Would Paleo Guy Have Preferred Pizza?

["Let Inga Tell You," La Jolla Light, published September 29, 2025.  2025

It has really only been in the most recent history that humans - well, first world humans anyway - have had the luxury of deciding what they want to eat.  This has lead to endless debate and virtually no agreement on what constitutes a healthy food regimen.  I know a number of people, for example, who follow the the Paleo diet, basically limiting themselves to what was available to our earliest ancestors.

Now, I am in no way bashing the Paleo diet except to comment that a life without ice cream or pasta seems like a cruel way to live. But when you read about what those guys were actually eating back in the early Stone Age, you gotta wonder whether they would have killed for a loaf of Wonder Bread and a jar of Jiffy.

I was imagining Stone Age family life back in the Paleolithic era where people allegedly lived in caves, but most didn't simply because there weren't all that many caves.  Also, there was a lot of competition for cave real estate from wild creatures.  I whine about rodents but Paleo Mom had to call Hyena-Be-Gone if she wanted to get rid of household pests.

In that era, dinner was basically whatever you could hunt or gather.  Eat it or starve.  I imagine that starving probably sometimes felt like the better option. But then, those people didn't throw their genes forward.

Now "gather' has such a nice idyllic sound to it.  When I imagine it, it is never raining.  Paleo Mom (women were the gatherers), a couple of squabbling kids in tow, meanders the local terrain picking berries, digging for tubers, and trying to create a balanced meal that would satisfy the minimum daily requirements for iron, folate, and at least a smattering of the B vitamins.  Unless, of course, it was winter, in which case she wasn't picking much of anything.  It all depended on where you lived, obviously, but in colder climates, more likely a lot of edible roots and tree bark  Yum-mo!

Again, depending on where you lived, you could be finding fruit, nuts, insects, small lizards, and a selection of various sized mammals.  The option of getting food that was "out of season" was 35,000 years out.

The "hunting" part is under some debate. One likes to imagine Paleo Dad loping across the savannah in hot pursuit of a wooly mammoth.  Of course, he had to drag it back home once he slew it, or at least the meaty parts. In my fantasies, the Paleo kids are sitting around the fire when Dad gets home, and instead of greeting him with delight that he has brought home dinner (and that he himself wasn't the dinner of assorted predators), they whine, "Wooly mammoth AGAIN?  That's all we ate LAST week!"  

But no, I'm guessing that didn't happen much.  Paleo Mom, meanwhile, wanted to know, "Does this wolf pelt make me look fat?"

While the Mighty Hunter image sounds kind of romantic, it's been theorized that those Paleo folks didn't necessarily always kill their own food.  Some anthropologists maintain it was likely that they scavenged meat, fat, and organs from carcasses that larger animals had killed or from animals that had died of natural causes.  Sort of like an early deli.  "Look, Thag! The snout is still here!  Lunch!"  By this theory, Paleo dieters should probably be eating roadkill.

It's always fun to superimpose our lives onto those of our antecedents, especially if trying to replicate their diet. So I'm thinking about Paleo Mom saying to Paleo Dad, "The Groksteins are coming for dinner on Saturday.  I'm thinking bison or ground sloth, with a side of grasshoppers and fly larvae.  Do not even THINK of bringing home any carcasses.  Fresh kill only!"

And Paleo Dad grumbles but goes and picks up his spear.  No point in telling her that ground sloths are already extinct and the last bison he saw was twenty miles away

So I guess it's kind of hard to know how healthy the Paleo diet really was for the people who actually ate it.  Definitely a lot of protein in those insects.  But a lot of risk in eating a rotting carcass that has sat in the sun a day too long.  Maybe that's why Paleo Guy was usually dead by thirty.

Letting my always-perverse imagination run free, I like to speculate what Paleo Guy would think if he could see into the future world of us trying to emulate his diet (minus the lizards and beetles and fly larvae).  Would he say, "That pepperoni pizza you're eschewing in my name? I would have eaten it in a heartbeat." Unfortunately, home delivery didn't start until the Mesolithic.  Would it baffle him why anyone would restrict their diet if they could eat anything they wanted?  Would be puzzle why anyone would eat tofu if they had another choice?  Much to ponder. 

 

 

Geography: The Subject That Fell Off The U.S. Curriculum

[“Let Inga Tell You,” La Jolla Light, published September 15, 2025]  ©2025

A while back, I hired an amiable local kid to help me move some boxes, explaining that my husband was in Saudi Arabia.

My teen helper’s brow puckered for a moment before he inquired, “Is that near Fresno?”

