Deceased grandmother Anita Reilly’s bereaved found a trove of family recipes, including one for a beloved, secret family soup that was also “racist as fuck.”
My grandma called chocolate cream drops what they call Brazil nuts in the article. All of the family did (from Missouri). As a kid I was freaked out that anyone would name anything you ate after toes if any kind. Just gross.
But racists gotta be racist every chance they get.
My neighbor was a old racist, but hid it under a "I'm just a widdle ol lady". And she loved to remind me and my brown skinned family that you used to be able to say like N*gger Cake and then go, "Oh my I hope I didn't offend "
We were just talking about this (at work). I never considered my parents racist, but I definitely heard Brazil nuts called that, it's uncomfortable to think about how pervasive systemic racism is.
So I get the reference to Brazil nuts, but am drawing a blank on the other ingredients. Are there other foods that actually had horribly racist nicknames?
Jews, Italians, and Latinos were all represented with words I won’t repeat.
Like what foods were they referring to, or are they just being vague for the sake of humor, with Brazil nuts being the only one that actually existed with that type of nickname?
"Kaffir lime leaves" are generally being renamed as "makrut lime leaves" in the shops here in the UK. No problem with the rename, obvs, although it confused me a moment the last time I wanted to buy some. The thought that any of my grandparent's old recipes having any herb or spice more unusual than black pepper is more of laugh, tho.
Best friend's grandad fucked with him no end. Sent his 9-yo ass down to the store to ask for "N-word toes". To ask the black grocer. Kid had no idea it was a bad word, kinda like Archie Bunker: "That's what we called dem nuts in dose days!"
Another time they were watching some barn cats. "Want those kitties to really love you? Give 'em a bath and they'll love you forever." You can imagine.
I have an old pyrotechnics manual from 1943 and it tells you how to make a particular firecracker called an "N-word chaser." Fun fact this doodad was also referenced in the book The Shining.
This stuff is wild, here in the nordics we call chocolate balls rolled in pearl sugar "N- balls" and of course a certain subset of people love to go "but you can't say that anymore".
Number 5, the Pasta Bible. Hank, this is a totally normal book about pasta except that it contains a typo so horrific that the publisher found every copy it could, and destroyed them. There was a recipe for tagliatelle that called for salt and ground black... people. They meant pepper. They - they wrote people.