Mormon Cook Finds A New Meaning Through Blogging

Jennifer Briner enjoys cooking up recipes for her children, extended family, and lately, her growing online family. Briner is a blogger who has begun enjoying moderate success with her website, 2jarediteingredients.com, by combining her Mormon sensibilities with the lazy, no frills elements of an economically depressed dinner. Her recipes often consist of two ingredients that Jaredites would have used in their traditional, Mesoamerican diet.

"A Mormon cooking blog? Oh Yeah!"

 “One of my go-to recipes is my Pre-Columbian Pork Casserole. It is an exotic journey of flavors that includes shredded pieces of pork shoulder that simmered all day inside of a crockpot with water. The tender meat is then mixed with thawed corn and placed inside of a casserole dish topped with clods torn from a can of Pillsbury refrigerated crust French loaf. The meal then cooks at 350F for fifteen minutes. I tried to add salt and pepper but the flavors got a little too Laminite, so I had to back off of the forbidden spiciness, so to speak.”

"If we wanted salt we'd of asked Lot and his wife to dinner - now back to your cave, Ether!"

When asked about the authenticity of Mrs. Briner’s Mesoamerican ingredients, Mariam Westbrook of the Smithsonian Institute responded that, “The Smithsonian Institute does not regard the Book of Mormon as a document that holds any merit in respect to the historicity of Mesoamerica. There are at least two ingredients in Mrs. Briner’s recipe that are historically inaccurate in her Pre-Columbian Pork Casserole recipe: the pork and the casserole. First, there were no classes or variants of domesticated swine in pre-Columbian Mesoamerica. Second, I’m pretty sure that they did not have access to either refrigeration or Pillsbury refrigerated crust French loaf…although she did get the maize correct. Corn was definitely present in the pre-entrada New World. If Mrs. Briner is using the Book of Mormon as a historical reference to the earlier diet of Mesoamerica then I think she is headed in the wrong direction. But, if she is using this idea as a mythic way of socially constructing her belief system around her cooking habits then her words need to express that. What I can’t stand is the sheer amount of ambiguity that this whole concept seems to generate.”

"We got the end of the world wrong, but that was screwing up the future. There is no excuse for screwing up the past."

Mr. Ben Briner, Jennifer Briner’s husband, who himself owns and operates a suit shop for fashion-conscientious, returned-Mormon missionaries called Not-Your-Father’s Liahonia, defended his wife’s minimalistic meals. “Jenny’s dinners are a constant callback to the old days when those of mixed Jewish and Egyptian ancestry migrated to Mesoamerica and domesticated the native horses, sheep and swine of their new and savage land. Trust me when I tell you that her cooking is authentically bland. The early Mormon pioneers also stuck to this diet while migrating out west. We have a saying we use at our table ‘Gays, wasps and apostates live to eat. Mormon’s eat to live, so don’t complain and finish everything on your plate—or else you might be excommunicated!” Mr. Briner finished his sentence with a good-natured chuckle.

"We are the rarest kind of return missionaries. You guessed it - ones in desperate need of swag!"

Mrs. Westbrook responded to Mr. Briner’s criticism by noting, “There were no native horses, sheep or swine in Mesoamerica during the periods of the Archaic, Pre-Classical or Classical eras when this supposed migration might have taken place. If Mr. Briner is speaking in terms of generalities then he should say so by using phrases like ‘large mammals’ or ‘piggy-looking thingies’. Otherwise he should be more precise with his language and encourage his wife to cook more llama, which was the only domesticated, large mammal in Mesoamerica at the time of said mythic migration.”

"Eat it, Tina - you fat lard or else my wife will be cooking you in fat and lard and then I will eat you!"

Pillsbury sounded in by saying that they were definitely big fans of 2jarediteingredients.com. The pseudo-bread making company has posted dozens of Mr. Briner’s recipes on their website in their ‘3-ingredient Recipe’ section. “Most of Mr. Briner’s recipes can be found in one of our recession aware categories:  ‘Meat in between bread—which feature her corn dog and hot dog recipes, Meat on bread—which feature her ham and cheese recipes, or Meat under bread—which show-off her famous casserole recipes. Mr. Briner is helping budget savvy consumers accept the dismal economic choices that they are faced with during these difficult times. We at Pillsbury are just happy to help feed those on the bottom rungs of America’s dissipating middle-class.”

"The quarterly analysis shows that we earned another portion of the Mormon market gap, but alas, at what price?!"

Whether you are into frugal meal making and religiously orthodox cook-books or an opponent of simplicity when it comes to your chiffonades, Mrs. Briner and her blog have tapped into more than a need-based mindset of cooking. “Cooking this way is a choice for us,” Mrs. Briner summarized. “We have made a decision that makes the people who attend our dinner the stars of the meal, not the food itself. If these recipes don’t fit your tastes, or if your budget doesn’t need to be considered when cooking for your family, then don’t use my recipes. But, the one ingredient that I would never recommend scrimping on is love.” And so Mrs. Briner ended our conversation by offering up the tastiest idea of all: food, whether served as a plain necessity or as a goldenly opulent sundae, should bring people together in an experience that doesn’t leave them starved of human connection. After all, what is the use of cooking 6 lbs. of Prime Rib Au Poivre if you eat the whole damn roast yourself?

-B.S.N.