Food – The Wonder Years

I’ve always had a certain fascination with cooking. I learned to cook at an early age and worked as a cook at a number of restaurants to earn money when going to college. I even toyed with the idea of attending the Culinary Institute of America.

Growing up I loved heading off into the woods with a book, sleeping bag, Coleman lantern and a mess kit. The highlight of the day would be building a campfire and preparing dinner. With luck it would be fish, potatoes and berries.

I did not dwell too much on the fact that the fish was freshly caught and the berries freshly picked. I just assumed it was being outdoors that made the food taste so good. That was part of it, but only part of it.

As a child we mostly ate fresh food at our house. Mom did most of the cooking. Spaghetti sauce alone took about 4 hours to make. Looking back it was grueling underappreciated work, but there were few options. Then there were many.

In the 1950s the technical might of the U.S. turned its eye on the household. Hoover vacuums, Castro Convertibles, Betty Crocker and Swanson’s became family requirements.

The modern American family in the early 1960s was the envy of the world. Washers and dryers, frost-free refrigerators, garbage disposals and a host of other gadgets made life simpler and more scientific. We were going to the moon. President Kennedy said so.

Probably nothing better epitomized the technical age than a family watching TV, each with their own TV tray and TV dinner. Chicken for Dad and meatloaf for Junior? What could be easier! Soon dinner would be a pellet and we would all be whizzing around in jetpacks. We even had One-A-Day multivitamins for the worry warts. Wasn’t progress great!

The great industrial revolution rolled on. Grandma’s silly ideas about breast feeding and chicken soup and herbs and skepticism were safely tucked away at Sunset Manor where she could enjoy her golden years learning to square dance and earning bonus points by taking her medications every day without complaining or trying to kick the nice young doctor in the groin.

Like most of America at the time food became more and more about convenience and entertainment and less and less about health and taste. Folks into “food” were most likely French or pretending to be.

It takes times to learn and appreciate what good food tastes like. I would have gladly eaten Milk Dud’s, Pez and Pixie Sticks for breakfast, lunch and dinner if I could have convinced my parents. Unfortunately, my 8-year-old vocabulary lacked the necessary gravis and my allowance lacked the necessary future net value to sustain an all sugar diet.

About 11 something happened. Christmas day all the grandmothers arrived. They went into the kitchen that morning and that evening we sat down to Christmas dinner. Everything was homemade, the pasta, the sauces, the cakes, the pies, even the vegetables were homegrown and canned.

For years I had traded my salami and chicken catetori for Mike’s Wonder Bread peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Thick and plump the Welsh’s jelly oozed out and the Skippy peanut butter could easily stick to your upper palate for the entire lunch hour, rendering you mute like a lockjaw victim as you felt your intestines wrestling with what to do with this mess.

That year after Christmas break in the lunch room I looked Mike straight in the eye and told him, “My mom knows.” It was a lie of course, but I didn’t have the heart to tell him the truth. “She wants me to eat my lunch – no trading.” I tried to look upset.

I could tell by his reaction his immediate fear was that he had been fingered and would soon be dealing with my mom and then his. I attempted to calm him. “My mom smelt the peanut butter on my breath. I told her it was a cookie from assembly. But we have to be careful.”

Mike nodded in agreement. We shook hands and Mike went off to his corner of the cafeteria and I went to find my friends to see if I could trade some Bazooka Joe stuck inside my pants pocket for a pear or an orange.

Tomorrow – Part II.