Remember the episode of Seinfeld about Bizarro world? The world in which everything was the opposite of what it seemed to be? It was a Superman reference, as Jerry Seinfeld is a big Superman fan, and there was a DC comic about Bizarro, Superman’s opposite. (Thanks, Wikipedia, I had no idea…) But in this particular Seinfeld episode, I think it came up because George decided that since everything he’d done up until that point in his life had been wrong, or a mistake, he was now going to do the opposite of every urge, instinct or thought that came into his head. No trusting of the gut; in Bizarro world, up was down, night was day, ketchup was salsa…no, that’s not right, that was a different episode. He even orders chicken salad instead of his usual tuna at the diner. And George Costanza was a great creature of habit, so things must have been really Bizarro for him to do that.
I used to make Seinfeld references all the time when I taught at the big unnamed Culinary School. For the first decade, my students got all the references, and laughed with me, but then the laughs and looks of recognition started to trickle off, as the students got younger and I got older. Nobody got my references anymore. So sad. I was living in my own private Bizarro world. Where I assumed everybody else had seen every episode multiple times and knew all the jokes, but no, they hadn’t. It was disturbing. I’d entered “the world in which everything you think is right, is wrong”
I was speaking a dead language, like Cornish, or Manx, (technically those are not dead languages, just obscure ones, people do still speak Cornish and Manx, Google it) I was in Bizarro world, the world in which everything you think is right, is wrong. It really rocks the ground upon which you stand.
Or…is it that everything that you’ve been TOLD to think is right, is wrong? How can that be? If we’re TOLD things by people, who we are TOLD know the things that are right, how can those things turn out to be wrong? OMG, it really IS Bizarro world out there. But luckily, down here in the Foodiness™ Fallout Shelter, things are safe, and simple, warm, and cozy. So come on down and visit for a spell, and I’ll ease your fears and serve you soup and everything will be ok. For now.