COGs eat food because it tastes good and starving is stupid. COGs believe people who get weird in their relationship to food are only doing so because they have too much spare time.
Figure 1. Nothing is more delightful to the COG palette than a backyard BBQ. Note the delightful absence of spices or vegetables.
- COGs eat food without making a production. If it’s on a plate and can be readily identified as food they’ll eat it.
- If they are on a diet (COGs fear heart disease and whatever Reader’s Digest wrote about last month) they’ll be quiet about it. A COG will never loudly announce to a restaurant waiter that they are octo-ovo vegan, allergic to chickpeas, require low sodium soup, and would like a side of okra. Even vegetarian COGs (if any exist) would quietly order a salad and shut the hell up if it came with ham on top.
- COGs can eat a hot dog without wondering what’s in it.
- COGs aren’t sure what an anti-oxidant is.
- COGs tip waitresses 20% unless the wait staff actually sets them on fire or stabs them with a fork…in which case they’ll tip 10% and feel guilty about it.
- COGs drink coffee. They do this because they have a job and they’re tired. COGs have their doubts about people who can be productive using only herbal tea. It doesn’t seem possible.
- COGs like vegetable gardens but they’re not preparing for the zombie apocalypse or raising organic heirloom kumquats as a political statement. They’re not sure of their motivation. If you ask they will mumble something like “carrots are good for you” or “Grandma had a garden” and then change the subject to lawnmowers.
- COGs are not susceptible to bulimia. Eating food just to barf it up seems pretty pointless doesn’t it? Also, COGs don’t waste food.
- Rural COGs might have chickens if they already have a farm. An urban COG doesn’t. Hippies have time to petition city zoning boards about poultry; urban COGs plant tomatoes instead.
- A COG can drink beer or not drink beer without making a scene. Drinking tequila out of the navel of a dancer in Rio is not COG behavior. Bitching at the neighbor about drinking a Miller-Lite is just as uncharacteristic.
- A COG can smoke cigarettes or not smoke cigarettes without making it a crusade.
- COGs in the Midwest inexplicably consider cream of mushroom soup a key ingredient for cooking.
- COGs will slather mayonnaise on potatoes, macaroni, or virtually anything else and call it a “salad”. They will combine Jello with virtually any kind of fruit and call it “dessert”.
- COGs might occasionally eat something exotic like kimchi or caviar…but deep in their heart all they really want is a hamburger.
15) COGs will, rarely, have ONE type of food they make a big production out of. While it isn’t always BBQ or Chili, it is usually something similar.
Something like the Aunt Gertrude and her famous lemon meringue pie?
Good point. A COG food specialty will often be something foodie people don’t consider special, like pie. If the specialty is done by a male COG it usually needs to be fussed over until the last minute (Chili, BBQ), and if it is done by a female COG it can often be transported long distances (Aunt Betty’s fruitcake).
Another point; COGs seldom eat anything they can’t pronounce, which can make for interesting local variations. There are a fair number of Cape Verdean Portuguese COGs living in New Bedford Mass.. For them, COG cuisine includes linguica (available as a pizza topping locally) and whelk.
In keeping with the ability to transport, I should have added something about crock pots. A COG potluck will have several crock pots of something that’s been heating for many hours.
Hmmm…now I’m hungry.
16) If COG’s eat any sort of “ethnic” food, it is because they are of that ethnicity, and thus normal food for that family. It is certainly not an attempt to impress others by bringing up either extensive world travels or long buried roots of the family tree (“Yeah, we’re having paella because I’m 1/144th Spainish on my Aunt’s stepbrother in law’s side. .. yeah, it’s a receipe I got when I was an exchange student in Madrid!”)
I like that; “if COGs eat ethnic food it is because they are of that ethnicity”. Brilliant!
I would suggest further; COG ethnic food is adapted to local (usually much better than the Old Country) conditions, and consequently is not considered “authentic” by foodies … most of whom would pitch a fit if asked to eat what is genuinely “authentic”.