Why is Canadian rock guy Mac DeMarco singing in Japanese? Cause he’s covering Haruomi Hosono, of course. (That’s the J-Pop icon we talked about recently cause he scored that movie “Shoplifters”). The track is notably but pleasantly out of tune, the way you’d imagine a remake of an early-90s PBS ad break to be. But also in the way of vintage PBS, it’s soothing in a deep-seated, visceral way. If you need a way to chill out your Wednesday, we found it.
I’ve just made a discovery that will be integral to your 2019: United Airlines has published a cookbook. Their logic, presumably, goes something like this: they say food is the window to the soul, and what better way to bring back the best part of your trip than by recreating what you ate in the pressurized cabin? At $30, the book is decently affordable (though you might want to put those dollars toward a checked bag instead– remember, on United you don’t get a carry-on any more). And actually, it’s only got the first-class recipes in it, so you’ll be dining in style. But given what we know about United, let’s assume that this book is training for you to make your own damn food on your next flight. Chefs are expensive, ok?
A writer named Christina Ward has just published “American Advertising Cookbooks,” an excellent book on the history of branded cookbooks in America. Not only does it detail the histories of Dole and Chiquita merch, but it marches you through the way our country created an ‘American’ cuisine explicitly to give immigrants something to assimilate to. You’ll also learn how food science has always– ALWAYS– been used to sell you more processed foods, and also to hold down marginalized groups, and generally how most of what you think you know has always been wrong (would you believe that the California citrus lobby was super down with the grapefruit diet?). This is such a rich read– Florence Fabricant at the NYT is into it— and you should probably hop on board too. Order it here.
Tl;dr on a long article: Candy corn Oreos. Strawberry Kit Kats. Sriracha-flavored potato chips. Why? Clickbait, that’s why. Works in retail too.