Fast Food Feminists - Are They Born or Made?

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The question often comes up: "How did you become a fast food feminist? Were you born that way? Or did something happen that made you become one?"

The answer to this may be different for each fast food feminist and since all feminists of any tenor are as different as snowflakes are from each other, the answer is not a simple one.

In my case, it's doubtful I was born as a fast food feminist. There are no instances recorded of my having refused breast milk (though I do believe it was not offered - in those days the idea of breast-feeding a baby was considered a rather disgusting thing to do in my mother's social group), no tales of my having pushed aside a fresh ear of corn on the cob to reach for a can of cream corn, no times when a home-made beef stew was dissed in favor of a bag of Doritos. None of these things happened that would hint at a fast food feminist made by nature as opposed to nurture.

Even later there were no marks of my being a fast food feminist. Not when I learned to cook, when I baked bread in the French manner in an oven with baking stones eagerly purchased and spray bottles excitedly filled, not when I boned a goose and made four purees of various things to stuff and tie and roast it while basting with a mixture of a difficult-to-find brandy mixed with goose stock made from giblets and aromatic vegetables and fresh herbs. You certainly would not imagine that I was a fast food feminist when I was a professional chef - my kitchen was run with the best of ingredients cooked as perfectly and classically as one might want who might want these things. No frozen or canned vegetables - no cake mixes or bought pastries - no spice blends or any other similar things were part of my professional kitchen.

Later as a wife and mother still the mark of fast food feminist could not be found as I merrily cooked three meals a day each day including getting up at two in the morning to make lovely hot meals for my hard-working husband whose job as a restaurant manager kept him working late shifts (and, as I discovered later -  busy entertaining the waitresses in certain vital carnal ways before returning home for his gourmet meal which he insisted he really needed and so loved in the wee hours of the morning as the children slept, as I rather groggily sauteed onions and tossed herbs here and there into the pots and pans while listening to his tales of the difficulties of his job and how his boss was a jerk) and the thought of boxed cereal did not even then enter my mind as a fabulous option for my children's breakfast when I got up to make that four hours later.

By looking closely at these examples it appears that in my case, a fast food feminist was not born but rather made.

The instance of this is clear in my mind, and I will tell you all about it.