Food Liberalism & The Death of the Pancake

It has been brought to my attention recently that the youth of this great nation has been seen slipping further and further into a state of moral decay. At first I chose not to believe such accusations, but on second observance I started to see why the older generation might think such things. Whereas youthful wonderment and curiosity is good for a society as a whole, there indeed can be too much of it: when traditions are so radically challenged that the previous generation can sit idly by no longer. They must fight back with a deep and true ferociousness.

So naturally at this point one may be justified in asking “for what new event or circumstance has warranted this geriatric resistance?” The answer, most surprisingly yet surely understandable, is what I would vaguely describe as a newfound food liberalism. Where one generation has honored traditions, the generation at hand is whimsical, unorthodox, and living in a fantasy world that may be likened to a saloon, gaining the reputation of “anything goes” over the years. But anything does not go. It shan’t go.

Granted I am writing this in the heat of the moment. Here I sit after returning from a breakfast with friends (I do not think we shall be called that in the future for reasons that will soon become clear) hammering away with ink and quill at my frustrations. Of all the things that transpired this fine morning, the debates, the politics, and the general town gossip, none set me off like the spread of food stuffs that was lain before me.

My hosts were a younger, newly intertwined couple. This is not about them per se, but it is about said meal; an assortment of foods. “Did you make any pancakes?” I asked eagerly as a plate of food was put under my nose. “Of course, they’re on your plate,” my generous host replied.

But they weren’t. All that lay on my plate was a couple strips of bacon, some eggs, and disc shaped bread with dots of other foods (or so it looked like) crudely jammed at will into the surface of them. As I pondered the flaw in my host’s thinking that “they were on my plate already,” I wondered if I, for a second, had gone mad. “Are they indeed on my plate?” I shoveled around some foods for a second, lifting the disc shaped monstrosity with my fork to see if the pancakes were hiding underneath. Oh, what a joy it would have been to find pancakes there!

“I’m terribly sorry to ask, but I’m afraid I didn’t receive any pancakes,” I said out loud soon after realizing I had done the requisite pondering and physical searching to render me sane. “Sure you do! Those are pancakes with chocolate chips in them. Some of them have blueberries too!” A lump gathered in my throat and I immediately lost my appetite, for these “discs” were the pancakes.

There’s a place for conservatism in most places and this should be most readily, and most necessarily, applied to breakfast spreads. Nothing was wrong in the great history of breakfast spreads—pancakes, eggs, bacon, ham, biscuits, gravy, etc.—to warrant such a radical change as blueberries being jammed into the pancakes. I say again, no one was complaining. But this generation’s moral apathy is truly shining through: rebellion for the sake of rebellion and change for the sake of boredom seem to be the only thing on the menu. When pressed about “why” these pancakes were so physically assaulted, the answer isn’t because the previous pancakes were bad; indeed, most everyone likes the original pancake. It is likened to that “spicing things up” or the “I don’t know; because!” attitude of youngsters.

Food liberalism is only the beginning. Change for the sake of mere change or boredom is a dangerous game. As the breakfast table before me as my witness, some things are fine, nay great, the way they are, and I will never again be subject to the whimsical morality of this generation’s willy-nilly need to put “stuff” in my pancakes.