Preface: No nothing in this recipe is foraged. Living in the city it's sort of hard to figure out what's in season at the moment and then to plan a recipe out of it and then drive to the country to find the ingredients takes way more time than I've had in the past months. Sure, I could go urban foraging, but let's be honest that's just dumpster diving and finding plants covered in dog pee. So, until I buy 100 acres out in the middle of nowhere, I'm changing the focus of the recipes I'm sharing. Each recipe will have a short weird/funny story behind it.
Nothing brings people together like food, but there's nothing more political than food.
"Bush's Batch" that was the title of the chocolate chip cookie recipe in my mom's recipe book growing up. They were essentially oatmeal raisin cookies, but with the worst part (the raisins) replaced by chocolate chips.
One day in college I wanted to make these cookies so I Googled "Bush's Batch" and the recipe was some generic oat-less cookie. The recipe could not be more different than the oatmeal chocolate chip cookies I grew up with.
So I called my mom, and it turned out that the actual recipe she had written down in her recipe book was in fact "Hillary Clinton's Chocolate Chip" recipe.
Why would she do that?
Well it turns out like 46% of Americans (a quick reminder that Trump lost the popular vote) my dad did not want anything to do with Hillary Clinton. Even her cookie recipe.
So to get my dad to eat the cookies, my mom changed the name in her recipe book to "Bush's Batch", which is weird because my dad isn't a fan of either the Bushes or Clintons or really any politician.
Even chocolate chip cookies can be a partisan issue. I guess that's why Tollhouse stays out of politics, but their parent company sure doesn't avoid politics!
There's always a story behind the food we eat, sometimes it's weird and funny story about a politically charged dessert. If there's a story behind one of your favorite foods or recipe reach out (brianstaffield@gmail.com) and we can work on a post together!
