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Episode 90

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Published on:

28th Jul 2025

WELCOME TO OUR KITCHEN: What's with so much nostalgia in food trends?

Nostalgia is such a big part of food trends. It shows up in dining, cooking, cookbooks, food writing, even food packaging. Think of that old-fashioned truck on the Peach Truck boxes!

Why is nostalgia such a big part of food trends, dining options, and even flash-popular things in North American cooking? Let's talk about the part of nostalgia in both our career and even in the books we've written.

We're Bruce Weinstein & Mark Scarbrough, authors of thirty-seven cookbooks. Our latest is COLD CANNING: small-batch preserving without the need of a steam or pressure canner. If you'd like to see that book, check out this link right here.

Here are the segments for this episode of COOKING WITH BRUCE & MARK:

[01:14] Our one-minute cooking tip: Put your small children and pets out of the kitchen when you cook.

[02:40] What's with so much nostalgia in food, dining, and cooking trends?

[26:38] What’s making us happy in food this week: steamed Chinese riblets!

Transcript
Speaker:

Hey, I am Bruce Weinstein and this is

the Podcast Cooking with Bruce and Mark.

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And I'm Mark Scarborough, and together

with Bruce, my husband, we have

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written 37 cookbooks, including the

latest cold canning, small batch, two

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jar, three jar, canning without any

need for a pressure or steam canner.

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You make a small batch of what?

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Help me here.

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Oh, strawberry jam, red,

current jelly, kimchi.

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Mm-hmm.

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Sauerkraut.

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Fudge sauce, corn relish,

bennel relish, pickle relish.

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There's all kinds of chili crisps.

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There's salsa matcha.

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If you don't know about that,

you need to know about them.

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There's even dessert, sauces and liqueurs.

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Anything you can put in a jar and

stick in the fridge or the freezer.

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For Well in the freezer indefinitely.

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That's all part of the 425 recipes of that

book called You can find a link to buy

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it even in the player for this episode.

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But otherwise, we're not

talking about that necessarily.

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We're gonna talk about a one minute

cooking tip, and then the big part

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of this podcast is about nostalgia in

food and cooking and why it's such.

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Big part of food and cooking and

the culinary landscape, and then

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we'll tell you what's making

us happy in food this week.

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So let's get started.

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Bruce: Our one minute cooking

tip, put your dogs and kids out of

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the kitchen while you're cooking.

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Basic, basic, basic.

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In our cookbooks,

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we refer to that as put

furry, well wishers and small

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children out of the kitchen.

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Our dog

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Bruce: has a habit of constantly

coming over to the stove.

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Mm-hmm.

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When I'm cooking.

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Mm-hmm.

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Now, unfortunately, we haven't.

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Open floor, plant house.

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And unless I put him in the basement,

there's no way to keep him out.

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But you should try and keep them out.

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Every time I open the oven, he's

trying to stick his head in there.

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It's

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like not a good thing.

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And this is, here's what's really wild,

is we don't feed our dog any people food.

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So the dog is there just because

the dog knows, has figured it

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out, or knows something, or there

have been splashes on the floor.

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'cause he does tend to lick the

floor Incessently endlessly.

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Yes.

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Yeah, so it just because there are

splashes of grease, or this is out

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on the floor anyway, to keep yourself

safe, put your dogs and maybe your

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cats and your little children out

of the kitchen while you're cooking.

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There's hot things going

on that can get burned.

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You can fall backwards or trip, oh gosh.

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Um, it's just best to put all that out of

the kitchen when you're seriously cooking.

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Okay.

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Before we get to that next

part of the podcast, lemme see.

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It would be great if you could

subscribe to this podcast.

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If you could rate it, if you could

like it, if you could even write

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us a review, even nice podcasts.

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That really helps thanks in the

analytics because we are otherwise

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unsupported and this is the way that

you can, in fact, support this podcast.

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Okay, we're gonna talk

all about nostalgia.

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Hmm.

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In cooking and food.

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Bruce: I wanna start this

by asking you a question.

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Okay.

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Can you explain what

nostalgia actually is?

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Oh, it's, that's really a hard question.

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So what generally is understood as

nostalgia is a sentimentalization

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of the past that is.

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Things that have happened in the past

are stripped of much of their larger

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meaning, and they are sentimentalized.

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That is, they are turned into a

feeling of vibe, usually good.

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That usually is the implication

of Sentimentalization and then.

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Um, you know, anything that else is

surrounding that is taken away and

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you're left with this kind of good

vibe based on a past experience.

