Just One Bite
My parents had a hard and fast rule when it came to
mealtime. Regardless of whether you
liked what was on the dinner menu, you were required to try a bite. I guess they adhered to the theory that
change was not only possible, it was expected.
I credit their food philosophy with the fact that I consumed about
twenty pounds of fried beef liver, one bite at a time, from early childhood
until I moved out of the house at age 22.
I never did develop a toleration, let alone an appetite, for fried liver. I still haven’t, although to be honest, I
stopped trying as soon as I was out on my own.
Adulthood does have weighty responsibilities, but it has its benefits as
well. I am just grateful that my in-laws
did not care for fried liver either. I
always felt like I was on shaky ground with them anyway; if I would have passed
on the main course at dinner I could have put what few points I had with them
at risk.
Strangely enough, my parents’ theory did play out with
a number of other foods. I eat all kinds
of vegetables now that I would have turned my nose up at as a youngster. In my defense however, Michelle and I roast and
grill a lot of vegetables, whereas my mother pretty much boiled everything to
mush. The spinach was not her fault, as
she used to buy frozen spinach and it pretty much was already at the mush stage
right out of the carton.
Another food that I did not eat at home was
cheese. This I do blame on my
parents. They both liked aged cheese, so
I was thrown into the deep end of the pool before I was ready to swim. My dad went even farther. He liked aged brick cheese and even every
year around Christmas he would come home with limburger cheese. He was not allowed to keep his cheese in the
kitchen refrigerator. Instead, it was
wrapped in freezer paper, which was wrapped in aluminum foil, which was put in a bread bag which was twist-tied and then
deposited in a coffee can with a lid.
The canned cheese was kept in our old Westinghouse refrigerator that was
in the basement. Even at that, everyone
upstairs knew when my dad had a hankering for his special cheese as the odor
had no trouble making its way upstairs.
I do not think that such cheese can “go bad”, or at least I doubt that
you can tell that it had by smell alone.
I do eat cheese now, but only because my wife rehabilitated me. She introduced me to fresh cheese curds, warm
and squeaky right out of the cheese factory vat. Then we worked up to fresh cheddar, and
eventually, meaning forty-plus years, to some other varieties and ages. Still, I am certain that I won’t progress up
to needing a coffee can anytime soon.
Sometimes you learn things along the way that at least
threaten your previous opinions. For me
that was grape Popsicles and Fudgesicles.
Those were always my favorite summer treats when I was a kid. Then I went to work for a company that made
those products. What I quickly learned
is that both of my favorites were made largely from scrapped similar
products. Because grape Popsicles were
purple, it allowed for reusing other Popsicles that didn’t quite make it
through the production line the first time.
Maybe the wrapper machine broke down and they melted too much, or
perhaps the sticks weren’t inserted straight, or maybe it was just that they
had extra barrels of juice that didn’t get used the last run. Anyway, that rich purple color and strong
flavor covered up those secondhand ingredients. And it turned out that fudge bars had a lot
of re-purposed ice cream from the other lines.
So, it turns out that my favorites were kind of the Heinz-57 variety of
frozen novelties. It didn’t bother me much,
however, they still tasted good to me.
Maybe you stumbled into Embers by accident. Maybe someone you know suggested you try it
and see. It’s OK to be cautious. I only ask that you try one bite. Who knows? Maybe you will develop a taste for it over
the next forty or so years.
His Peace <><
Deacon Dan
Photo by Tomi Vadász on Unsplash
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