[Sca-cooks] crudites

[Maggie MacDonald]

At 11:05 AM 12/28/2003,Phlip said something like:

>We've always had carrot and celery sticks, as well as scallions and
>radishes, and usually some olives as a common sort of relish tray, and I've
>seen it quite frequently in the Midwest, although there it tends to be for
>more formal meals, rather than for casual dining. A friend of mine
>encouraged my veggie tendencies, too, when she showed me that you could prep
>the veggies and leave them in the fridge in water, so all you had to do was
>grab and crunch.
>
>I like the way I was taught to set a casual table by Southern friends. In
>addition to the basic food, and appropriate condiments available, there was
>always the home-made pickle jars, and a plate of sliced onions, another of
>sliced tomatoes in season, and at least one, usually two, types of bread as
>well as the catsup, mustard, salt, pepper, and butter- it was just how you
>set the table. Unfortunately, I think with our nuclear families, we're now
>setting nuclear tables- just the food and salt and pepper, maybe butter if
>we have bread, and leaving it at that.
>
>Saint Phlip,
>CoDoLDS

This is something I remember from when I was quite small and we had the 
huge extended family dinners (about 30-35 people in one room).  It was 
quite customary to see that tray of carrots, celery, radishes, scallions, 
the sweet pickles and little dill pickles. If we were really lucky the 
little kid table would also get olives (black olives always, and if it had 
been a good year economically we also got some pimento stuffed green 
olives).  We'd seen people destring the celery, but we figured they were 
being pansies (unless it was for someone who had troubles eating, that was 
just silly!).

When we went to visit the farming relatives they would have every meal with 
the vegetable platter, bread, butter, two hot vegetables and a salad of 
some sort.  They had dinner at mid-day and supper in the late afternoon (no 
decent family ever ate supper after 6pm at the latest).

As to the influence on all this? I don't know. I think it could have 
originally been a little Mid-westish, but my family is from Utah 
farmers/ranchers (mostly).

Regards,
Maggie MacD.