“Kentucky Fried Chicken please don’t use my name.” …. Foods People Stress-Snarf During Economic Downturn
Written by Rivka
The KFC submission came with the cutest preamble, too, which was an apologetic explanation that normally she is an organic-only sort of person. You know, a person with a Belief System. But my favorite part is the breathless quality of the confession.
As a fried chicken snarfer myself, I relate. Though I haven't done KFC in a while. Last time I went it wasn't an acronym, that's how long it's been. I live in a small, nosy, organic town, where people turn up their noses if a café dares to have coffee but no chai tea. Someone might see my car at KFC, so I do the grocery store fried chicken. Actually, I never admit I'm getting the chicken until it's in the cart. Next time I think I'll just give over to it, add a little premeditation, and drive right through. If I'm going down, I might as well be nice to myself about it. I wonder if the secret KFC eater drives through or sits in KFC. I'd definitely eat in the car.
Okay, now that I'm completely jonesing for fried chicken at 6 a.m....Here's the roundup of foods people start eating and overeating under big stress. They range from funny to touching. The comfort is so particular that there aren't many repeats. That may be the best part; how idiosyncratic our habits are, how original we were as children when we fostered the relationship with food and rituals.
"Peanut butter on a spoon. I've enjoyed this comfort food since earliest childhood - a dollop of peanut butter presented to me on a kitchen spoon, which I would lick like a lollipop as I sat in the sunshine streaming through the bay window in the farmhouse kitchen. Late at night, nearly half a century later, when I open the pantry door in search of something, anything, I behold the jar of Skippy's and succumb. And there are times, yes, when I rebelliously double-dip with the same spoon I licked - OMIGOD! - but it's true. And as I enjoy my spoonful of peanut butter, I'm sitting in the sunshine once again, and all those struggles and problems, just for the moment, are somebody else's."-Bob Sheasley (author of HOME TO ROOST. Yes, it's about chickens, our relationship to them, and there isn't a life metaphor left out.)
"Homemade popcorn (made with oil) eaten from a brown lunch bag, with Lawry's season salt on it and with semi sweet chocolate chips sprinkled in after it cools a little so it's not a gooey mess. And for the benefit of my waistline, I neither watch the Dow, nor open my awfully thin monthly financial statements for the time being. Denial is my favorite flaw."- Nicole N. Auerbach
"Potato chips. Non-stop until the bag is empty and my hands and forearms arms are greasy and salty."-Laurie Osmond
"0mg I love food, especially late at night. My faves are Ice cream (Ben and Jerry's), Oreos, kettle corn, yogurt drizzled pretzels."-Stephanie Sanchez
"Caramel calcium chews. My version of a prescription medication addiction."-Hannah Kinnersley
"Ben and Jerry's phish food, pistachio nuts, dried Ranier cherries."- Dr. Gil Block
"Frosted Flakes, straight from the box...no bowl, no milk."- Mary Davis
"Grilled cheese. Have not eaten it since childhood, yet I cannot seem to go a day without the Kraft whitebread and butter melted just so. Several weeks of it now, 4-5 times a week." -Stephanne Pleshette
"Food? Damn, I've been going directly to a bottle of wine, but stopped that a week or so ago, because I was so afraid that McCain would win and I'd drink myself to death." -Martha Frankel (author of HATS AND EYEGLASSES, hilarious and touching memoir of her loving Jewish family's gambling addiction. Reading it is like having Martha tell you the story in person.)
"Mac and Cheese for some reason it just always works. That and popcorn. Maybe it's the mindless chewing with cheesy goodness, just can't go wrong." Dan Nicole Romer
"Target choco espresso truffle chocolate bar. One square at a time. $2.00 each bar."-Elaine Teresa Kleinberg
"I know it sounds pollyanna, but honey is mine. I gob it into tea with milk. I eat raw honey straight from the jar. I eat it on toast. I gob it into tea. It's too much."-Janet Baus
"My favorite pick me up is chocolate chips. A handful or two is very satisfying and not toooo terrible calorie-wise."-Jane Applegate
"Any Alcohol!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!."-Elaine Serrur
"When I'm off, I really like to be bad and good.So I'll eat high fat stuff, cheese and nuts...when I am getting my period this near total vegetarian eats dried sausage and apple cider vinegar(don't ask) and licorice! Then I will compensate with a week of blended salads, raw food, fruit and steamed vegetables. I only do this when it gets dark for that first few weeks after Daylight Savings Time ends.....it's an animal thing."-Marianne Macy (Keep your eye out for this name. Macy is an author and editor extraordinaire, as well as alternative energy activist/researcher. She was TWO WEEKS UNDER's first editor and I bow in her general direction.)
