size: 2px; background: #dcdcdc; border-bottom: solid 1px #f5f5f5; margin: 2px 4px;"></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/30/magazine/30hess-t.html?ex=1356670800&en=f651addb682abb74&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss">what H. L. Mencken called the “booboisie”: America’s middle class, always hungry for the phony and pretentious.</blockquote><div style="height: 2px; font-size: 2px; background: #dcdcdc; border-bottom: solid 1px #f5f5f5; margin: 2px 4px;"></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/30/magazine/30hess-t.html?ex=1356670800&en=f651addb682abb74&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss">To the Hesses, anyone famous was phony.</blockquote><div style="height: 2px; font-size: 2px; background: #dcdcdc; border-bottom: solid 1px #f5f5f5; margin: 2px 4px;"></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/30/magazine/30hess-t.html?ex=1356670800&en=f651addb682abb74&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss">she called Julia Child a “dithering idiot,”</blockquote><div style="height: 2px; font-size: 2px; background: #dcdcdc; border-bottom: solid 1px #f5f5f5; margin: 2px 4px;"></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/30/magazine/30hess-t.html?ex=1356670800&en=f651addb682abb74&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss">She helped make food history in America a subject worth studying and created a canon of colonial foodways by publishing recipe collections in facsimile, with fulsome scholarly comments</blockquote></div><div style="margin: 0px 6px 6px 4px;"><table style="font-size: 11px;border-spacing: 0px;padding: 0px;" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="100%"><tr><td style="background:transparent;border-width:0px;padding:0px;">&nbsp;</td><td align="right" style="background:transparent;border-width:0px;padding:0px;width:107px" width="107"><a href="http://clipmarks.com/share/3375C92D-0F1A-47B7-AD88-ACA5C53C5C6D/blog/" title="blog or email this clip"><img src="http://content6.clipmarks.com/images/c2b-foot.png" border="0" alt="blog it" width="107" height="17" style="border-width:0px;padding:0px;margin:0px;" /></a></td></tr></table></div></div>