shameless commercialism, reprise

[ewein2412]

"I reckon if there's anything you ought a know about cooking, it's this."
"That's just lard, ain't it?"
"No, it ain't just lard," I say. "It's the most important invention in the kitchen since jarred mayonnaise."
"What's so special about" - she wrinkles her nose at it - "pig fat?"
"Ain't pig, it's vegetable." Who in this world doesn't know what Crisco is? "You don't have a clue of all the things you can do with this here can."
She shrugs. "Fry?"
"Ain't just for frying. You ever get a sticky something stuck in your hair, like gum?" I jackhammer my finger on the Crisco can. "That's right, Crisco. Spread this on a baby's bottom, you won't even know what diaper rash is." I plop three scoops in the black skillet. "Shoot, I seen ladies rub it under they eyes and on they husband's scaly feet."
"Look how pretty it is," she says. "Like white cake frosting."
"Clean the goo from a price tag, take the squeak out a door hinge. Lights get cut off, stick a wick in it and burn it like a candle."
I turn on the flame and we watch it melt down in the pan. "And after all that, it'll still fry your chicken."

--Kathryn Stockett, The Help

...The secret ingredient to whoopie pie filling and all commercial cake frosting in the USA! I have to mail order mine. This passage must be an utter mystery to Waterstones and Tesco bookbuying readers. "Who in the world doesn't know what Crisco is?"

(I knew she was going to talk about Crisco from the first sentence. Although, to be honest, I did not use it in my own cooking till I began making whoopie pies.)

Comments

Re: tanita chuckles:

[ewein2412]

so Tanita thinks it is a southern thing and you think it is a midwestern thing and I think it is a Pennsylvania Dutch thing.

I suspect it is used THROUGHOUT THE LAND!!!!

Re: tanita chuckles:

[tiboribi.livejournal.com]

Remember, I, too, am from Pennsylvania Dutch country. I would have pegged their fat of choice as crisco over butter if it weren't for lard.

Of course it is used throughout the land.

The last time I made whoopie pies, I had forgotten to check my crisco supply before making the frosting, and I only had half of what I was supposed to have. I did half crisco and half unsalted butter. It had the right whoopie pie filling taste, and it coated the tongue less.

Re: tanita chuckles:

[ewein2412]

you are indeed from PA Dutch Country. Do you think of it as your ethnic background? I think of myself as Pennsylvania Dutch.

I have done that half crisco / half butter thing too, and it's not half bad (haahahaha)

Re: tanita chuckles:

[tiboribi.livejournal.com]

My family was all transplanted into Reading-Philadelphia-Allentown-Harrisburg. I don't really think of myself as Pennsylvania Dutch, and it often slips my mind that that's where a lot of my assumptions about the world come from, until I am on a road trip through the country and I realize I've been looking at barns all day and they didn't register as "barn" because they didn't have hex signs or are red, or I get annoyed about chicken pot pie looking like a pie and everyone stares at me, or a girl in my office tells one of our coworkers that she looks Amish (she didn't look remotely Amish).

I lose credibility as Pennsylvania Dutch when I tell the story that I had a professor whose last name was Stolfzus for a year and I didn't realize he was Pennsylvania Dutch until April, when one word came out of his mouth Dutchy.

Most often, I think of myself as being so much of an American mutt that I don't really have an ethnic background.

Re: tanita chuckles:

[ewein2412]

on my mother's side, both grandparents' families were Lutherans who arrived in Pennyslvania considerably before the American Revolution. They were the ones who raised me and I grew up mostly in Pennsylvania, so that's the cultural ethnicity I relate to. Although on my father's side, both grandparents were first generation Americans of Russian Jewish descent!

Re: tanita chuckles:

[tiboribi.livejournal.com]

No one in my family has been in the US nearly that long. I think it's cool that you have that kind of history!

Re: tanita chuckles:

[ewein2412]

I am proud of my PA German ancestors! They came here "seeking religious freedom"; they were not slave owners; they educated their daughters to college degree level. They were an educated and forward-thinking bunch of people.

I see I said "they came here." I mean, they went over there.

Re: tanita chuckles:

[estara.livejournal.com]

*grins at the aside*