Things Consumed

 
Food decisions I made when I was six. There was an odd scene several years ago, when my parents and some friends of mine were together. One of my pals, a dedicated carnivore, turned to my mother and remarked that it's odd that I'm a vegetarian, considering the rest of my family isn't. My mother replied, 'Oh, [she] decided she didn't like meat when she was VERY little.'

My mother failed to mention that even though I decided I didn't like meat when I was very little, I was nevertheless forced to eat family meals that included meat until I was 16, when I was able to cook for myself and resist my family's constant pressure. If my mother had realized that my childhood pleas were 'legitimate' at the time, she might have relented and let me have a less meaty diet. But my mother is of eastern European ancestry, and was convinced that people who don't eat sausages with their potatoes die of ill health, so there was no way she'd let me have a meatless childhood. (People from European cow-raising countries are convinced you MUST eat cow; people from goat-raising countries are convinced you MUST eat goat stew and goat cheese; people who raise sheep swear you MUST wear wool and eat lamb; and all their descendents take this as ancient folk wisdom. TO THIS DAY. It usually takes the form of some discredited protein theory from the 1970s, which pretends that everyone in Asia who fails to eat cow and drink milk does not exist.)

I did successfully take stands on a few foods when I was little. Bacon was one of my biggest successes. My parents had a poster listing carcinogens, and bacon was on the list. This was likely because of the way many people nearly blacken it, and blackening in cooking has been demonstrated to be very unhealthy. I could read; they explained what the poster meant. And then they tried to serve me bacon.

What were they thinking?

I tasted it once or twice at my father's insistence, but would not eat it again. This was a source of great hilarity well into my 20s for my family. They ALL ate bacon, and my father would always make a show on weekend mornings of announcing that he was making bacon especially for me. They would all laugh. Ha ha ha. They would ask me if I was SURE I didn't want bacon. They would wave it around. I never changed my mind. They couldn't believe it.

Next up: pork sausage, the kind that people fry for breakfast, either the little hot-dog shaped ones or the round flat ones. I thought they were vile. I was allowed NOT to eat these, like the bacon, because this meant there was more for my father and sister.

Eggs, especially scrambled. I was less successful here. We worked out a compromise, where everyone else would have 2 or 3, and I would only be obligated to eat one. I could use as much Louisiana hot sauce or Tabasco on that scrambled egg as I wanted, which worked out well for me. My egg consumption pleased them, and I actually like deviled eggs if they were made with Grey Poupon (which hid their flavor), so I continued to eat eggs regularly under spicy disguises (though fewer than my family served and ate), through my 20s. When I moved out, their appearance on my plate decreased continually. I haven't bought any in years, though I do eat restaurant foods containing eggs, especially when I travel.

When I visit my parents NOW and they prepare a traditional breakfast of fried potatoes with onions, scrambled eggs, bacon, and sausage, they still give me potatoes and one egg!

Butter. My parents buttered EVERYTHING. You'd reach for toast, and they would intervene to butter it. They'd put butter on rice, on green beans, on potatoes, on steamed cabbage... It was excessive. And I didn't like butter. Again, I negotiated a compromise: I would eat a small amount of butter on mashed potatoes ONLY, and would try to intervene to get dinner rolls and other forms of bread before my father relentlessly buttered each of them heavily. They accepted this. They thought it was funny that I disliked butter, since my sister would eat it directly off the stick without putting it on anything, if no one was watching. Yes, she would.

There were a few other things. Meatballs were one. When my mother made spaghetti with meatballs, I was initially required to eat them all, but over time my meatball serving got smaller and smaller, until my mother would set aside some tomato sauce for me prior to adding the meatballs. This was a big relief. Lamb chops I managed to avoid completely, partly because my father thought they made the house stink, and discouraged my mother from buying them even for herself. My mother made something called "salmon patties," which were shallow fried and crunchy, but she eventually revealed that they were crunchy because they had bones in them, and I wasn't the only one who expressed horror. (My mother then had an allergic reaction to fish, and so fish largely stopped appearing in the house outside of fish sticks for my sister.) Stew meat was sort of the same - my father disapproved - and my mother's accusations that I was too fussy an eater since I didn't like gristle attached to red meat chunks was an inspiration for my eventually hard stance against all meat.

I had also made a stand on canned spinach, which was the only kind of spinach my father liked, and so the only kind I ever saw. I STILL REMEMBER being forced to sit in my parents' old kitchen (in the 1970s prior to a big remodel) until after sunset, forbidden to leave the table until I ate a large plate of cold, soggy, limp spinach. I was a stubborn child. Some small compromise was reached (10 bites and I could go to bed?), and then my mother largely stopped serving it. (I didn't eat fresh spinach until I moved out, and I LOVE IT LOVE IT LOVE IT.) I think the same went for peas, which were delightful fresh (I was allowed to eat fresh ones now and then), but vile canned. Whole milk didn't appeal to me by the time I reached my teens, and my mother was concerned that I'd break all my bones if I didn't drink it, so I was forced to have a quota there.

After years of attempting to disguise the meat I was required to eat under steak sauces, soy sauces, tomato sauces, mustards, and salsas, I took my big stand against red meat when I was 16. My parents, citing generations of dead, cow-loving Europeans and pointedly ignoring health data on the perils of diets high in red meat, insisted that I would perish. I cooked for myself, under frequent protests and interference. I was obligated to eat fowl at first, and then just on major holidays. But I learned to cook good vegetarian food, good enough to tempt them.

Now, decades later, I'm a vegetarian. I don't buy butter. I don't buy eggs. I don't buy animal milk (though I do eat cheese). I go on 100 k bike rides and 80 mile backpacking trips for fun. And my parents and sister, who are sedentary and have elevated cholesterol, and who can't keep up with me on recreational walks, are STILL unsure that I'm making a wise health choice. Even after my father's triple bypass and required blood pressure medications.

I'm healthy, happy, and LOVE having control over what I eat. It's just funny to me that I started to figure out what was best for me when I was about six, and took a long time to get to a point when I could have it.
posted by Arlene (Beth)11:30 AM