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People have all kinds of

nostalgia for, um, childhood

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places, childhood restaurants.

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They have, uh, nostalgia of

course, and we're gonna talk about

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this for childhood food and how

that impacts the food industry.

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It's this idea that somehow what

happened in the past was better than now.

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Simpler than now, and

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Bruce: probably better than

it actually was back then too.

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Oh, it is.

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That's why I say

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it's stripped of all its complications.

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It's like

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Bruce: when somebody's spouse dies

and then 20 years later they were

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the sainted person in their life when

all they did was complain about them.

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That's not

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technically nostalgia because generally

we think of nostalgia as a cultural

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trend rather than a personal trend.

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I mean, yes, people can be nostalgic for

something, but we generally think of that

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as fitting into a larger cultural rubric.

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Like, um, people are nostalgic

for the place they grew up.

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That's because they believe

most people are nostalgic for

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the place that they grew up.

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So we tend to think of it in

terms of more groups of people are

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nostalgic and your nostalgia fits

in with a larger group of people.

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Bruce: Well, right now, the

people that are really leading the

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nostalgia craze in terms of food

are trend marketers and influencers,

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right?

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Yep.

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They are.

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Become big.

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You probably know this already.

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People, uh, have made careers

out of cooking recipes from

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the 1940s and the 1950s.

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Uh, currently there are several

people making big careers in

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the influencer space, you know,

outta cooking from church cook.

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Books in the forties and the fifties

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Bruce: Baking yesterday year.

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Yeah.

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Yeah.

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And some of them are, uh,

bringing back these old recipes

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as, wow, aren't they great?

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And some of them, there's one guy,

particularly on a TikTok who cracks

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me up, who is always making something

hideously disgusting out of a church.

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Cookbook often with gelatin.

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Yes, often with gelatin.

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And then he's, uh, basically

gagging as he eats it.

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He just cracks me up.

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He's just always dressed up in some, he's

a large man and usually dressed up in

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some giant fairy costume or something.

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So, uh, he makes me laugh out loud.

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But yes, that, that is part of it.

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Is this baking yester year,

bringing back these really mm-hmm.

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Old kind of, um, recipes.

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Uh, you should know that right now, if.

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If you're my age, you'll

be horrified by this.

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But you should run right now that the

marketers and influencers are particularly

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focused for no nostalgia on the 1990s

and early two thousands, but it's

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Bruce: still 1990.

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In my head.

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It's still 19.

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That's, I'm still 30 years old.

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I will always be 30 years old.

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That's, that's really nice.

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And so what they are bringing back

and talking about and showing are

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things that we lived on back then.

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Things like Chicken Caesar.

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Yeah, chicken Caesar

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salad is, yeah.

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Bruce: Big right now.

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Well, I always loved it.

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I still love it.

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I love to make it for dinner.

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And one thing I've never made, but

that I see a lot on social media

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for nostalgia or pizza rolls.

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Yes.

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Remember those?

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Those pizza, pizza oven rolls

are to Totino's pizza rolls.

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Basically, they were burn bombs.

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Yes.

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They were.

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You, they were.

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Put those in your.

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Toaster oven, and then you would think

they're cool and you bite them, and

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then within 10 seconds the skin is

peeling off the roof of your mouth.

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And I think the biggest trend right

now, or the biggest, um, nostalgia

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trend for 20 something influencers,

people in their twenties is the vinetta.

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And if you, that dessert, if you're

my age, you remember the vinetta

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and the vinetta was so fancy.

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Mm-hmm.

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I mean, if you had

vinetta, you were upscale.

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We just, we just ate.

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Fricking Oreos.

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But you know, meta

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Bruce: basically, if you don't

know it was frozen, right?

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It like a Sara pound cake

in a metal container, right?

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And it was a layered loaf cake

with cream, and it was Italian,

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supposedly it was kind a

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Swiss roll, kind of pseudo

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Bruce: Tyra masseuse, Swiss roll mash.

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That you got frozen with

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chocolate.

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Right.

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I'm surprised given that

I grew up in the south.

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We didn't call it Vata, but

um, 'cause of vina sausages.

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But, um, anyway, yeah,

this is, at least the

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Bruce: VTA doesn't have any jelly.

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This is huge.

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Yeah.

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This is a huge trend that there are

influencers making vitas, recreating them.

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They're people, they weren't that good.

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And I grew up with them.

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I don't know.

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It seemed like the absolute

height of sophistication.

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Remember the commercials?

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They served them in coops.

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They would cut the pieces.

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Mm-hmm.

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And put them in coops on

the table and oh my God.

