Food for Thought

We all had favorite dishes growing up:  A savory stew that mom worked so hard on, or grandmother’s potpie that everyone craved when they visited her.  Our minds can recall the aromas and flavors of a homemade apple pie our aunties baked in our youth.  We long for these foods and feel we can taste them from our vivid memories.   However, our brain is an amazing tool and can recall the good as well as the bad.  It can bring forth the repulsive dishes and foods we hated as children.  I recall as a young girl anxiously awaiting an episode of Wonder Woman to air. I loved Lynda Carter and enjoyed the show very much. The rule was that I couldn’t leave the table to watch anything until I ate all of my dinner.  However, dinner that night was a nasty concoction of a dry meatball thing and cream based white sauce as thick as paste.  I didn’t understand! My mom was an amazing cook.  I loved all of her dishes growing up…except this one.  It was the first time she prepared this dish for our family.  My parents finished quickly.  My oldest sister being the wisest, knew not to rock the boat, and gulped it down.  I don’t think she breathed while ingesting this meal.

My other sister and I just stared at each other during this long ordeal.  I was waiting for her to take the first bite and she was waiting for me to do the same.  Mom just sat there watching us.  She wasn’t moving and neither were we.  My oldest sister, in mocking gesture, turned the television on in the living room and raised the volume so we could hear what we were missing.  My mother reiterated that we weren’t going anywhere until our plates were empty. From the living room I could hear that glorious Wonder Woman theme music, I needed to make a decision!  I was going to show my sister I was braver.  What I failed to mention was, the white “sauce” had since congealed and formed a hard crust around the meatball.  I picked up my fork and dug into the meat.  I placed it inside my mouth and in .03 seconds proceeded to toss up that bite and everything else I ingested that day. Wonder Woman I was not! Everyone bolted from the table (including my sister who had prayed for a miracle and got one).

I apologized profusely, I didn’t mean for it to happen. My father stepped in and said to leave it alone and excused us from the table.  I was free to see Princess Diana fight crime!  My sister and I joined our oldest sibling in the living room. That was the last time my mom cooked that meal, but I will never forget it.

 Nowadays, I prepare dishes for my children. I make some of my mom’s tasty meals from my childhood and my own concoctions. Imagine the surprise when my children freaked the day I prepared minestrone soup.  Wandering down from his bedroom, my son took announced that he didn’t approve of the strong odor emanating from the kitchen.  He was followed by his parrot, my daughter. She bursted into the kitchen with a scrunched face pinching her nose, declaring, “I’m not eating whatever’s in there”.  I thought, “It’s going to be one of those nights.”

My son gave me the evil eye and protested that I never made good meals.  His sidekick aped his sentiments.  The displeasure of the moment seemingly wiped clean his memories of eating chicken piccata, spaghetti with homemade sauce, and shrimp scampi the last few nights.  I tried to persuade him to see this meal in a positive light.  I feared he’d have bad memories of minestrone soup like I had with meatballs and white sauce.

I could see that my son was teetering on the edge of giving in. I decide to offer a deal.  I ask him to eat just broth and some veggies and if this goal was met, a reward would be in order.  My daughter proceeded to throw her nose into the air and raced off to her bedroom.  That’s fine, as that’s where I was going to send her for being sassy.  My son enjoyed the soup as he ate it all!  Crisis averted. He was free to watch Wonder Woman or any other age appropriate show he wanted with no bad memories of dinner to haunt him in his future.