What are we eating?

I do editing work when I'm not pounding away at the keyboard on my own stuff, and have become something of an expert on cookbooks. As I've noted before, cookbook writing and editing is a very specialized area with a lot of stylistic quirks, and a lot of copy editors won't touch them. But I will. Partly because I like to think about food.

I've recently done a few projects for a publisher that involved reader-submitted recipes. These were a particular chore from an editorial point of view, because the people sending these in are not familiar with the style guidelines (nor should they be expected to be), and thus the editors ought to have rewritten everything to fit the standards of the books. Ought to have.

But I learned a few things about food, and people, and I thought I might share my thoughts with you. So here are the top -- oh, shall we say 10? -- 10 things I learned doing cookbooks with recipes from the common folk.

1. You people love cheese. I mean you love cheese. These books had so much cheese in them that they should come with a bottle of Lipitor.  Even the chapters of vegetarian dishes and vegetable side dishes were loaded with cheese.

2. And not just cheese. "Cheese Product."

3. I'm glad to know some classic first names are still popular away from New York. People around here name their children Efram and Fisher and Cortlandt -- and that's just the girls. I'm glad that there are still Jans and Cathys and Jills out there. It feels like there's still a vast and untapped vein of sanity in the nation's culture.

4. And it's almost entirely Jans and Cathys and Jills who are sending in the recipes. Oh, you may get a Bob or a Jack somewhere in there, especially if there are sections on grilling, but by and large the women are still doing the cooking. I say with admiration for them, as a home cook myself, and just an observational thing. We're not judging here.

Maybe a little judging.

5. Before our Neighbors to the North get snooty on us: Canadians submitted a lot of recipes to these projects, identical in type and theme to those of the Americans. Kraft's Canadian site also features plenty of that you-know-what, and that's not all.

6. Many people are generally unclear at what constitutes a recipe. I blame the editors for this, really, as they often include things I would not. If your recipe starts with an ingredient that is itself a completed product, it doesn't really count, does it?

HOT SPICY PIZZA
Step one: Take 1 DeGiorno Pizza and bake according to package directions.
Step two: Add 1 tablespoon Tabasco.
Step three: Eat. 

See that? Not a recipe. I exaggerate a little for effect, but less than you might think.

I will grant that sometimes it's a judgment call. Using M&M's in a cookie recipe isn't the same as starting with a pre-made pizza. You don't have to make your own M&M's from scratch. You don't have to bake bread to have a slice in your meatloaf recipe. It's a clear distinction but maybe a little hard to articulate.

7. Everyone has a variation on the classics. Speaking of meatloaf. If you cook at home and you're an American and don't have some necessary or voluntary dietary restrictions, you probably make a meatloaf, a pasta sauce, a stew, a soup, a roast, and so on. The nation has bales of little faded cards with mushy corners and sauce stains that Grandma scribbled on sixty years ago. I think it's great.

8. There is a widespread belief that every dessert ought to be served with a scoop of vanilla ice cream, even ice cream. I thoroughly endorse this plan.

9. America has some exceedingly comical town names. (You too, Canada.)

10. We eat well in America, even if the so-called elites and influencers freak out over what we eat. Well, screw 'em. Freedom of food choice is freedom. We didn't like the metric system so we said to hell with that, and we still do. We cook in cups and tablespoons, not grams and milliliters. Because we like it that way.

Enjoy yourself, America. Don't let anyone tell you what to do, in your kitchen or anywhere else. Even if it means eating Velveeta.