Sh*t White People Eat

When I was at the vaunted Olympic Club on Monday, I kept saying that I wanted to go into the clubhouse and order a white wine spritzer and relax on the patio. Beth finally asked, "Do people still drink those?" I have no idea, but it seems like the kind of drink a woman who frequents a country club would drink. And then I'd have a TaB. (True story: law firm I worked at during college had TaB in the vending machine. Every secretary, and they sure as shit were still secretaries, no admin assistant crap, to a woman (yes, all women), drank it. That shit is straight up white girl fuel.)

It got me thinking about other shit white people eat, which brought to mind this hysterical, and completely accurate, article from a couple years ago in the Hairpin about artichoke dip. (My family adds diced jalapeno and Tony's to ours. We like a bit of heat. We're dangerous.)



Then a couple days later it was my mom's birthday and we had the most white people menu ever: mashed potatoes and gravy, prime rib, asparagus, yellow cake with chocolate frosting, and for starters we had dill dip.

I just couldn't help pondering the weirdness of white people and their eating habits. (My family is super white. I'm not even gonna pretend like we're all hip because we live in SF. I mean, we eat out at *gasp* ethnic places and don't order steaks well done (chef has every right to refuse you service if you do that) but I'm the 3rd generation of my family to be educated through high school in Catholic school. We're super uptight white people.) (The Catholic part obviously makes us technically not WASPs but there's really not a better phrase for what we are so...WASP it is.)

Does your family eat dill dip? I'm really curious about it. It's been in my family for as long as anyone can remember. I have no idea where it came from or what prompted anyone to make it. It has got to be some mid-20th century deal, as most of the more atrocious foods you eat come from that era. (I'm looking at you, cheese log.)

I did a quick google search to even see if it was something other people ate because I've only ever had it at our family events. I've never ever seen it elsewhere. All I learned from google searches was that though it must exist elsewhere because there are recipes, most people are using equal parts sour cream and mayonnaise in the recipe. For some reason THAT made me want to gag. Not the actual recipe, which isn't much better, but the use of so much mayo. Egads. My waistline probably wishes we were still in that youthful period where I didn't like sauces and dips and dressings. Ah, to be that girl again, without a devotion to ranch dressing.

Dill dip, for the uninitiated, is:

About 2 cups of sour cream
A couple tablespoons mayonnaise
One package fresh dill, stems removed, chopped (Lots of people use dried. Those people live in Kansas.)
A lot of recipes use beau monde and my mom says back in the day we used it too. I have no clue what that is so I'm skipping it. Your midwestern mother probably has some on the shelf though. Feel free to dump a teaspoon in if she does.

Obviously this can be doubled, tripled, or quadrupled. I make those huge Costco size sour creams of it for our big party every fall.

Throw everything in a bowl (all three ingredients) and stir. The mayo exists solely to make it more viscous and thus dippable so add as much of that as necessary until that happens. But that's not equal parts! If you let this sit overnight, it's infinitely better. Well, as better as something that is disgusting(ly delicious) can be. You should let it meld in the fridge for at least a couple hours though.

This is one of the few recipes I don't actually throw Tony's in (I know!) because you don't want to ruin the austere taste of sour cream and mayonnaise with actual spice. WASPs would gasp.

Now, on it's own dill dip is pretty inoffensive. It's just a sour cream based dip. Use it on veggies! Except we have never ever used it on veggies. Do you know what we use to dip in it? Potato chips. Specifically, Wavy Lays. The mix of super salty crunch with creamy dip is delicious. And so so so lacking any redeeming health value. I bet Betty Draper served this shit. It is THAT WASPy of a dish. Ugh. I'm disgusted just thinking about eating it. But I do. Mindlessly dipping chip after chip into what is basically a vat of flavored sour cream. So delicious, so disgusting, your brain won't know how to react.

Trust me when I say I eat it like four times a year. And that's probably too much. We have it, as mentioned, at the big party (where we actually do serve it with crudites), Thanksgiving, Christmas, and then usually one random summer event, which this year was my mom's birthday.

There you have it. Next time you are having a garden party, make your guests white wine spritzers, serve some artichoke dip, and offer dill dip with potato chips.

White people eat weird shit, yo.