"Toast, white rice with butter and tamari, pasta and pizza. Bread and butter and dark chocolate."-Anonymous teacher and her senior seminar students.
"Guinness."-Kevin Hogan
"I'm in Israel now so I have to say that I'm eating a ton of clementines and they are sooooo good. Also drinking lots of freshly squeezed pomegrande, sometime mixed with guava juice - heaven. And of course, burekas and all sort of yummy baked and tasty goods, filled with poppy or other wonderful things. And salads. And pita..."-Meira Blaustein
"My secret eating is never a reaction, but a positive reaffirmation of free will or a supreme act of defiance. As one who constantly has to watch his weight and health, I am always acutely aware of such things as carbs, fat or whether I am getting my daily exercise. So, for me, the ultimate food act of defiance is beginning the day by NOT exercising. Instead, I go to the coffee shop, order corned beef hash with eggs (home fries included) with a toasted white flour bagel (plenty of butter) and caffeinated coffee. That and the New York Post (as opposed to the Times or News) goes ahead and makes my day."-Seth Moskowitz
"Milk and cookies. Specifically, whole milk and graham crackers, ever since my tonsillectomy at age 5, or even earlier (when I ate them as "cereal").-Phillip Levine
"Chocolate, yes I think it's been dark chocolate these past few months. But that Tuesday night [election night] at the ACME restaurant in Manhattan....Peter had just voted and we were taking a minute to check in on the latest TV results (Acme has about half a dozen TVs). Peter and I glanced up only to see that the really early electoral college results were Obama 3 McCain 8. I promptly ordered a plate of french fries and sunk deeply into a ‘Major' funk. So when push comes to shove and I'm really desperate, I need salt."-Julie Hedrick (An artist worth dreaming with. Check out juliehedrick.com)
"I live on a college campus. My diet is defined by the whims of an angry ogre who lives in the cafeteria, so i do not have choice. I have only discretion. So now it's only the quantity that changes .... Yes, and its mirroring the Dow Jones Industrial Average's peaks and valleys."-Valerie
"Our family suggests buying lots of Krause's Chocolates whether you're celebrating or comforting yourselves!"-Lisa Krause
"My drug of choice is coffee. Boring, I know. But it's fat free."-Wayne Rash
"It's not exactly a snack food, but I've been downing No-Doz since this mess started. Getting up at 3:30-4 a.m. to read political news. Since I heard that Sarah Palin was safely back in Alaska, I slept in 'til 5 this morning."-Kathy Yakal
"Brussels sprouts once a day with pear juice if I could. If I could eat sugar, I would like cookies dipped in milk. And iced coffee and/or a hot chocolate."-Brenda Crews
"My comfort foods include a little shameless self promotion (only good stuff) and some really dirty, nasty bad stuff: GOOD STUFF: Organic Nectars Raw Agave Gelato - oh yeah - rich and creamy ‘indulgenceness' without the dairy, sugar, or any of the bad stuff. Oh, and did you know that this won the 2008 GOLD award for Outstanding Diet or Lifestyle Product at the Fancy Food Show? Organic Nectars Chocagave Raw Cacao - thick and gooey ‘chocolateness' without the dairy, sugar, etc. This one took home the SILVER award for Outstanding Dessert Topping at the 2008 Fancy Food Show. BAD STUFF: Kettle lightly salted potato chips. When the time is right I can polish off a bag of these salty, crunchy babies without blinking or looking down once. Hershey's Gold Almond chocolate bar. Hershey's sent me a case of these bars a few months ago and I dive into them like a giant swimming pool on hot sweaty summer day when I need a sweet fix. McDonald's cheeseburger-n-fries. The cheapest, baddest hunger killer around. For $2 I get that insane, highly processed, it-isn't-real-food-flavor-but-tastes-so-good-feeling that reminds me of my microwave, processed-food riddled Jersey shore childhood - all without ever having to leave my car. There, you now have all my secrets."-Lisa Protter