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It just seemed so Doris Day Fancy

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Bruce: and then you can drink with them

the general foods, international coffees.

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There you go.

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Flavored.

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Bruce: There you go.

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Sweetened powdered.

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There we

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go.

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I think that one of the things that

we've seen over our career is that,

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uh, since the 1990s when we started

writing cookbooks, late:

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was the first one, but since we

started writing then we have seen a

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consistent nostalgic trend for baking.

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Mm.

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It has.

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Absolutely consistent, and it

always seems to come in a wave.

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And the, you know, recent bakers,

the people who are baking now, the

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20 something influencers who are

baking, it's again, it's as if this

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is coming out of nowhere and oh my

gosh, we're making cakes again in pies.

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But I have to say that in what, 25,

30 years of doing this, we've seen

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this baking wave Crest and crest.

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Mm-hmm.

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And Crest.

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And Crest, it's a continual

re invoking of a nostalgic

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Bruce: thing.

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It's interesting because

there are so many categories.

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Of cooking that was done back when

we were kids from casseroles, right.

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To hot pots, to ground beef things.

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Right.

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And yes, they all have their

few moments, but baking is the

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one that continually comes back.

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It does.

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It continually comes back and,

well, because it's so comfort, seems

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comforting.

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It, it always seems new, right?

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When it comes back, it always seems

like it's just coming back into vogue

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and you hear all these marketers and

PR people talk about, oh, baking is

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really coming into vogue and, and you

think if you like us and you've been

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around the block a few times, you think.

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Well, it's been in vogue like 20 times.

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Mm-hmm.

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In the last 30 years.

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I, I think that there's, uh,

there are trends right now.

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You may know them for trad wife.

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Explain what that is, please.

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Traditional wife, a trad wife, a

traditional wife, someone who stays

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home, makes dinner, does the laundry,

cleans the house, takes care of the

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children, and there are all kinds

of trad wife influencers online.

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Now, I don't wanna make.

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Fun of this.

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Mm-hmm.

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But I have to tell that's it's a

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Bruce: valid lifestyle choice.

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I have to tell you that there are

some tra wife satire accounts.

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Well, they're hysterical.

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That are absolutely hysterical about,

you know, my children wanted water this

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morning, so I went out to our glacier and

chipped off a piece and blah, blah, blah.

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My child wanted to

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Bruce: thank you know, so I

chopped down a tree and poked it.

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And and made paper.

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Yes.

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I know there's these satire tread

wife accounts, but T tra wife

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is a big thing right now and it

is really, truly, honestly, a

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moving trend in the marketplace.

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And tread wifes, I think, go back

to this trend of a simpler time.

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I don't wanna get into politics of this.

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Mm-hmm.

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And glorious stein.

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And all that kind of stuff, but they

go back to allegedly a simpler time.

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Now you and I are from this simpler time.

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We are.

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We're from the sixties and the seventies.

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And we can say, I think unequivocally

that it was not a simpler time.

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It

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Bruce: wasn't a simpler time.

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We had a different experience though.

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Your mother was a little

bit more of a trad wife.

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My mother, no, my mother

was fully a trad wife.

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She

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got up and made you a hot

breakfast every morning.

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Single morning until I went to college.

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My mother got up 30 minutes before

I got up and made a hot breakfast.

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Bruce: As soon as I was tall

enough to reach the cabinets, my

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mother's like, you're on your own.

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You know where the cereal is.

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As soon as I was tall enough to reach

the buttons on the washing machine,

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my mother's like, do your own laundry.

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And as I, so I didn't

kind of grow up with that.

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As I've said repeatedly,

my mother washed and.

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Ironed the sheets twice a week

and sometimes three times a week.

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Bruce: Right.

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No, we didn't have such a thing in

our house and my mother didn't bake

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either, so it was a whole this, when

I see this, there's no nostalgia for

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me 'cause I didn't grow up with it.

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But there is something nice about it.

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'cause I'm like.

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Hmm.

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That kind of would've been nice in a way.

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I mean, this has

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been around forever when we were kids.

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Uh, as I say, we grew up in

this alleged simpler time.

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Let me tell you that waiting in line at

gas stations for gasoline in your car for

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an hour and a half during the gas crisis.

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Hmm.

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Uh, watching Nixon implode on

television, watching the Democratic at.

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Convention explode in Chicago.

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There was no simpler time back then.

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No.

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Nothing was simpler.

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Watching our parents go through

marital distress and difficulties.

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It, there was nothing

simpler about a childhood.

