Every morning, I eat a banana for breakfast. My banana is not a gluten free-range banana. Nor is it a banana with a sticker that proclaims, “No tarantulas were harmed in the picking of this fruit.” It is a plain old banana.
When did eating become so complicated?
My paternal grandparents, Santa and Sebastiano, cooked simple dishes based on recipes straight from the Old Country. Some of my earliest and most traumatic food-related memories are based on meals served in their apartment.
Once, while sitting in a dark bathroom, (Santa did not like to waste electricity), I noticed a burlap bag moving and clucking at my feet. What could it be? The next day, I walked into Santa’s kitchen to see a pair of chicken feet sticking out of a pot of boiling water. I could view this as my first Farm to Table experience. However, to be accurate, it was a Bathroom to Table experience and it gave me nightmares.
A second nightmare-inducing event was to find cow brains simmering on the back burner of Santa’s kitchen stove. Family friends had told us that eating brains made you smarter. Honestly, I didn’t observe any marked increase in intelligence among us. However, I always will remember the disgustingly sweet smell of cooking brains.
Sebastiano often came home from Long Island Sound with snails, mussels, clams and, yuckiest of all, eels. Usually, he’d dip the eel in flour then fry it. Once, he grilled an eel in the back driveway of our nine-family tenement. Have you ever smelled an eel grilling? The stench is much like burning rubber, only more nauseating.
However, one man’s meat is another man’s poison. So, to be fair, I should mention that Santa hated mayonnaise, a common ingredient in American cooking. She’d point to the most unlikely food, like a slice of roast beef, and ask, “Ees mayonnaise in this? No like mayonnaise!”
Years ago, I went to graduate school in northern New England, a place where very few last names ended in a vowel. In fact, I was the sole member of my Italian-American Club.
One time, I decided to bring biscotti to a potluck dinner at the college. No one ate a crumb. These were the days before specialty coffee shops, so nobody recognized biscotti as a potentially delicious food source.
Later, at home, I dunked those rejected biscotti into my warmed milk and wept softly. Okay, I didn’t weep softly, but I did feel like a Stranger in a Strange Land—not Italian enough to enjoy grilled eel and not American enough to bring an acceptable dessert to a potluck.
Recently, as I prepared for a family reunion, I listed everyone’s preferences and dietary requirements: no sugar, gluten, fat, dark greens, walnuts, pork, fish, mint, mayo, dairy, saffron and last but not least, no food with non-smooth texture.
I’m not complaining. I’m not judging. Yet, planning a menu for my relatives is a daunting task.
In the olden days, family reunion or not, Santa would have handed out bowls of steaming Chicken Foot Soup. Eat up, or eat out. End of discussion.
Charlottesville writer, Deborah M. Prum, is the author of FIRST KISS AND OTHER CAUTIONARY TALES, a collection of her essays that have aired on NPR-member stations. More of her work can be foundhere.