My husband and I remember geography as a regular part of our grade school education.  We had to fill in blank maps of the United States with the state names, and to be able to recite all the state capitals.  World geography figured in pretty predominantly as well, especially as part of the required social studies segment, Current Events.  It seemed pertinent to know where those Current Events were actually occurring. 

At some point, it seems that geography ceased to be taught in the U.S,  When Olof and I were relocated by his company to Stockholm for two years, I stopped by a La Jolla shipping office and queried the sweet young thing at the counter about shipping rates to Sweden.

“Is that like a country?” she asked.

“Yes,” I said, “it’s very much like a country.” 

American’s lack of geographical knowledge in general, and Sweden’s location in particular, became apparent to us over and over in our Scandinavian sojourn.   At a last-minute medical appointment before leaving for Stockholm, the physician’s assistant departed the room with a cheery, “Well, enjoy the Alps!”

Meanwhile, a younger friend asked me to bring her back a box of “those great chocolates.”  Even when I suggested she might be confusing Sweden with Switzerland, it was followed by a look of, “There’s a difference?” And then: “So you’ll bring the chocolates?” 

The Swedes are only too ruefully aware of this tendency of Americans to confuse Sweden with Switzerland.  In fact, when we were living there, there was an entire humorous billboard campaign with slogans translating to “Do you see the world as the world sees you?” showing Sweden on a map where Switzerland is actually located.  Other billboards facetiously showed polar bears roaming the streets of Stockholm. 

Even though geography seems to have dropped off American curricula, we were always impressed at how well-versed Europeans were on world geography.  I remember sitting with several American friends in a Stockholm café having fika (a coffee tradition beloved by the Swedes).  We were trying to remember the capital of Michigan which somehow was related to our conversation.  A Swedish guy at the next table overheard our conversation and supplied, “Lansing.” 

There must have been a least some minimal geography instruction in more recent times as my older son remembers being taught the mnemonic Not So Fast to help remember the order of Norway, Sweden and Finland on a map. Now geography seems to be Not So Much.

By pure luck, my younger son was blessed with two years of concentrated geography courtesy of a third and fourth grade teacher who began each day with a student giving a three-minute presentation, including maps, of a city, country, or region of their choosing anywhere in the world.  By his second year with this teacher, Henry, then nine, struggled to find an area that hadn’t been done before. 

“How about Abu Dhabi?” I said, since Olof had just been there.

“Mom,” said Henry with barely disguised annoyance, “Abu Dhabi has been done THREE TIMES.”

Inspired by this teacher, I had acquired a Map of the World shower curtain for the kids’ bathroom.  They might never look at a globe but they had to take a bath.

Several years later, Henry and I were watching a quiz show and the clue was “island nation in the Indian Ocean beginning with “M”.  Mom had to ponder that, but without missing a beat, Henry said, “Madagascar, Mauritius, or Maldives.”  Adding, “Malta is in the Mediterranean.” 

“You actually remember that from fourth grade?”  I said.

“Yeah,” he said, “but I mostly remember that from yesterday from the shower curtain.” 

We are now on at least the 10^th successor of that first one.  As an atlas, it tends to run at least a few years behind but the manufacturer has gradually updated it:  Bombay has morphed into Mumbai, and all the “stans” are duly indicated.  We have long embraced Geography Through Bathing.

At one point, a decorator who was doing a faux finish wall treatment of the bathroom for me grumbled that the curtain was unforgivably tacky and why had I bothered to upgrade the bathroom if I were going to keep it? 

We’re keeping it because at my British nephew’s wedding to a young lady from an American southwestern state, the groom’s exasperated uncle ditched his prepared toast for a lecture on “Where is England?” and “What is the U.K.?” to a bewildered-looking group of the bride’s guests. In his week in this country prior to the wedding, the uncle had fielded such questions, “Is England near Thailand?” (because they both end in “land.”)  And “is England different from New England?” 

But getting back to the kid who asked about Arabia’s proximity to Fresno:  

“Actually,” I said, “it’s closer to Omaha.”

This shower curtain has taught a lot of geography to my kids

This Swedish billboard campaign illustrated how confused foreigners are about Sweden's location

 

 

What Should Legally Be Allowed On A Pizza

["Let Inga Tell You,"  La Jolla Light, published September 8, 2025] 2025

I'm pondering how it is even possible that in sixteen years and 570 columns, I've never written an entire one about pizza. More specifically, what should legally be allowed on top of one.

I'm from the Northeast where people actually know how to make pizza. You'd think that given how many easterners have migrated west in search of better weather that they would have brought pizza-making skills with them. But this is not true.