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Bruce: No, but everybody thinks that

20 years before them was simpler.

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No matter when it is.

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If you talk to people in the

fifties, they'll tell you

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the thirties were simpler.

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People in thirties, oh,

nobody's gonna say the

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thirties.

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Simpler, I'm sorry.

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Okay.

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Alright.

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Bruce: Alright.

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The people in the forties

would say the twenties were

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simpler and people in the, okay.

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Maybe people in 19 hundreds

or the:

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I don't know.

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Nostalgia, I don't know that I can say

that since, you know, uh, um, my other

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part of my life is worrying about.

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19th and 20th century culture

to teach it in classes.

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But I can't say that nostalgia was as

big a movement in the:

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Bruce: now.

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When, when electricity came into houses,

didn't, people weren't in nostalgic

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for time when there wasn't electricity?

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No.

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They were afraid

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of electricity, but

they weren't nostalgic.

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No one kept gas.

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Flames on their walls

because they wanted them.

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I've never heard of such a thing.

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No.

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In fact, they were afraid of electricity.

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Uh, there was all kinds of fear.

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Do you know this one we're way off topic?

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When electricity gave me to homes,

people were convinced that it leaked

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out of the sockets into the room.

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Well,

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Bruce: gas did, so why

shouldn't electricity?

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So electricity was leaking out of the sos.

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There were all these things where

people allegedly burning up in their

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houses, in their apartments 'cause the

electricity was leaking out of the sos.

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This is not true.

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That makes

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Bruce: sense that you would think

that because gas did leak out and

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kill you.

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Right.

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But again, I think that soldier

is particularly a piece of 20th

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century and now 21st century

consumer culture and it is invoked by

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marketers who did not exist in 1880.

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No.

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And it is this way in which childhood

is seen as something better now.

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Yes.

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Did Charles Dickens write novels

about orphans and children

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because of his childhood?

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Yes, he did, but it wasn't as nostalgic.

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In fact, part of what Dickens was

doing was rehearsing the grime grit and

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crime that he grew up with as a little

child in novels like Oliver Twists.

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So, you know, despite musicals

about Oliver that clean it all

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up, Oliver Twist is a rather.

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Dirty book.

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It's, it's a rea it's a rather difficult

story full of hideous antisemitism.

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So, um, I don't know

that it's so nostalgic.

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Bruce: Okay, well I'm gonna get nostalgic

today 'cause I'm going to the supermarket

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later when we're done with all of this

recording, and I am going to get you.

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Some TV dinners.

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Oh, some box mac and cheese.

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Maybe I'll get some yodel

if I could find them.

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Oh,

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no thank you.

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No, thank you.

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I think, I think that nostalgia is

particularly a problem for North

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Americans, for Canadians and US citizens.

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I do in terms of food, because I think,

for example, the French are not necess.

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Nostalgic about croissants.

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Bruce: Well, okay.

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How can they be?

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Croissants are part of their

everyday life and have been for

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decades and decades and decades.

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Well, you could say, if you wanna push

this is, you can say that croissants for

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them has become a, um, what do we say?

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Petrified nostalgia.

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That it's, it's set in place

and it can't be moved now.

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Yeah.

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Ossified

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Bruce: part of the culture, right?

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It is.

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But so much of French food is like that.

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There are governmental agencies to

regulate what baguettes must be like.

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There are what croissants must be like.

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There are what peaches

must be like, right?

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How much sugar there are in plums,

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but I would argue that.

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Two, uh, there are all kinds of pastries

in Dutch culture, in Austrian culture,

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in Czech culture, and those pastries are

not necessarily nostalgic because they

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are the same generation to generation.

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There's this kind of stability and

it doesn't really take part of this

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North American nostalgia thing to

hearkening back to a simpler time.

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I think it's part of adulthood.

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You know, the loss of what you had

as a child, no matter what else.

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And yes, there were gas lines, and yes,

Nixon imploded and Spiro Agnew imploded.

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And yes, the Democratic Convention

exploded and all that kind of

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stuff happened when we were kids,

but still in, nonetheless, we

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were outside playing my world.

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We were outside playing with

the hose in the backyard.

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I don't know what you were doing,

but we were riding our bikes

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and playing with the hose, so.

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It is this callback to

um, uh, simpler timing.

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Is there something that you had

as a kid that now formed some kind

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of nostalgia for you in terms of

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Bruce: food?

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Oh, it was penny candy.

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On Penny Candy.

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There was a little store, just the name.

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What are you?

414

:

Victorian Penny Candy.

