A friend was telling me his Mom managed
to get an entire set of 1930's German Fiesta Ware, piece by piece.
His Dad complained because the large dinner plates were just 9 inches
in diameter. “My Mom eventually had to get him his own special
plate, a cheap Bakelite one that was 12 inches in diameter...to hold
all the food he'd pile onto it. Not only that, it had a curved lip to
hold any juices in.”
“He would eat entire meatballs. He'd
stuff one into his mouth, chew it a few times then swallow it. He'd
eat like a goose, just somehow get it down his throat. My Mom made
largish golf ball sized ones too.”
“The gravy, God the gravy he'd flood
his plate with. I'd watched him slice a huge slab of roast beef and I
said to him, 'You going to launch that into that ocean of gravy?'”
“WATCH YOUR MOUTH KID!” he shot
back.
My own Dad would mound a Mt Vesuvius
pile of mashed potatoes onto his plate, then fill the caldera with a
soup ladle's worth of gravy. He vacuumed that down in fair order,
before doing it again.
My Mom, being Irish, couldn't cook but
she tried. One of her skills included frying cubed potatoes in a pan
that had been just used for frying hamburger. The flavor of the
ground beef with the addition of more Blue Can Crisco grease would
be the two ingredients. The potatoes were portioned out to all of us
and after eating his, I saw my Dad get up, take the spatula and try
to chisel the pieces and scraps that had stuck to the bottom of the
skillet. My brother and I would nearly puke watching him eat those
burnt crisps.
Every Sunday, for a while at least, and
thank God it ended, we'd have a “real” Sunday dinner. Every
Sunday dinner meant eye of round, which to begin with is a fairly
lean cut of meat. My Mom thought that incinerating it was the proper
way to cook it. My brother and I would be in the den, smelling a real
cremation and roll our eyes at one another. Ugh, another travail to
overcome, the weekly burnt roast of beef.
Dad, being a Depression Era kid,
thought it a great treat. He'd cut the meteoroid himself (it looked
like a meteor, smoking and black) and take the end pieces for
himself. I'd hear him eating it, crunch, crunch, crunch. My brother
and I were lucky enough to get something of the center of that meat,
which was more than well done.
I'd use my steak knife to surgically
remove the gristle. I thought it loathsome. After a few times, my
Dad would wonder why I would cut it out, saying..”that's a good
part!” I thought he had to be kidding. Then again, the thought the
best part of any beef was the fat. In a way he's right, but gristle?
I shouldn't point fingers at him now,
neither can my friend point finger at his Dad. We both were telling
stories of what piggish things we each have done with food. I've sat
in front of the TV while eating out of the very pot I cooked in,
dribbling some of it on my tee shirt. Who cares? I live alone anyway.
The dog I had was great for clearing up after me.
I once opined to a friend at work, “Ya
know, If I wanted to, I could eat two pizzas, wash it down with
canned beer, then shove two cigarettes up my nose and smoke them if I
wanted too...who's going to bitch at my table manners?”
My friend said he had that beat. “You
know Klondike bars right? Try this. Get two of them, and sandwich in
between them a heaping pile of Neopolitan ice cream...you'll need a
fork to eat it!”
“Two Klondikes...with MORE ice
cream?” I say
“Yep..it's heaven!”
Or one of his favorites. Peanut butter
with bacon sandwich. “But you have to FRY the bread slices in bacon
fat too”
I ask. “Have you ever had to check
yourself in the mirror before going out to the Quickie Mart...check
tee shirt for splatters after eating?”
“Yep.”
“Thank God...I ain't alone!”
No comments:
Post a Comment