Tag: Health

Caesar Salad and Cobb Salad

Emily debates whether to order Caesar salad or Cobb salad for lunch at Luke’s diner.

A classic Caesar salad [pictured] consists of whole leaves of romaine lettuce and croutons, dressed with lime juice, olive oil, coddled eggs, Worcestershire sauce, garlic, Dijon mustard, Parmesan cheese, and black pepper. Its creation is attributed to Caesar Cardini, an Italian immigrant who had restaurants in Mexico and the US. He is said to have invented the salad in 1924 at his restaurant Caesar’s in Tijuana, Mexico, when a busy Fourth of July left his kitchen depleted. He used what ingredients he had on hand, adding flair by tossing the salad at the table. In 1946, the salad was introduced to New York by Gilmore’s (!) Steak House, who added anchovies into the mix. Although Cardini disapproved, anchovies are now usually added. Lemon juice is also typically substituted for the lime juice.

Cobb salad is a classic American garden salad usually made from chopped salad greens, tomato, crisp bacon, fried chicken breast, hard-boiled eggs, avocado, chives, blue cheese, and red wine vinaigrette. The ingredients aren’t mixed together, but laid on the plate in neat rows. There are various stories as to how it was created, one being that it was invented in 1938 by Robert Cobb, the owner of the Brown Derby Restaurant in Hollywood, where it became a signature dish. The legend goes that Cobb hadn’t managed to eat until nearly midnight, and made the salad out of leftovers he found in the kitchen.

Coddled eggs are eggs that have been gently poached in a ramekin in a bain-marie, cooked just below boiling point. There is a risk of salmonella from eating them unless you are careful, hence Emily’s concern about ordering the Caesar salad. In the end, she orders the Cobb salad, where the eggs are hard boiled instead.

Note that Emily’s worry about the coddled eggs is basically the same conversation that Lorelai had with Sookie about mussels when they went out to dinner on their double date with Jackson and Rune. In both cases, Lorelai pleads with them to choose something else from the menu, in almost the same words.

Soup for Breakfast

LUKE: It’s the third day in a row you’ve ordered soup for breakfast.

Because she has a cold, Lorelai has ordered chicken noodle soup and mashed potato for breakfast at the diner. Mashed potato is soft and easy to eat, even with a sore throat, while chicken noodle soup is well known as a home remedy for colds, clearing nasal congestion and providing nutrition and hydration at the same time. I have never heard of anyone eating them for breakfast though, even when ill, and I would have thought it wasn’t a good idea to go out to breakfast when you have a cold, spreading your germs in a place where people eat.

“I’m not allowed to have mac and cheese”

PARIS: I’m not allowed to have mac and cheese.

RORY: Splurge.

Paris is allergic to dairy products, which was introduced in the episode, “Concert Interruptus” (Lorelai ordered her a cheese-free pizza). Someone eating something they’re allergic to isn’t a “splurge”, it’s a potential medical emergency!

Paris asks if Stars Hollow, a town of less than 10 000 people, has a 24-hour pharmacy in case she has a severe allergic reaction. Unbelievably, they do! In real life, the nearest 24-hour pharmacy to them would be in Waterbury or Hartford.

Rory may simply be lying, eager to keep Paris there so she is not left alone with Jess. If so, she’s taking a bit of a risk with Paris’ health in the process.

Spa Treatments at Birch Grove

Collagen facial skin rejuvenation and eye treatment (has Vitamin C and plant extracts in it)

Salt Glow (skin exfoliation done with coarse grains of salt)

Scalp Treatments

Watsu Massage (hydrotherapy shiatsu massage treatment done in a warm pool)

Pedicures

Egyptian Mud Bath (bathing in mud enriched with minerals that have anti-inflammatory effects)

Massages

They also have eucalyptus-scented air to breathe, cucumber water to drink, and serve fruit and yoghurt every morning by the pool.

Handball

LANE: Bible class has been moved an hour later, all to accommodate the reverend’s handball schedule.

