Holiday Food Torment

Looks like it's that time of year again--when ostensibly sensible people do perfectly senseless things to harmless harvest-fruits and sundries, and other people pay for the results. Wreaths made of hangers and cut-up empty laundry bottles shall soon battle for shelf-space with "decorative" hollow logs framing jelly-bean Nativities, tissue-box cozies that turn Kleenex boxes into Santa Clauses, and even less defensible things.

Okay, so I admit to having created the odd Popsicle-stick reindeer when too young to know better, but is there any justification in this world for trapping perfectly innocent corn and beans in this not-a-candle thing? It's not the kitschiness I object to so much as the worse-than-uselessness, the corruption of what once was a perfectly reasonable way to store food. In the old days, when food was often stored decoratively, in pretty jars or whatever, it was still edible. Unlike this.

I have a chile ristra in my kitchen--it's pretty, and useful. Jars of loose tea invite the eye as well as the caffeine-addiction. And I have, once or twice, even given attractively packaged pantry-staples as gifts, when I've been confident such would be well received. It's tradition. Blue popcorn on the cob is always a popular holiday-party hostess gift. It's eye-catching, different. And it's food.

Not something you can say about this. This is...anti-food or something. (The not-a-candle/not-a-lamp doesn't even burn corn oil!) A fiberglass wick and some sort of porous stone, plus heat-activated fragrance oil. The glass jar is purely a base, filled with something to look pretty. What a thing to do to perfectly innocent, venerable staples. Makes my foodie heart hurt.

Of course, this is also the season when sweetened bricks are mailed to unsuspecting, undeserving recipients, and the once-noble name of fruitcake is universally maligned. May I be the first to say Bah, Humbug, everyone!?

Or, maybe not. It's also pumpkin season. And fresh cranberries and new-pressed cider are on hand, too...

Just, if you have any corn dried on the cob, could you please not destroy it? Pretty please, for me? Popcorn's a whole lot of fun cooked a cob a time! Really. And, honestly...what did those poor little steam-demons trapped in the kernels ever do to you anyway? Put them out of their misery--and reap the yummy, puffy, results. Don't keep them embalmed like this.

Christmas is supposed to be a happy time for food. Well, depending on how the gingerbread men feel about decapitation, I guess.


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