Dad Snacks

I was telling our program director, Dr. Megan Elias, about a goofy idea I had for a cookbook. We were on our way to class, standing on the corner of Essex St. and Comm Ave. waiting for the crosswalk signal to turn, and I was second guessing the words coming out of my mouth as I was speaking them. I suppose I thought that someone as knowledgeable about academics and food as Megan is was never going to think that this idea was actually worth discussing. How wrong I was.

 

I think my original concept was called something like, “Weird Stuff My Dad Eats and Other Strange Combos,” and it was basically going to be a (very short) cookbook containing recipes of odd combinations of snacks featuring mostly processed foods. She didn’t even laugh at this wacky idea. In fact, she looked like she had just had an “a-ha!” moment, stuck her finger in the air, and said, “I like this idea!” She then got kind of excited and went on to say how I should talk to so-and-so and read such-and-such and then said I could incorporate gender into this cookbook and suggested I take her Food & Gender class, which I gratefully did. Several semesters later, and I now have a much better title for this cookbook she helped me coin, called “Dad Snacks,” and have a much more fully fledged concept for what this book can be, and I even have a book proposal written.

 

Dad snacks are foods composed and eaten by dads. They are often improvised in the moment, but these improvisations can also turn into elaborate, even ceremonial meals that are unique, fun, and nostalgic. If you had a dad or man in your life that ate something that was special or unique to them that you identified only with them, then that is a dad snack. Dad snacks are traditionally eaten alone but can also be presented with pomp and circumstance. Maybe when it was time for your dad to make dinner because Mom was out, you were served a dad snack for a meal. A dad snack might be as simple as a butter sandwich or as complicated as a thoroughly dressed bison burger that uses grilled cheese sandwiches as the bun.

 

Dad snacks, as I have learned, are much more than funny combinations of things that dads (or anyone, for that matter) eat. Dad snacks have been a reaction to Mom’s dominance in the kitchen. Dad snacks are a man’s way of proving that despite the fact that women have traditionally done much, if not all, of the work in the kitchen feeding the family, dads are culinary wizards in their own right. They demonstrate that a dad does not need permission or experience to create amazing meals; a creative genius only needs the freedom from restraint to wield the brush that paints a masterpiece. Dad snacks can also simply be a comforting way of connecting to a family member through food. Making a pizza from expired pantry ingredients only the way Dad did is a means of carrying on tradition.

 

My dad, for instance, who is the inspiration for this idea, eats snacks comprised of things like canned fish, spray cheese, and Funyuns. I had always thought that they were just weird things only my dad ate. But the more I talked about it with others and began looking around, the more I discovered that this was a phenomenon that very much resonated with others. I noticed after becoming a father myself that I was now eating this kind of stuff. I wasn’t sure if it was a way to connect with him or if my tastes were just evolving into something more... particular. I started to see dad snacks everywhere, and others started telling me about their own dads’ snacks. The snowball effect had begun.

​

In the Gastronomy program, I have taken some good advice from a graduate of the program, Krysia Lycette Villón, who suggested that if I had a subject of study that I was especially passionate about, I should try to make that the theme of every final paper I write. She said that I should somehow tie it into whatever class I was taking so that when I graduated, I would be sitting on what amounted to a large cache of related research that I could then more easily turn into something potentially usable after I was out of the program. After several final papers and projects, I am still keeping this in my line of sight. Whether or not this will turn into anything of value to others when I complete the program remains to be seen. But that goofy idea I blurted out on the street corner ended up becoming the focus of a few years (at least) of academic study, many extremely interesting conversations, and most importantly, personal connections.