9/11/16

My Favorite Things

When I was a child, my favorite food was a kind of labor intensive cinnamon toast that my mom would make for me if I was sick or feeling bad about something that had happened in school.  It involved making a paste of butter, sugar and cinnamon and then spreading that on bread, which she toasted under the broiler.  It was crunchy and sweet and buttery and altogether wonderful, full of great flavors and mommy love.

I was thinking of that when I was reading about the glories of Bean’s Red Hot Dogs. Sgt. Tim Cotton of the Bangor Maine Police Department, who writes their appealing blog, included what he swears is a prize winning recipe for these Maine hot dogs in a kind of cheese and egg quiche, which, frankly, sounds a little gagging, along with the whole artery clogging thing. But I guess if you grew up with these bright red hot dogs, it makes a difference.

So Sgt. TC’s post got me thinking about favorite foods and favorite music and favorite movies and such, and thus gave birth to this blog. Which will end with some political psych stuff. Hang with me.

I like sweet and crunchy things, like Cadbury’s fruit and raisin bars and pecan pie and my BFF’s homemade pecan pralines. Especially the pralines. I like science fiction movies with good stories and compelling characters, like The Martian or The Day the Earth Stood Still (the Michael Rennie version, not that Keanu Reeves mess). I like rock ‘n’ roll music from the 50s, 60s and some 70s. And I like social justice and the politicians who promote it.

I never thought much about why I like these things until I read a research paper a while back on people’s taste in music and how it was often tied to what was popular when they were teenagers. There seems to be a critical period in which our taste in music is formed. So the theory goes that I like folk and rock ‘n’ roll and some country stuff even now because that’s the style of music I liked during that imprinting period of my teens in the 60s. If you listen to golden oldies stations today, they’re playing music that was popular in the 80s and 90s, aimed at people who were born in the 70s. That also means that in ten years, the classic pop stations will probably be playing rap and hip hop! 

People’s preferences for foods are really personal but can, in some ways, be tied to the types of foods they were exposed to as infants.  Again, some kind of critical period. I don’t want to get into the baby food wars here, but the data suggest that in general, the younger that kids are exposed to a wide variety of flavors and tastes, the more likely they’ll still be eating a wide variety of foods later on in childhood.

So how about me and those pralines? Seems that my obsession with sweet, crunchy things began with that cinnamon toast.  However, there’s more from the research on comfort foods.  For men, comfort foods tend to be meals (meat and potatoes, macaroni and cheese, and, apparently, hot dog quiche). For women, comfort foods tend to be snacks like ice cream and chocolate. And pralines.

The point I’m getting at is that, for a lot of our favorite things, there are critical periods in our lives when those preferences get set. For types of food, for music, for films, and even for political orientation.

Which brings me to this:

The best predictor of whether you’ll be a Republican or Democrat is your parents. That kind of partisanship can be found even in children and is passed on by the parents about 75% of the time. Considering the fascinating new research on differences in brain structure between liberals and conservatives, one has to wonder how much a role genetics plays. Are we born with a brain that's primed to be receptive to the family politics? Who knows!  However, if partisanship is going to change, adolescence is often when it happens.

My dad’s family were all Republicans. (Immigrants tend to join the party that is in power when they immigrated. In 1906, when his family arrived from Eastern Europe, Teddy Roosevelt was president. Roosevelt became an icon to immigrant Jews of that era.) However, my dad was born here and hit the age of political awareness at the time of the Great Depression. He became a Democrat. So did his younger sister though his older siblings remained with the GOP. The critical period for change had passed them by. (There are exceptions to this, but not for this particular blog. *Waves to my family.*)

And finally:

After reading about the glories of the Bean’s Maine Red Hot Dogs, I ordered some over the Internet. This is risky, as one person’s favorite food may well be another person’s Brussels sprouts. Nevertheless, we had them for dinner last night on grilled buns with baked beans and southern style    green beans. Both The Mac Geezer and I declare that they are delicious! Considering that our previous favorite hot dogs were Hebrew National (“We answer to a higher authority.”), that is high praise indeed. Yummy, bright red hot dogs. Having them for lunch today, too.

 Warning: The hot dogs are reasonably priced, though you need to order a minimum of five pounds. The shipping costs will require a mortgage on your house. Just saying'...