When is it not okay to eat peanut butter on celery for dinner?

This past weekend I treated myself to what I both lovingly and facetiously call the ex pat market. Basically, it's like Whole Foods if the organic products were all replaced with name brand, everyday products from everywhere but Hungary and with the occasional box mix of Betty Crocker Brownies. But similar in that the average person cannot afford to go there for every day shopping. Suffice to say there few Hungarian nationals (and few ex pats) who can afford a $7 chocolate bar, even if it is Swiss. But nothing spells living large and abroad like plunking down $5 for a bag of tortilla chips. It's like a rich stoners paradise. Everything the munchies imply can be found even if at a premium. I was in full faculty during said spending spree, but here you see what sentimentality and $90 can get you at Culinaris:



It made me think about the phenomenon of ostalgia, the nostalgia, or longing for of certain aspects that had been part of every day life and culture in the former East Germany - the things that disappeared after reunification and were swept away in the immediate transition as ancient symbols of the old communist system that were best left in the past. While the term can also refer to a longing for systematic aspects of the socialist system for people who held on to the belief in the socialist ideal, and even for those who, a decade or so later, longed for what they remembered as a simpler time when housing and health were taken care of by the state and provided for, for the majority of people, it is connected with a nostalgia for certain products. Like pickles, for example. Or in Hungary, Traubi soda. Coke was the product of imperialism but what kid doesn't enjoy a carbonated sugary beverage? Ergo Traubi soda, which tastes sort of like if cream soda, ginger ale and Fresca had a fight and Fanta won. It's delicious!

So in the fervor to rid the bad memory of separation, and recognize the so-called victory of the west, these products of daily life were quickly cast aside and put out of production. But is the Cold War the fault of the Trabant car or the Spreewald pickle? Imagine if suddenly our most everyday items were take from us, wouldn't Mother's Cookies, for example, suddenly take on retro-chic status if we had to find them online. Oh shit! That one already happened! Ok, how about Zima for those of us who wanted to move beyond Bud Lite and Cactus Coolers in 1986? Damn! They got that one too! You get the idea. Jello pudding? French's mustard? Vlasik pickles?

And then imagine you are not thinking in terms of the politicization of your food preferences and are on the surface merely driven by your desire for tarter sauce or green chili salsa? You shop upscale. You go to the most expensive - and to many - gourmet - shop in Hungary and load up on peanut butter (but not Skippy, cos even you won't pay $9 for heaven in a jar but will pay $6 for some Dutch offbrand that is damn good.

Communist kitsch also includes uniforms, flags, the now forbidden symbols. In Hungary, you can experience the kitsch at Marxim Bar where you can order your "Snow White and the Seven Small Proletariat" pizza or "Comrade Master and the Margheritta" (sic). And in East Germany, be sure to pay a not so retro price to drive around the neighborhoods in a Trabant on what is now called a "Trabi Safari". Don't all snap a photo of the sleeping cheetah at once! Maybe in LA we can start to offer guided tours in your choice of a Toyota Celica or Country Squire station wagon.

Oh, and this is best captured in the excellent film Good Bye Lenin!. At the same time, there exists a backlash from the German west, articles like this one eager to see the East-stalgia come to a close and the critical look at the communist past reclaim center stage. However, I think being dismissive of what is scoffed at as misguided sentimentality betrays a profound lack of understanding on the culture of every day life. There must be a better way to reconcile pickles, politics and philosophy.