Jorge wrote:How often do you run into those ridiculous-questions people? Are they usually older folks?
Oh yeah, almost exclusively older folks. Last November, my mother (with help) served a fully vegan Thanksgiving, other than the turkey. This blew the mind of every boomer at that table. The joke is that vegans talk about being vegan a lot, try sitting down to a mosly-vegan meal with a 70-year-old.
It wasn't even weird stuff. Maybe a lentil loaf is a little goofy, but how do you have so many questions about mashed potatoes made with soy milk and vegan butter (basically margarine, which has been around forever). One guy asked how we made vegan gravy, then asked how one makes regular gravy. He was astounded that vegan gravy was possible without even knowing what regular gravy is. One person is a literal medical doctor who had questions that were not too far off from "where does milk come from?"
It was astounding (and annoying). And it makes you realize why America needed advice from guys like Michael Pollan about what food is and how to read ingredients labels. Entire generations just mindlessly shoveled whatever we were told was food into our mouths.
My mom is not a chef, but she's basically a chef. She's been cooking family meals on a daily basis since she was about 12. She loves food, she cares about food. She makes stuff from scratch, within reason. That was kind of how I came up thinking about food. But that doesn't seem to be the standard. People do not know how food is made or what it's made of (older people, especially).