#342 Kross-Kulinary

America craves variety but it still craves the same stuff. We like our selection but only if we keep it within certain broad themes. Take ranch dressing. Ranch is today’s ketchup. Bland salad? Add ranch. Don’t like that icky blue cheese with your buffalo wings? How about ranch? Need to perk up a dull burger? Add ranch. Raw veggies too healthy for consumption? A spoonful of ranch helps the nutrition go down. Chill it in the refrigerator and its super-calorie-fridge-o-licious.
And so many brands of ranch to choose from too. Everyone has jumped on the ranch wagon, even Paul Newman. If only Butch Cassidy had had ranch what a different world this would be. Ranch is so ubiquitous that kids think scrambled eggs with ranch dressing is huevos rancheros. And talk about variations on the theme. There’s plain ranch, ranch with bacon, ranch with parmesan. You know the drill. If it’s a big seller, offer a tweak or two and really plumb the depths of the market. Have you tried the new ranch with artichoke hearts and picked asparagus? To die for. But not if you use diet ranch, it’ll be a bonanza to the hidden valleys of your arteries. Another new fad is Edamame. I first heard of it, surprisingly, from a McDonalds commercial. Whenever I heard the commercial I’d try to figure out what the announcer was saying. He was talking about an Asian salad so I had a clue but the word edamame is not one from our standard English language toolkit we get in elementary school so I would have lost the spelling bee for sure. My first challenge was to sound it out sufficiently so Google’s semi-spellcheck would offer me the right suggestion. After a few tries and some odd blogs, rock groups and vegan hippie mother diaries, I finally got close enough. It’s actually spelled e-d-a-m-a-m-e-. Turns out it’s the green vegetable more commonly known as the soybean. It’s harvested at the peak of ripening right before it reaches the "hardening" time. The word Edamame means "Beans on Branches," because it grows in clusters on bushy branches. To retain the freshness and its natural flavor, it is parboiled and quick-frozen. As you are probably aware, in East Asia the soybean has been used for over two thousand years as a major source of protein. Edamame is consumed as a snack, a vegetable dish, used in soups or processed into sweets. Mmm. Soybean candy. As a snack, the pods are lightly boiled in salted water, and then the seeds are squeezed directly from the pods into the mouth with the fingers. How do you like that? Now we all know about edamame. And we owe this enlightening cross-cultural culinary occurrence to that quintessential American institution, McDonalds. Another compliment to their international menu—Asian salads, Scotch McFlurries and French Fries. Mmm mmm. McDonalds french fries with ranch dressing...
America, ya gotta love it.