The Globe sure has egg on its face today
Did we just wake up in 1957? In today's g, we learn that men are bloodthirsty carnivores who can't wait to rip into a haunch of raw meat (even as they pop their statins), while women just want to sit with their tea cups, daintily nibbling at watercress sandwiches, in a cover story cleverly headlined Guys vs. dolls.
But is the Globe's science coverage all it's cracked up to be? Let us consider this quote from a wedding planner, who apparently has spent the past 30 years carefully watching women at parties to see what they eat:
Take deviled eggs, for example. "I don't think I've ever seen a woman eat a deviled egg" at a social function, says Safford.
I confronted my wife with this allegation just now. "Yes, I've eaten deviled eggs at social functions," she scowled. "On more than one occasion. I've served deviled eggs at social functions." Oh, yeah, and when we go to a steakhouse, she orders the meat, medium rare, while I go for something wussy and unmanly, like tuna or fettucine alfredo with, gasp, broccoli. And then I go home and pop a statin.
Plus, I've seen deviled eggs on a platter at the West Roxbury Evening Garden Club's Christmas party, an event attended almost exclusively by people of the distaff persuasion. I seem to recall last year the Evening Garden Club had a great big honking ham on the serving table, too.
Lissa Harris, whom I believe does not have any Y chromosomes, either, also admits to an attraction to the restuffed eggs:
... I sometimes think I might be the only person east of Worcester who owns a special deviled-egg plate and uses it on a regular basis. I never let a summer barbecue go by without making a giant mess of deviled eggs, and I usually consume an untoward number of them personally. ...
So here are two women who eat deviled eggs vs. the Globe's one "expert." Actually, make that 42 women who eat deviled eggs, if you include all the women at that garden party. Scientifically, at least as science is done at g, that means we win and the Globe is wrong.
Comments
Yes but
Has she served social eggs at deviled functions? Hah? I ask you!
Egg on my face
Stupid mistake fixed!
I received a Deviled Egg
I received a Deviled Egg plate for Christmas! I had been borrowing my nana's- they're hard to come by these days.
A missing fact
The reason Safford has never seen a woman eating deviled eggs at a social function is because I always get there first and surreptitiously run off with the whole platter. And I'm female. Deviled eggs are much better finger foods than, say, crackers with piles of stuff on top of them.
be-pitchforked and plate of be-deviled eggs
When I read this outrage bu the Globe Science section, I picked up my pitchfork and plate of deviled eggs and took to the streets. OUTRAGE!
Another woman who loves deviled eggs (and steak for that matter)
SRSLY, Boston Globe?
I adore deviled eggs and bring them to parties all the time. My female friends also love them (my brothers, however, hate them).
Deviled egg plates are hard to find - I was lucky enough to inherit three of them and I use all of them.
Hard to find dishware
Along with deviled egg plates, I had a heck of a time finding a Jello mold... I guess I like out-of-style dishes, but it's not Christmas without deviled eggs or strawberry Jello mold with sour cream and pineapple chunks!
Jello Mold - Aspic
Yum!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aspic
Google Image Search to the rescue!
So hard to find women eating deviled eggs...in fact, a woman eating them is not only the first hit when searching for "eating deviled eggs", but on the first page, other than pics of just deviled eggs, it's only females eating them!
Geezum crow! And it's supposed to be special that some guy wrote a book about getting firefighters to stop eating a heavy cholesterol diet? Well, hell, butter me up and stuff me in a dress...I've got a giant bowl of salad in my fridge right now and I had spinach and cheese ravioli in a tomato sauce for dinner a few nights ago.
i bet they're still puzzling over their declining readership numbers at the Globe, too.
The Globe archives must have been down the day this was edited
Because nobody bothered to fact-check the assertion about women and deviled eggs against what the Globe's own reporters (women reporters!) have written over the past couple of years. In fact, reviewer Devra First seems to make a point of rating restaurants based in part on the quality of their deviled eggs.
And how is this news?
I mean, I know the lifestyle sections of the paper are fluff, but this is just really lame fluff. Plus, I love deviled eggs.
She blinded me with non-science
There is a huge difference between food or lifestyle trends writing and science writing.
