In which I think “artisanal” is a wholly silly word.

Once upon a time, everybody made their own breads and cheeses (or at least personally knew the person who made the breads and cheeses they ate), and I imagine these products were earthy and rustic and “artisanal” and at least edible if not actually delicious. Yay.

Then came the Industrial Revolution and specialization and factories, and cheap, plentiful, uniform breads and cheeses came to be, and there was much rejoicing because making bread every goddamned week probably got really old and anyone who has ever been around homemade cheese-making knows it’s totally smelly and that’s even when you don’t actually own the cows and/or goats the milk came from.

Today when I walked from work down to the post office to see if I’d gotten anything interesting in the mail I passed all these cute little stores packed with “artisanal” breads and cheeses and salamis and olives and things, and it struck me as being kinda funny that we now go out of our way to buy bumpy, floury, expensive, stinky foods, and that it’s a sign of affluence to have the time and money to be able to pay top dollar for the fruits of peasants’ labor.

It may be that our great-great-great grandmothers wish they could reincorporate just long enough to smack us upside our trendy little heads.