415

:

But you could go and it was basically bulk

candy, but you could buy it by the piece.

416

:

And the piece costs two or 3 cents.

417

:

We're talking.

418

:

Mary Jane's and Yes.

419

:

You know Little Taffies.

420

:

Yes.

421

:

And I would go to this

little store called Docs.

422

:

Of course, it was called Docs.

423

:

And in the front counter there were

all these open boxes of bulk candy.

424

:

And I could go and buy pieces and

I would hide them under my bed.

425

:

My box Spring had a zippered cover

and I would hide them and I would eat

426

:

candy all night and my teeth brought it

out by the time I was at high school.

427

:

Yeah.

428

:

Well, okay.

429

:

I'm noic.

430

:

That is a nostalgia.

431

:

That sounds like a nightmare.

432

:

I'm nostalgic for my teeth.

433

:

Oh, okay.

434

:

Well, I think mine, uh,

would have to be Dairy Queen.

435

:

Oh.

436

:

Uh, would be soft serve ice cream

because when I was a kid, so I would

437

:

spend the summers with my grandparents

in Oklahoma that my great grandparents

438

:

had a farm and they all kind of

decamp to this farm in the summers.

439

:

And I would spend the summers, a lot

of the summers out there at that farm.

440

:

Okay.

441

:

Anyway, my, there were dairy queens

around, uh, Oklahoma City at the time

442

:

when we would come back into the city,

and I should just say there were dairy

443

:

kings and dairy queens, and my grandmother

would only let us go to Dairy Queen.

444

:

It was, I think it was her, um,

Gloria Steinem thing, I guess.

445

:

And it, and we would always

get, of course, a cone, a sauce,

446

:

serve cone at Dairy Queen and.

447

:

I am very nostalgic for that.

448

:

And, uh, dipped

449

:

Bruce: in red

450

:

or chocolate.

451

:

I didn't like them plain when I was a kid.

452

:

No, that'd be dipped.

453

:

Well, excuse me, it's my nostalgia.

454

:

Um, I like them plain as a kid and um,

it is just a kind of piece of nostalgia.

455

:

And we have sent.

456

:

Stopped at Dairy Queens because

we'll pass one somewhere and

457

:

I'll be like, oh, dairy Queen.

458

:

And I tell you, it's just not the same.

459

:

It tastes now weird to me.

460

:

It doesn't taste like it's real ice cream.

461

:

No.

462

:

It's your partially

hydrogenated gum based beverage.

463

:

Yeah.

464

:

No it's not right.

465

:

It it.

466

:

Not what it was, but I still keep going

back to it, even though I know that

467

:

it's not the same as when I was a kid.

468

:

I still will pass a Dairy

Queen like we on vacation.

469

:

I'll be like, oh my gosh, we

gotta stop at Dairy Queen.

470

:

Hope Springs Eternal.

471

:

Hope Springs eternal.

472

:

There are lots of ways that nostalgia

has shaped our food career, I think.

473

:

Right.

474

:

Bruce: Well let's start

just with Ice cream.

475

:

Right.

476

:

Ice Cream was the first

book we ever wrote.

477

:

Right.

478

:

And ice cream really was something

for you that was nostalgic.

479

:

It was for me too.

480

:

We used to go to Carve and I do have

big nostalgia for that soft serve.

481

:

And then the big stews from our Instant

Pot Bible and Instant Pot books.

482

:

Those are the stews my

grandmother made all the time.

483

:

Well, yeah, I think, uh, just to

blow this out just a little bit and

484

:

explain it a little bit, I think the

ice cream thing is right because when

485

:

we wrote the ultimate ice cream book

and the ultimate frozen dessert book,

486

:

the making, homemade making of ice

cream was just coming back on trend.

487

:

I think a lot of people had grown up

with it with churning the ice cream.

488

:

And now we suddenly had this advent of

the home ice cream makers that had their

489

:

own chill unit and all that kind of stuff.

490

:

That's really interesting.

491

:

Or those ones you put in the

freezer, those canisters, and it was.

492

:

All kind of part of this trend backwards.

493

:

Bruce: That's really interesting because

your reaction to that was because

494

:

your grandparents turned ice cream.

495

:

So that reminded you of that.

496

:

And for me, I do.

497

:

When you take that homemade ice

cream outta the machine, the texture

498

:

reminded me of that soft serve we

used to get as a kid that I loved.

499

:

We never made ice cream, but it it.

500

:

Pressed all those buttons of

that ice cream I just got.

501

:

But I just say, I

502

:

don't think that's just for me.