As soon as you *sound like* you're reporting science, causing readers to don their science hats, you have to really be doing science writing.
I kept having the reaction to grafs, "I don't understand... I don't think that experiment (or anecdote) tells us what the article seems to be implying..."
Right, this did not come from the old Science section
But it did appear in the section of the paper where the Globe now shunts its science coverage and it does appear to be a product of the Globe's Let's Make Up Trends Based on a Bunch of Anecdotes and a Single 'Expert' Department.
Blessed are the Cheesemakers
I'm shocked that they couldn't find a single ex-urban purveyor of organic, gourmet deviled eggs from their own free-range chickens. No mystical Deviled Egg Ceremony at a rustic teahouse in rural Vermont? No lengthy peroration on yolk color and the etymology of "deviled?" What am I still buying this paper for?
Garlic Scapes!
My deviled eggs simply must be served with garlic scapes.
so they're getting rid of...
...City Weekly and keeping this guano?!?!
I thought...
that it took three women plus one expert to make a trend?
deviledeggs.com
Naturally. You have to admire how they don't shy away from the great pinhole controversy (whether to make a tiny hole in eggs before you hard-boil them).
But please read their disclaimer before you act on any of their advice:
Aaaaahhh!!!
I got paprika in my eyes! I'm gonna sue!!
Silly Science
I saw that article this morning and thought it was silly, but had no idea that it was supposed to be a "science" article. I just thought it was there because Wednesday is food day in the Globe.
Well, they probably laid off most of their science writers and that's what you get.
Deviled in the Details
Geebus, when will newspaper and magazine editors learn that gender essentialism and "evolutionary" psychology are nothing but bunk - in much the way that a "take this test to see if you are a venus or mars woman" is not the same as gathering data.
As for deviled eggs, gee whiz! I went to a baby shower this weekend where the women were very glad to see them and scarfed them down right and left. I never make them because my family hates them and it is pointless to make a single one.
I'll tell you what to do with your deviled eggs
Make a bigass platter of them, then bring it to my house. Problem solved. I suggest doing this on an at least weekly basis.
Also, I discovered that Roche Bros sells PACKETS OF ALREADY BOILED AND SHELLED EGGS. No need to ever cook or go to restaurants again. Plate o' eggs, shaker o' martinis, what else do you need?
http://1smootshort.blogspot.com
Do Cougars eat Devilled Eggs?
If you can tear yourself away from the Devilled Egg coverage,
be sure to check out Meredith Goldstein coverage on
"The Truth about Cougars". Another Pulitzer in the making.
reverse evolution
From storied newspaper to lifestyle rag. It's disturbing and disappointing.
they've run lifestyle stories for decades
I have some memory of when Living was a separate section from Arts & Films. The section goes back at least to the mid-1970s.
you're right, but...
Ron, yes, that's true re lifestyle stories in newspapers, but it disappoints me that fluff stuff already is in abundance all over the Web for free -- indeed, the blogosphere is awash in it -- while hard news coverage and investigative reporting are shrinking away.
Here's a whimsical exercise...
Imagine that there's this news blog site that employs a full staff of exceptionally skilled and knowledgeable people to investigate and report on a breadth and depth of issues affecting a city. They even have formalized rules of ethics and propriety, and distinct editing and fact-checking functions, to help assure quality. The output and impact of this Web site is leagues beyond that of most any other news blog. And when you see something on their site, you know they're serious, and that it's not filler or pandering. They are hailed as the authoritative voice and even as gods, others strive to emulate them, and little children neglect their toy six-shooters and firefighter hats in favor of notepads and voice recorders.
Well, the Globe still needs to figure out reader participation, but other than that, the Globe could be this mythical uber-site in a matter of months. They're close to there already, but someone needs to figure out the business side, such that they can afford to kill off the junk food portion of the content. (No sooner said than done, I'm sure. :)
And it's particularly
And it's particularly disturbing that the ratio of lifestyle fluff to hard news is the reverse of what it's been for most of the Globe's life (er, make that my life of reading the Globe). As someone mentioned upstream, they are getting rid of City Weekly to keep up with turning out fluff?
(Oh, and if someone is keeping track, I'm a female who eats devilled eggs.)