Secret Ingredients Reading for Tuesday

I noticed the overarching theme of the readings all involved saving time. In The Secret Ingredient, the author regrets the lack of recipes people are willing to follow if they don't cut time, even if it sacrifices taste. In Nor Censure Nor Disdain, the casserole as American phenomena seems to come about because of lack of servants. The author bemoans the bad quality of food put into a casserole as its main detractor, and instead wishes to champion the food of harried housewives. This, of course, is a dated dialog, and is even funnier for it. The story of the dinosaur meat heart compounds her effort to be cheap in lieu of her father, and gives the piece an absurdist feel. In terms of narration, the author in Good Cooking feels distant and almost clinical. Julia Child becomes a figure, not a person. What's even more jarring is the use of "spoke recently" etc. when Julia Child has been dead for ten years. Nonetheless, the autobiography style is informative and paints a journalist view of the whole event. In An Attempt to Compile a Short History of the Buffalo Chicken Wing, a somewhat true autobiography of the chicken wing, the author struggles with oral history and subjective truth. He cannot distinguish what the real history is, and instead give three that may be true. The reader must then decide which history of the buffalo wing is most to their taste.