503

:

I think that has to do with

the, the millions of ice cream

504

:

machines that were sold on QVC.

505

:

I think a lot of people were in my shoes

that they grew up with churned ice cream

506

:

at home and suddenly it was back in vogue.

507

:

And people wanted to know how

to make ice cream at home.

508

:

And again, there's this,

what were they called?

509

:

Do VAs or something?

510

:

Oh God,

511

:

Bruce: that was the first one.

512

:

Yeah.

513

:

Yeah.

514

:

Where you put the canister in the

freezer and then you hand cranked it.

515

:

Yes.

516

:

And you hand cranked it occasionally.

517

:

And then the machines started

coming out with their.

518

:

Own compressors in them,

which we got several of those

519

:

machines to test for the books.

520

:

And a big part of our early

career was the diet industry.

521

:

And that was happening just

as the obesity epidemic was

522

:

striking across North America.

523

:

Bruce: Big part of our career

was writing for Weight Watchers.

524

:

Right.

525

:

And cooking light and eating well.

526

:

Right.

527

:

And we were able to jump on

those trends and just, you know.

528

:

Do really well in that category.

529

:

And I think it's really interesting.

530

:

I mean just, just as a thought experiment,

I think it's really interesting to

531

:

think about thinness in the obesity

epidemic as a nostalgic component.

532

:

And it's why people ran to diets.

533

:

Now, listen, they ran to diets because

it's unhealthy to be very overweight.

534

:

It's unhealthy to.

535

:

Too much, I dunno, ice cream, for example.

536

:

Of course they, and, you know,

cardiovascular disease was on the rise.

537

:

That's all the truth.

538

:

And yet I think there's also

this component to it that

539

:

supposedly this is not true.

540

:

Uh, the fifties and

sixties were thinner times.

541

:

Mm-hmm.

542

:

And so in the eighties and

nineties, people were looking

543

:

back to these thinner times.

544

:

I mean, listen, all you have to

do is look at Alfred Hitchcock

545

:

and know that they weren't thinner

times, but it wasn't still.

546

:

But it's

547

:

Bruce: easy to be nostalgic about a

time when you might have been thinner.

548

:

Mm-hmm.

549

:

When you were, certainly, when

you were younger and you've.

550

:

Felt better and you could wear mm-hmm.

551

:

Clothes.

552

:

Mm-hmm.

553

:

That you felt better.

554

:

Mm-hmm.

555

:

Wearing, it's very easy to do that.

556

:

It's all about recapturing youth, right?

557

:

Mm-hmm.

558

:

I mean, the diet industry was about

recapturing your twenties or even

559

:

your teens and getting back into

the dress you wore, getting back

560

:

into some outfit that you wore.

561

:

That was a huge part of our early career.

562

:

It was, I, I, I should say that we

started writing for weight watchers.com.

563

:

When Weight watchers.com

564

:

was this kind of, as we always say,

the poor stepsister of the Weight

565

:

Watchers empire, and literally the first

meeting we had was Weight watchers.com

566

:

was in an empty, open

office space in Manhattan.

567

:

Do you remember this?

568

:

We went up to a floor of a

building and it was like.

569

:

Empty except for like two desks, just kind

of Jake leg set, somewhere in the middle

570

:

of the room of this giant open space.

571

:

And we were so dis wires

hanging down from the ceiling.

572

:

And it was, it was, it was nothing.

573

:

It was, 'cause everybody

thought online was nothing.

574

:

Bruce: We were so disappointed that

we weren't writing for the magazine.

575

:

Like, uh, we were, meanwhile we had

that column online for 14 years.

576

:

Yeah.

577

:

Meanwhile, and

578

:

meanwhile, eventually the.com

579

:

took over everything and ran

the magazine essentially out of.

580

:

Business and ran most things outta

business in the Weight Watchers

581

:

world because of course the online

site became everything, but when we

582

:

first went there, it was nothing.

583

:

Yeah.

584

:

It was literally, nobody knew what

it was and, um, and how it would go.

585

:

I think that there's a way, even that

our current book, cold Canning is

586

:

part of a bit of nostalgia, don't you?

587

:

Bruce: Well, yeah.

588

:

The idea of putting up things for the

winter of saving the fruit, saving

589

:

the vegetables, canning your own.

590

:

Yeah.

591

:

The nice thing in our book is you

don't have to deal with the hassle that

592

:

it was when our grandparents did it.

593

:

Nothing in our book is processed.

594

:

Nothing is put in a

steam can or no boiled.

595

:

Yep.

596

:

No bottles are boiled to.

