Gas Stoves and other Contemporary Crises

 

When I was a boy back in the 1950s Bronx, my grandmother used to put a towel over the coffee pot to keep the coffee warm. One morning, the towel caught fire from one of the stove's other gas burners. I immediately shouted "Fire," which brought my mother running into the kitchen, but by then I had already grabbed the burning towel and safely thrown it into the sink. So, I guess, I have always known that there might be some danger associated with gas stoves. (Only recently did I learn about other dangers - e.g. respiratory ailments like asthma - associated with gas stoves.) Fear of fire never stopped me from cooking on a gas stove, of course. Over the years, I have cooked on both gas stoves and electric ones. Of the two, I have probably preferred cooking with gas, but not enough to go to war over it.

Who would have thought that the fight for gas stoves would become a new front in the right-wing's unending culture-war panic? Thus, West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin responded to the news that gas stoves may be bad for one's health by proclaiming: “the last thing that would ever leave my house is the gas stove that we cook on.” Of course, as far as we know, nothing is being taken from that particular fossil-fuel advocate's house - or anyone else's house!

There seems to be no end to the random assortment of issues - from the drag queen lurking in your local library to the gas stove in your kitchen - that right-wing culture warriors can find to create constant panic.

At this apocalyptic moment, however, my panic and righteous indignation have been triggered by the much more shocking news that Ronzoni - the pasta company founded in 1915 that I grew up revering (Ronzoni sono buoni!) - has ceased production this month of its much beloved, tiny, star-shaped pasta, known as pastina. According to the company's announcement, “We searched extensively for an alternative solution but were unable to identify a viable solution.” So far, some six on-line petitions to save pastina have appeared.

Full disclosure: served as a separate dish (usually with butter) pastina was never my favorite. But pastina in home-made chicken soup may be as close to heaven as one can hope to get in this vale of tears!

The world would probably be better off without gas stoves. But it will be much worse without pastina!