Jim Gaffigan Isn’t Buying Kale
If you doubted that The New York Times bestselling author and comedian Jim Gaffigan loved food, the title of his latest book, out last week, will set you straight. In Food, A Love Story (Crown Archetype), Gaffigan takes a look at everything from the Baconator to deep-fried ravioli, and we’re sharing some of our favorite excerpts this week.
We want to eat healthy to feel better, but what we truly desire is to increase our life spans. We all want to live longer, but how much longer? You ever talk to an old person? I mean a really, really old person. They always have this exhausted look on their face that says, I can’t believe I’m still here! I would’ve eaten so much more ice cream. Why did I ever consume kale?
Ten years ago nobody ate kale. Then someone (probably a kale farmer or Satan) discovered that kale had some health benefits, and off kale went. Now we are in the middle of a full-fledged kale trend or, as I call it, a kale epidemic. There are kale chips, kale shakes, and even kale salads. I don’t know much about grammar, but I think kale salad is what they call a “double negative.” Kale is a superfood, and its special power is tasting bad. If tasting horrible is an indication of something being healthy, kale is the healthiest thing out there. Kale tastes like bug spray. Once I looked at a can of bug spray, and printed right there on the can was “Made with real kale.” The mantra of the kale lobby is “Kale is so good for you. Kale is so good for you.” So is jogging, but I’m not going to do that either. I’m not against things that are healthy. Well, not in principle. My issue with kale is a simple one. Kale is not edible. It is amazing the lengths we will go to in order to be able to stomach kale: “All you have to do is freeze-dry it, cover it in cayenne pepper, put it in a shake, and bury it in the ground.” It doesn’t matter what you do to kale: it still tastes like bitter spinach with hair. I suppose some people don’t care what it tastes like. “Kale is so good for you.” As for me, taste is too important. They could find out kale cures cancer and I’d say, “No thanks, I think I’ll just do the chemo. I’ve tried the kale.” I guess the thing I can’t stand the most about the kale trend is the bragging that is associated with eating it. People seem to bring up eating kale as if it’s something that’s going to impress me.
GUY: I just ate kale.
ME: I don’t care.
Announcing you ate kale is like the bringing-up-the-SAT-score of vegetables. Nobody asks, but annoying people find a way to work it into a conversation. Haven’t we evolved as a species so we would no longer have to eat things like kale? I’m sure that cavemen thousands of years ago were grunting in a field, “One day, son, we no longer forage for weeds. There be long metal fire sticks for me to kill big beast, and then me eat porterhouse steaks and me no longer sound like Cookie Monster. NUM NUM NUM.” Recently at a school event for parents, one of the moms was nice enough to make a bean soup. Being a fan of free food, I grabbed a bowl, tasted it, and did the obligatory “This is great!” The soup mom then said with a big condescending smile on her face, “I snuck some kale in there.” I nodded politely, but I felt like throwing my bowl at her. This soup mom was trying to impress me with a plant trend that will likely have the life span of a fruit fly. Well, one can only hope.
Three recipes Jim Gaffigan isn’t making:
Kale and Goat Cheese Muffin Recipe
We Hope You’re Not Over Kale Salads
What Is Lollipop Kale?