597

:

You're not boiling, you're

not processing, you're just.

598

:

Making some jam.

599

:

Putting it in a jar and

putting it in the freezer.

600

:

Freezer.

601

:

And

602

:

I wanna say that I think, and this

is a very controversial sentence, and

603

:

I'm gonna really get flat for saying

this, but I'm gonna say it, I think

604

:

people often think of nostalgia in

food when it comes to the boomers.

605

:

People like me or the or the or, the.

606

:

As they call them geriatric Gen Xers.

607

:

Yeah.

608

:

We're

609

:

Bruce: not boomers.

610

:

We're geriatric.

611

:

Yeah,

612

:

we're geriatric Gen Xers.

613

:

But, um, nonetheless, uh, they think about

nostalgia when it comes to these people,

614

:

but I actually think that millennials are

particularly susceptible to nostalgia.

615

:

I think that that is that

sourdough craze with.

616

:

Millennials.

617

:

That whole chickens in the backyard

in Brooklyn craze, they are

618

:

particularly driven towards some

kind of rural, nostalgic pastor.

619

:

The Kin remember Kin Folk Magazine where

everybody stood around and preached

620

:

skirts and fields and ate, I don't

know, ice cream out of the container.

621

:

But that

622

:

Bruce: makes sense 'cause they

were the last generation before.

623

:

For the digital change.

624

:

They were, they came

over the digital change.

625

:

They, we came over it too, but

they were the last ones that

626

:

grew up with analog, anything.

627

:

Right.

628

:

They, they started out at five

years old analog, but then by the

629

:

time they were teenagers, they

had did all changed to digital.

630

:

Yep.

631

:

But we came over it as adults that change.

632

:

Yep.

633

:

And that may be part of why it

seems to me that millennials are.

634

:

All very suscept to it.

635

:

When we did, um, demographic research

for cold canning, what we discovered

636

:

is that canning searches on Google,

I know this is really weird to talk

637

:

about, but the canning searches on

Google, things we do worry about.

638

:

Um, we're particularly big in people.

639

:

Um, age 30 to 45, which means you're

talking about essentially millennials.

640

:

At that age, and those are the

big people searching for canning

641

:

recipes, big demographic, searching

for canning recipes online.

642

:

Bruce: Every millennial out there

listening buy a copy of our book.

643

:

Cold Canning.

644

:

You're like, if you know a millennial,

buy a copy of cold canning for

645

:

the millennial in your life.

646

:

Yeah, it is.

647

:

True, but the canning that

we're doing is really simple.

648

:

And one of the things that's interesting,

I think about the nostalgia, particularly

649

:

as it affects millennials in food,

is that many of them are nostalgic

650

:

for much more complicated things.

651

:

Mm.

652

:

Like sourdough starters and like, you

know, the appropriate Victorian sponge.

653

:

And it's really weird the the

way that nostalgia can play out

654

:

because it can lead to an idea that

it used to be simpler than now.

655

:

It also can lead to this idea

that things were more complex

656

:

and so better, they were harder.

657

:

Bruce: I think there's a,

and so they were better.

658

:

There's a fine line between

going from nostalgia to fetish.

659

:

Well, there is, oh my gosh.

660

:

But it, I don't think it's a fine line.

661

:

I think it just shades

right off into fetish.

662

:

And you could argue that.

663

:

The French aren't nostalgic for croissants

that the ants have become, uh, fetish.

664

:

Oh, absolutely.

665

:

For many French people.

666

:

Absolutely.

667

:

Um, but that's a whole

different discussion and one

668

:

not suitable for this podcast.

669

:

So, okay.

670

:

Before I get to the last part of

this podcast, let me tell you that

671

:

of course we have a TikTok channel

cooking with Bruce and Mark.

672

:

There's a YouTube channel, it's

not very active, called Cooking

673

:

with Free Saint Mark, but

674

:

Bruce: there's a ton and

675

:

ton and ton of videos

there, there, there are.

676

:

Many videos out there, hundreds.

677

:

Um, and, uh, they're of course

a very active TikTok account.

678

:

And let me see that there's a Facebook

group cooking with Bruce and Mark,

679

:

and this episode will be posted there.

680

:

You can tell us what you're

nostalgic about with food.

681

:

Okay.

682

:

As is traditional, the last

segment of this podcast, what.

683

:

It's making us happy in food this week,

and I'm gonna start, okay, so what's

684

:

making me happy in food this week is

Bruce steamed Chinese ribblets slash That

685

:

Bruce: was mine.

686

:

No, that's mine.