In America, handball is a sport where players use their hands to hit a small rubber ball against a wall; it is sometimes called wallball. The idea is to hit the wall with the ball in such a way that your opponent is unable to do the same without hitting the ground twice, or hitting it out of bounds. The game is played on a small court, similar to a squash court. It is possible that the high school gym is used for handball in Stars Hollow.

The first historical record of someone hitting a ball against a wall with their hand is from Scotland in 1427, when King James I was a keen player. The game in America may go back to the American Revolution, but the earliest mention of the modern game is from San Francisco in 1873.

In the next season, we discover the Seventh Day Adventist pastor is named Reverend Melmim, although in real life, Seventh Day Adventist pastors aren’t actually addressed as “Reverend”.

It seems that even though Lane is grounded so badly she isn’t allowed to leave home, even to attend school, she is allowed to go to Bible class with her mother (and presumably, church). Later in the episode, we discover Bible class is on Saturday morning.

As Mrs Kim told Stars Hollow High that Lane had an infectious disease and was too sick to go to school, letting her out to attend Bible class seems like something the school would get to hear about.

Dairy and Mucous, Salt Water and Vinegar

PARIS: Dairy’s bad too because of the mucous. You haven’t had any dairy in the last forty-eight hours, have you?
RORY: In my cereal this morning.
PARIS: Geez! Okay, well there’s a solution of salt water and vinegar that can help cut that.

Paris (who is allergic to dairy herself) tells Rory that she isn’t allowed to have any dairy foods before the debate, because it stimulates the production of mucous. It’s commonly believed, but in fact this is a complete myth. There is simply no link between drinking milk and producing more phlegm. It’s thought that because milk and saliva form a moderately thick liquid that briefly coats the throat and tongue, it gives the illusion of having increased phlegm, hence the reason for the mistaken belief.

However, she is correct that vinegar is a natural decongestant – the usual home remedy is apple cider vinegar with honey in it. Salt water is also an excellent gargle to clear the throat, so it seems as if Paris has put the two things together to create what she must think is a doubly-powerful remedy. I’m hoping she only intends it as a gargle – drinking salt water is obviously bad for you, and might make Rory sick.

Treadmill

LUKE: Huh. You don’t eat with your mouth open do you?
LORELAI: Women don’t eat at all. We just look at food and jump on the treadmill.

Non-mechanical treadmills have been used since ancient times, usually as a mill worked by humans or animals to produce grain. They were also used as a punishment.

After research in the late 1960s into the value of aerobic exercise, the first mechanical treadmills were manufactured as exercise machines for walking and running. They are the biggest-selling pieces of exercise equipment worldwide.

As well as looking down on women who were careful with their diet, Lorelai also looked down on women who exercised. Maybe breaking her leg doing yoga warped her mind.

“I stopped being a child the minute the strip turned pink”

LORELAI: You wanted to control me.
EMILY: You were still a child.
LORELAI: I stopped being a child the minute the strip turned pink, okay?

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Lorelai implies that she discovered she was pregnant using a home pregnancy testing kit, the kind where the woman urinates on a stick and waits for the test to change colour, a strip which turns pink indicates a positive test. In fact, these sort of lateral flow tests didn’t become available until 1988, and weren’t widely available until the 1990s, while Lorelai got pregnant in 1984. Previous to this, home pregnancy testing kits were more like mini chemistry labs, where you mixed urine and the solution together to see if it changed colour.

Lorelai claims that she stopped being a child the minute she became pregnant. Getting pregnant doesn’t turn a girl into an adult, so Lorelai is wrong on that count. In fact, we can see during the show that becoming a mother at an early age stunted Lorelai’s emotional development so that her maturity remained at the level of a wayward teenage girl even into her thirties. This is the other side of the conflict between Emily and Lorelai, with neither of them being completely in the right or completely wrong, and with both of them over-dramatising their situations and claiming victim status.

By the way, Lorelai was very far from being rare as a teenage mother in Hartford. By the early 1990s, one quarter of all births in the city were to a teen mother. She was definitely an unusual teenage mother though.