The Tribe, a short film shown at Sundance, is a cutesy documentary with a faux-pompous voice-over by Peter Coyote and lots of visual flash. It's about the history of the Jews and the history of the Barbie doll! Further evidence of the Jewish hipster moment that the NYT says we're enjoying. (Via Grow-a-Brain.) The film makes the case that Jews in America have assimilated but also retained many aspects of their identity. Nothing you didn't already know about Jews in America. It also reveals that Barbie's inventor, Ruth Handler, was Jewish, which was new to me, and that Barbie was based on a sexy German doll that was made for men, not girls. Like Hollywood, argues The Tribe, Barbie is a Jewish invention that sells an unattainable ideal of beauty devoid of identifiably Jewish features. Barbie and Ken were named after the inventor's kids, whose names were typically "American" in the 1950s. And after designing Barbie, Handler survived breast cancer and then went on to design prosthetic breasts. (Here's more.)
As for the bagel and bacon (a slide from the film): I'm all for fusion food when it makes sense and I eat both bagels and bacon with considerable enthusiasm. But if you're going to put bacon on your bagel I really don't want to know about it.
(Notice that the bacon and bagel spell "lol"?)
I confess: I love a bagel with bacon and (I'm so sorry) cream cheese.
ReplyDeletewhen I worked at the bagel shop this guy used to come in and order a salt bagel with bacon, butter, and cream cheese.
ReplyDeleteI don't even think it should be allowed to put margarine on a bagel.
ReplyDeleteSo... what about the spelling. Some really orthodox ppl spell it... beigl.
variations on bagel and cream cheese:
ReplyDeletefresh everything bagel with tomato, onion, lettuce, cream cheese. duh.
but also poppy or sesame bagel, toasted, with butter. the flavor of the seeds sometimes seems much stronger to me with just a scrape of butter. and maybe a little jam - i just got this bitter but delicious grapefruit marmelade . . .
tuna salad on a bagel. my middle school english teacher made fun of me for eating this. my mom thought that that was inappropriate.
tuna salad (old-fashioned mayo kind) on cinnamon raisin bread. but i digress . . .
cream cheese on almost burned toasted wheat bread with fresh spinach and bacon.
But mayo in baba? Well, I never . . .
and a lightly toasted sesame bagel to scoop up the baba is good too, and more often at hand than sesame pita . . .
zp, I enjoyed reading about your bagel variations very much. I only toast bagels when they're not very fresh. I like butter or cream cheese on fresh bagels and smoked salmon/lox is excellent of course. When toasted I really like the combination of sesame bagel, butter and orange marmalade. Never had grapefruit marmalade but it sounds good. I don't disapprove of sandwiches on bagels but I usually prefer bread. Interesting you should bring up tuna, as I'm now just beginning a scientific study of tuna salad, considering the various kinds of tuna, dressing, seasonings, and additional ingredients. Also the bread and whether or not to toast it. Not to mention the tuna melt. A potentially endless endeavor.
ReplyDeleteI was hoping someone would disapprove of my baba recipe. I stand behind it 1000%.
I thought you might have been taunting your readers with that particular use of mayo. And the way its RIGHT THERE in the photo. I tried to forget it, to move on, but it rankled . . . and I'm no foodie.
ReplyDelete