GROWING UP WITH A FOOD DICTATOR…AND FINDING MY OWN FOODIE VOICE
Ask anybody old enough to remember the Flintstones or Gilligans Island on TV and you’ll be sure to also hear stories of how we were forced to sit at the table and eat our canned spinach. How we weren’t allowed a scoop of ice cream for dessert until we finished the last bite of pork and beans soaked in white vinegar and raw onions. Ah, yeah, I did just type that. Van Camps pork and beans, the really sweet ones with the perfectly brown striped little cube of pig lard (the pork, they wouldn’t lie about that being in there if it’s in the title!) and a good splash of white distilled vinegar (the kind I clean my tub or the mold off our camper with, good god never cook with) and several rings of raw onion. Seriously, that is how it was served up on my plate. Because Pa said so.
Most people probably had a Pa in their life in some capacity. A person who basically means well, has very strong opinions and likes to carry on traditions. A person of authority who had you do things because simply, it’s how things have always been done. “My Pa ate his beans with white vinegar and onions, I eat my beans with white vinegar and onions, and you damn well will eat your beans with white vinegar and onions!” Our household also had the meal routine of having those beans on Saturday night with boiled red potatoes and a ring of boiled bologna sausage. I was so excited because I could douse everything on the place with ketchup and gobs of butter and cover up the taste of the meal! Sunday meant pork or beef roast or chicken, with mashed potatoes or Rice A Roni and lumpy gravy (wish my mom was alive so I could show her how to incorporate roux with nary a lump) and the requisite canned vegetable unless it was summer and the garden was in swing. Which reminds me of tomatoes. Pa liked his fresh tomatoes covered in a ¼” layer of white granulated sugar, and you guessed it, that’s how mine were presented for my consumption. I shiver to recall it and sadly, I despised tomatoes until I was in my 30’s and could eat a fresh one from my own garden with….salt!… and learn to love their subtle nuances.
So you can guess that meals weren’t too spontaneous or creative, and the biggest switch up in Ordinary Time was having a stressful evening of making dumplings instead of potatoes to go with the roast. They were Pa’s Bohemian family recipe dumplings, the size of grapefruit, and if steamed correctly were dry and light inside and if not, well, they were glue. Big white bland moon rocks in plain boiling water, so I guess it shouldn’t be too surprising that they needed a lake of salty gravy and butter on them, but they were the classic poor peasant food of farm families. Being farmers, we were lucky to have a freezer full of meat and a butcher shop to visit in every local village that offered house-made sausages, smoked bacon and hams, and since we were so close to Lake Michigan, my beloved smoked fish. At the time I didn’t appreciate the availability or abundance of locally sourced meat and would give anything to have a break in the action with a can of tuna mixed up with a box of bright orange Kraft Mac and Cheese.
My mom Suzy, circa 1972, cooking up a storm. Rockin’ the harvest gold appliances and sassy red pants.
My mom grew up as a horse riding tomboy and never took to the kitchen until she got married to Pa. She could make a mean dark chocolate cake with ethereal 7 minute white icing and admirable cookies, but her mealtime confidence was limited to a few simple hot dishes written on neat little index cards. I was in kindergarten at the time and I can remember how odd it seemed to have a man busy in the kitchen making scrambled eggs with snipped chives or expertly breaded and fried fresh walleye when that seemed to be women’s work. Pa, my step dad, was actually quite the skilled cook and my mom soon built up her skills with the basic meat and potatoes meals he liked. Working factory jobs and running the farm meant they didn’t have much time in the kitchen however, and it seems his frustration in not having a hand in creating those meals brought on the dictator angle. He knew how food should be cooked and how it should taste, but due to his lifelong heavy smoking habit, his taste buds were shot. Thus the vinegar and onions, the dousing of black pepper on pork chops, the spoons of caraway seed on sauerkraut, the piles of sugar on a delicate tomato. He lost his mother at a very young age and keeping her recipes or his food memories with her alive seemed to cloud his ability to try anything new.
When he’d be gone on a rare fishing or hunting trip, my mom would go nuts buying all the food we dare not eat in our meals. Skinless hotdogs wrapped in Velveeta and crescent rolls, Lachoy Chow Mein in a can over Minute Rice with puddles of soy sauce, Genos Pizza Rolls, a casserole of chicken, peas, egg noodles and cream of mushroom soup with potato chips on top. Yes, casseroles were not on our permitted rotating menus because the food all touched and was mixed together. Oh the rules. We even built a campfire and roasted our cheesy hotdogs over the flames if we didn’t feel like messing with the tube of crescent rolls, drank RC cola from goblets, and ate enough s’mores to get queasy. I think we were having so much fun getting away with murder that it never occurred to me that my mom wasn’t just a junk food aficionado. This was her self-expression and not being stuck in a role of obedient housewife making a boring set list of food. (And I wonder why my cholesterol was through the roof already at age 21?!)
As a young wife at the ripe old age of 22, I was lucky enough to have a mother in law who was not only a meticulous cook but one who was quite aware of the importance of from-scratch fresh cooking. This dear lady introduced me to fresh spinach in a salad, baked whole sweet potatoes with natural silky sweetness, and perfectly steamed green beans dressed with toasted almonds and browned butter. I became acutely aware of the huge world of food that was now available to me and how free I was to explore it, giddy with curiosity. This was a real turning point for me and my lifelong love of cooking and creating recipes with a new healthy turn. I finally had permission to cook as I pleased, season food with a delicate hand and step into my own identity in the kitchen.
Pa has since passed from lung cancer, those 2 packs a day finally catching up at age 85. Luckily for him he was able to eat whatever he damn well pleased right up to the end, whether it was steak and a blooming onion or 12 cups of coffee a day. We helped him celebrate that last birthday with potato salad, grilled brats, deviled eggs…all his favorite summer cookout foods, and even in his weak emaciated state, he was able to enjoy a few bites. I know he appreciated it, even in his silent gruffy way. And I was able to state my appreciation for his years of working hard to support our family through my sharing of a familiar home cooked meal. My own individuality and career choices were now clearly a wonderful result of those early years of breaking free in rebellion and ultimately finding my own path to wellness.
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