What's for Dinner?

Fifty years ago, what was served for dinner usually depended on the day of the week. "In my house," a cousin told me, "you didn't need a calendar to know what day it was. You just came to supper. Thursdays we always had fish. I hated the way my mother made it so I always tried to get myself invited to a friend's house that night. And my friend's mom served liver and onions on Wednesday, when we had meatballs and spaghetti, so he often ate at our house that night."

Today, serving the same dish every Tuesday or Saturday for the length of your kid's life at home would probably be considered some form of emotional abuse. And yet having a set meal for each day made this aspect of homemaking simple and efficient. Whoever was preparing the meals, usually the mother, could not spend hours on the Web looking up interesting recipes because the Web did not exist. Nor was she on the phone ordering takeout because the budget didn't allow for it. And a lot of interesting-looking recipes took too long to prepare.

Shopping for food was also efficient since the same items were bought over and over again. Obviously this way of eating was contrary to nutritional advice, which recommends eating a large variety of foods. But fifty years ago, there wasn't a large variety of foods to be bought; seasonal foods were available in their due season and the vegetable and fruit options were limited at best. But on the plus side, vegetables and fruits were served. The vegetables may have come from a can or been frozen but they had to be consumed before dessert was served. Seasonal fruits were a treat since one waited a year to see them appear on the table. Leftovers did not just occupy space in the refrigerator but were recycled into another dinner or soup or lunch the next day. And basic to all of this was that the family accepted the routine. No one said, "But we had macaroni and cheese last Thursday; why are we eating it again?" You were hungry when you came to the table, you ate the same predictable meal, and maybe, if you were lucky, your mother served something more interesting for dessert than red Jell-O.

These days, if--and this is a big if--the family actually is home at the same time to eat dinner together, the person preparing the foods has to worry about each family member's likes and dislikes and feels obliged to vary the menu so no-one complains that the same dish was served two weeks ago. Sometimes two or three different dishes are made to accommodate allergies, ideologies about what is being eaten (only chickens that go on a field trip are allowed), dietary needs (someone is usually on a diet) and idiosyncratic responses to food. Child X won't eat foods that are creamy, child Y hates raw vegetables, and spouse can't tolerate carrots, garlic and tofu. The kitchen sometimes turns into a food court with everyone selecting or rejecting meal ingredients or the meal itself and foraging for his or her own meal ingredients. And then to make meal planning even more challenging, we are told incessantly in the print media and on the Web about today's magic food, which we must eat in order to have shiny hair, better brain function and the ability to live to 110.

This is not to say that meals served in the 1940's, 1950's and early 1960's were the gold standard for nutrition, improved cardiac health and overall fitness. Butter, vegetable shortening, cream, eggs, bacon and other high-fat ingredients had not yet been designated unfit foods to be consumed only in small or negligible amounts. Fiber and whole-grains foods were pretty much limited to whole-wheat bread and potato skins, while some dairy products like yogurt, skim milk and fat-free cottage cheese were new and considered strange tasting. Organic was something associated with a chemistry course. .

But despite the nutritional limitations of mid-20th century America and the decreased variety and availability of many foods we take for guaranteed today, are we any better off? At least most people ate dinner every night and although they rarely would describe their meals as novel or memorable, at least there was protein, a starch a vegetable, maybe a salad and fruit. This was certainly a better choice than take-out pizza or Chinese or fast food on the way back from soccer practice.

But the person preparing the meal still has to figure out "what's for dinner." And sometimes the answer is longer in coming that the actual food preparation. Many of my acquaintances say that they don't mind cooking, but they just can't figure out what to make day in and day out. Maybe the answer is to publish calendars or software for a BlackBerry with supper suggestions. Instead of wondering what's for dinner, especially if you have to cook it yourself, you just turn to your daily calendar or flip open your phone and turn to today's meal selection. And as long as it is not liver, you are all set.

More from Judith Wurtman can be found at www.serotoninpowerdiet.com.