687

:

We can both have it.

688

:

But last night for dinner, uh,

Bruce, Bruce spent the whole day out.

689

:

He was running around the state, literally

running around our state doing various

690

:

things and came back home and I couldn't

believe you wanted to cook dinner.

691

:

I kept saying, don't

you wanna go out to eat?

692

:

And it's a long way.

693

:

It's a 20 minute drive even to a mid.

694

:

Place from where we live.

695

:

So he kept saying, no, I don't

wanna get in the car again.

696

:

So he steamed Chinese ribs.

697

:

Okay.

698

:

So since this is your, so you explain,

this is making me happy what it is.

699

:

Bruce: These are Cantonese,

ribs and black bean sauce.

700

:

So you must, if you cheated and put, uh,

a hot Fresno on top of it, I, I put put

701

:

some little hot sliced red chilies on

them, which usually is not Cantonese.

702

:

So you have to have your ribs

cut into one to one and a half.

703

:

Inch sections.

704

:

So the each piece is

just, you know, bite size.

705

:

You can get them that way at an Asian

market, or you can go to Costco,

706

:

which is where I found them already.

707

:

Cut that way.

708

:

Then you cut through each piece of bone,

you separate them all, and then you

709

:

marinate them in oyster sauce, light

soy, dark soy, little salt, MSG, a little

710

:

sugar, a little shing, cooking wine.

711

:

Mm-hmm.

712

:

MSG.

713

:

There it is.

714

:

I also put, um, a pinch of

ground up, dried Chinese,

715

:

tangerine, peel, and star anus.

716

:

And a little corn starch, and you let

that marinade a bit and then you steam

717

:

them in a bowl in a steamer and about 30

minutes and they are just spectacular.

718

:

Okay?

719

:

There is no way anyone would

define this as an easy recipe,

720

:

and I couldn't believe you did it.

721

:

I thought it was an easy recipe.

722

:

Okay.

723

:

It's not.

724

:

I'm, I'm here to just tell you.

725

:

Um, it's not, and we would be slapped down

by both our editor and our copy editor

726

:

forever calling, anything like that easy.

727

:

So, no, it's not easy,

but it was spectacular.

728

:

Delicious.

729

:

Oh my God.

730

:

I couldn't believe you put all

that effort into it after having

731

:

driven all over the state all day.

732

:

But you did.

733

:

That's what I went to for dinner.

734

:

It was really delicious

and we ate it with.

735

:

Deemed Chinese, what was it?

736

:

Uh, it was one

737

:

Bruce: of those choice sum, or,

yeah, it was a leafy green with a

738

:

long stem and it wasn't bok choy and

739

:

no,

740

:

Bruce: it wasn't bok choy.

741

:

I don't know the name of all of

742

:

those Asian greens.

743

:

Yeah.

744

:

One of those Asian greens with little

yellow flowers and pieces of it.

745

:

Right.

746

:

So anyway, and rice, uh,

yeah, it was really good.

747

:

That's what made me, I guess, both

of us happy in food this week.

748

:

Okay.

749

:

So that's the podcast for this week.

750

:

Thanks for being a part of

our audience, and thanks for

751

:

being with us on this podcast.

752

:

Bruce: And let me add that in a

world of AI now where you don't know

753

:

what's real and what's not, when

you're listening and watching things

754

:

online, know that everything here

on Cook at Bruce and Mark is real.

755

:

Everything on our TikTok channel or the

videos on Instagram, everything is real.

756

:

We are not using ai.

757

:

So you know what you're getting?

758

:

You are getting Bruce and Mark when you

watch or listen to cooking with gru.

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About the Podcast

Cooking with Bruce and Mark
Fantastic recipes, culinary science, a little judgment, hysterical banter, love and laughs--you know, life.
Join us, Bruce Weinstein and Mark Scarbrough, for weekly episodes all about food, cooking, recipes, and maybe a little marital strife on air. After writing thirty-six cookbooks, we've got countless opinions and ideas on ingredients, recipes, the nature of the cookbook-writing business, and much more. If you've got a passion for food, we also hope to up your game once and a while and to make you laugh most of the time. Come along for the ride! There's plenty of room!

About your host

Profile picture for Mark Scarbrough

Mark Scarbrough

Former lit professor, current cookbook writer, creator of two podcasts, writer of thirty-five (and counting) cookbooks, author of one memoir (coming soon!), married to a chef (my cookbook co-writer, Bruce Weinstein), and with him, the owner of two collies, all in a very rural spot in New England. My life's full and I'm up for more challenges!