It's always an issue every Christmas when the extended family, including my daughter-in-law's Connecticut parents, congregate at my younger son's home in L.A. for the holidays. In combining traditions of both families, the Christmas Eve menu is pizza, which is how my daughter-in-law's family always did it.

I am sure Los Angeles has actual pizza. But the stuff that's delivered - some eight boxes - is nothing I would recognize. My daughter-in-law's mother and I always peek into the boxes hoping in vain that this year something with red sauce and nitrates will appear. But it never does. We both shake our heads and mutter, "Surely they have real pizza in this town?"

What does show up are pizzas with white sauces and vegetables that in my view should be legally enjoined from topping a pizza. These include broccoli (especially), kale, and large portobello mushrooms. I would almost (please note I said almost ) eat a ham and pineapple pizza than these.

I've never quite understood the appeal of a ham and pineapple pizza yet there are obviously persons who eat them. I worry about these people.

Of course, one could always remove the broccoli and kale and portobello mushrooms from the top but we fear that underneath is simply a gluten-free crust. Or god forbid, cauliflower. The desecration of pizza seems to have no limits.

Now, in full disclosure, I should mention that one of my husband Olof's and my many compatibilities is our fondness for anchovy pizza. It is becoming harder and harder to find at pizzerias, likely pushed out by all those cauliflower-crusted broccoli abominations.

People will not let you have anchovies on just your side of a pizza, insisting it contaminates theirs. And in truth, they are correct. So if you want an anchovy pizza, you have to marry someone who also likes it. It's its own love language. 

Every year on our June wedding anniversary, we order an anchovy pizza to be delivered to our front yard, where we sit and enjoy the sunset and excessive sodium intake. At our age, we're not really supposed to ingest an entire years salt allotment in one sitting. But we do.

Our kids rudely refer to our love of an anchovy pie as a "bait"  pizza. But then, they're the kind of people who put kale on theirs. Both of them. I sometimes lie awake at night wondering where I went wrong. Well, other than raising them in California.

When I was growing up on the east coast, anchovies were a not-uncommon ingredient in restaurant food, especially Italian. Their popularity does not seem to have survived the crossing of the Mississippi.

When you order a Caesar salad here, the anchovies are optional. Um, excuse me, but they are NOT optional. It's what makes it a Caesar salad. When the waitress asks if you want anchovies, she is shocked if you say yes. She asks you a second time because she has already written no on her order pad.

I should also mention that when we lived in Sweden, we experienced a cultural variation of fish pizza that surprised even us. We ordered a crayfish pizza one night and got a pizza with an actual entire crayfish, beady eyes and all, on top of it. We like to think it was already dead.

It is a testament to how much pizza has evolved (some would say devolved) that a few years ago, one of the airlines that we use notified both my husband Olof and me that we would have to strengthen our passwords on our mileage accounts and select new security questions.

Olof and I hate security questions. For virtually all of our accounts financial, travel, etc. we try to have security questions that we would both know the answer to. City where we were married (La Jolla) is always a good choice, although this is actually both of our second marriages so even that one has potential for confusion. We always go for Olof s first pet. City where you were born has at least a 50% chance of being correct. We never use grandmother s maiden name since neither of us can remember our own much less the other person's.

But with this new system, the airline offered fifteen security questions of which we were required to pick five and select answers from a pull-down menu. It goes without saying that if either of us, but especially Olof, has to prove identity to this airline with the answer to any of these questions, he'd have to take the bus back from Chicago.

There was not one single question of the fifteen that we would both know the answer to. That is because the airline outsourced this project to pod people from a parallel galaxy who have not visited Earth in any recent time-space continuum.

To be accurate, there WAS one question that I knew we'd both know the answer to without a single doubt: What is your favorite pizza topping? Woo-hoo! Anchovies! But were anchovies one of the options? Nope! A Middle-Eastern spice called Za'atar was an option, as was mashed potatoes. On a pizza? Even something called "giardiniera"  which sounds like an intestinal disease you get from camping. But no anchovies.

But back to Christmas. Fortunately Christmas Eve dinner ends with another tradition from my daughter-in-law's family: sinfully chocolatey brownies oozing with homemade hot fudge and topped with peppermint ice cream. I've never taken heroin but this is how I'm guessing heroin makes people feel. Your endorphins are in overdrive. And you forget all about that nasty pizza that you have been slowly feeding to Teddy and Tizzy (the dogs). They seem to like it, but normally all they get is kibble. I rest my case.

Crayfish pizza in Stockholm