Today’s Zippy, in the Land of Diners:
(#1)
The diner is easily identified. Then there’s King Harald of Norway, the TV Dinner Diet, and the Paleo Diet.
The diner, outside and in:
(#2)
(#3)
From Wikipedia:
The Miss Florence Diner is a historic diner at 99 Main Street in the Florence section of Northampton, Massachusetts. It was manufactured in 1941 by the Worcester Lunch Car Company and is one of four diners in the city. At the time of its listing on the National Register of Historic Places in 1999, it had been owned by the same family since its construction. The diner was a traditional barrel-roofed shape, but it was modified in the late 1940s to increase capacity, by adding another bay on the left, and four (in a configuration perpendicular to the main diner body) on the right. These modifications gave the diner an L shape.
The diner is also notable for its attachment to the residence of the Alexanders (its owners), which was then converted into a restaurant, and for the distinctive chevron-shaped sign mounted on top of the diner that bears its name.
(Note that Zippy calls the counterman “Florence” through.)
Then the “Royal Pain Diet”, said to have been recommended by King Harald of Norway. An entertaining but dubious idea, given Harald’s history. From Wikipedia:
Harald Sigurdsson (Old Norse: Haraldr Sigurðarson; c. 1015 – 25 September 1066), given the epithet Hardrada (harðráði, roughly translated as “stern counsel” or “hard ruler”) in the sagas, was King of Norway (as Harald III) from 1046 to 1066. In addition, he unsuccessfully claimed the Danish throne until 1064 and the English throne in 1066. Prior to becoming king, Harald had spent around fifteen years in exile as a mercenary and military commander in Kievan Rus’ and in the Byzantine Empire.
… Modern historians have often considered Harald’s death at Stamford Bridge, which brought an end to his invasion, as the end of the Viking Age. Harald is also commonly held to have been the last great Viking king, or even the last great Viking.
On to TV dinners. From Wikipedia:
A prepackaged meal (also called TV dinner, ready-made meal, ready meal, frozen dinner, frozen meal, microwave meal) is a prepackaged frozen or chilled meal that usually comes as an individual portion. It requires very little preparation and contains all the elements for a single-serving meal. A TV dinner usually consists of a cut of meat, usually beef [Salisbury steak , as in the last panel of #1, is common] or chicken; with a vegetable, such as peas, carrots, corn, or potatoes; and sometimes a dessert, such as a brownie or apple cobbler. The entrée could also be pasta or a common type of fish, such as Atlantic cod. Rice is a common side item.
Apparently TV dinners are going out of fashion.
And the Paleo Diet, with which the strip begins. From Wikipedia:
The Paleolithic diet, also popularly referred to as the caveman diet, Stone Age diet and hunter-gatherer diet, is a modern nutritional diet designed to emulate, insofar as possible using modern foods, the diet of wild plants and animals eaten by humans during the Paleolithic era. Proponents of the diet therefore recommend avoiding any foods that they claim were not available to humans at that time, including dairy products, grains, legumes, processed oils, and refined sugar. The Paleolithic diet is a fad diet that has gained popularity in the 21st century.
… The [Paleolithic] diet was overshadowed by regimens such as the Atkins diet and South Beach Diet until the publication of a popular book by Loren Cordain. Cordain holds a bachelor degree in health science, a masters and doctoral degree in exercise physiology, and has studied nutrition professionally for over twenty years. His web site styles him as “Dr Loren Cordain, world’s leading expert on paleolithic diets and founder of The Paleo Movement”. He is the owner of the trademark “The Paleo Diet”. The paleolithic diet has grown greatly in popularity since the publication of Cordain’s book, and in 2013 was Google’s most searched-for weight loss method.
As far as I can tell, none of the modern paleolithic diets, including Cordain’s Paleo Diet™, advocate eating grubs and larvae (by the way, grubs are larvae), though there are plenty of other people who recommend eating insects, including grubs.
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