Forsooth!

Let's face it, the majority of the United Statesians are wasteful. We not only produce a disproportionate amount of pollution, we also waste vast amounts of resources, like fossil fuels, water, and food so we can live comfortably. And by comfortably, I mean in a way that the majority of the world's population would find abounding. But this entry is not an animadversion. (Okay, maybe it is, but I just really wanted to use that word.) This entry is about wasting food... for good.

When you think of the holidays, what first comes to mind? Santa Claus. No, what else? Christmas trees! No, what else? Wrapping paper? Geez, you suck at this. Duh, gingerbread houses. What better way to ring in the holiday season than with a miniature replica of a warm and cozy house made out of gingerbread and frosting and various candies manipulated to look like roof tiles and stone walkways. (Have you ever stopped to think just how truly weird the human race is?)

Anyway, back to gingerbread houses. Interestingly, making replicas (of saints and crosses and the like) out of gingerbread dates back to the good old medieval days when people used to empty their piss pots in the streets and say things like, "Forsooth!" whatever that means. Of course, the ingredients needed to make these fine edible saints and crosses were very expensive and thus a tradition that was reserved for commercial bakers or wealthy households. Oh, the more things change, etc.

Although I am not particularly wealthy I do have wealth potential, and therefore I can afford to buy extra graham crackers (the lazy person's gingerbread), and icing (a.k.a. frosting in a plastic tub--this, by the way, is not actually a food, but the synthetic version thereof). I can also afford the various candies needed to spruce up my fake, edible house. Of course, now you're probably wondering where all this is going. The truth is it's really just a v-e-r-y long caption for the above photo of my amazing gingerbread concoction. Notice that I have a lamp post and lights on my house. It's a very upscale edible house.

The thing is, no one is going to eat it. And if so, the eater would die from poisoning since there is an entire tub of frosting on my house, which I had to use in order to cover up the graham cracker frame (kind of like insulation) and so the other graham crackers would stick on top of the frosting (like aluminum siding). Let's face it. It's cute, but it's the ultimate waste of food. I can only hope that my other conservation efforts help balance out the karma.