Thursday, January 26, 2012

I'm Not Eating That!

My wife is convinced that I begin each day with an allotment of words, and once I've exhausted those, I'm done talking for the day.  There's much truth to this.  After a day of working with students, I don't always have a lot of words for my family.  At dinner I usually just sit and listen to my girls visit about the day.  Occasionally, I'll chime in and share bits of my day or I'll ask a few questions, but overall, I just listen.

Last night my wife had a meeting to attend, so it was just me and Little Miss Pickyeater at the dinner table.   When it's just the two of us sharing dinner, I make an effort to be more talkative.  While a have a mental list of topics I want to discuss, I never have to consult the list because my daughter uses our dinner to host her own talk show with me as a guest.   She has a knack for coaxing conversation out of her reticent father. Last night she wanted to talk about my childhood eating habits, specifically foods I refused to eat as a kid.

Today I'm resurrecting The Greasy Five by listing five foods of my childhood that I somewhat detested.

The Greasy Five

1.  Fried cornmeal mush
2.  Pancakes (Currently I'm learning to love pancakes.  I attribute my dislike to the artificial syrup that often drowned the pancakes of my youth.  Maple syrup or a fruit compote are preferable pancake toppings.)
3.  Meat loaf  (Today I'm pleased to announce that I love meat loaf.)
4.  Tuna noodle casserole
5.  Potato boats (They served this at the school cafeteria in my hometown.  This consisted of a slice of bologna that functioned as a base for a scoop of instant mashed potatoes and American cheese.  This meal still feels like some absurd dream, but I swear it was quite real.)

take care,
muddywaters





4 comments:

Jenni said...

Fried cornmeal mush isn't too bad. I'll admit I never cared much for pancakes or meatloaf, but that's because no one who made them for me knew how to make them right. I still prefer that fake syrup to the real stuff for pancakes, French toast, or waffles. Real maple syrup is just too sweet and thin. I make a pretty awesome meatloaf, and I am known to all my kids' friends as the pancake queen. We do NOT do Bisquik pancakes. Tuna noodle casserole was one of my childhood favorites, and my kids and my SIL still think of my tuna noodle casserole as comfort food. Potato boats just sound disgusting.

The foods I wouldn't eat as a child were:
1) liver (still won't)
2) Brussels sprouts (tried them once as an adult and never will again)
3) bologna (no squishy meat for me, period)
4) green beans (I'm learning to like them)
5) raw tomatoes (I can now handle them if they are not the mealy, bland grocery store kind.)

Steve O said...

I have no idea what #1 is, but it sounds like it should be everyone's #1

M still hates pancakes. While I've put many an episcopal pancake dinner out of business.

Great grandma Ruth made the World's greatest meatloaf.

No idea why Siri thinks "world's" needed to be capitalized

My mom snuck tuna and macaroni into everything. Like them separately, but together, they send me back to my therapist.

Five: you made that up! Why was it called a potato boat instead of a baloney boat. ?

Anonymous said...

I wouldn't eat #5! We never had such a thing for school lunch in NE. There was, however, chipped beef in cream gravy on toast - not a fan of that either! -K

Steve O said...

Happy B-day!