Adventures in Eating

Growing up in my Midwestern farm family, dinner always meant meat and mashed potatoes. Those two staples could be found on our table night after night. The potatoes were always lumpy and covered with flecks of black pepper. You couldn’t see the salt, but you discovered its presence the moment the fork slid inside your mouth. The meat was always dipped in flour and fried. When I was a little girl and we raised our own animals, it was fried in lard. When I was older and livestock was no longer part of our farm, it was fried in generic Crisco.

I asked my mother once why we had the same meals all the time. She tensed up as she said, “It’s what your father wants.” That was pretty much the reason given for all decisions made in my house growing up. My father was only mimicking what he witnessed growing up. A man dominating his household.

My mother was, and still is, a wonderful cook, but I looked forward to the evenings when my father “worked over.” This is term my family used when my father worked a double shift at his factory. It was never “working late” or “working a double,” but rather “worked over.” Those evenings my mother would abandon the family staples of fried meat and mashed potatoes and cook something exotic like spaghetti and meat sauce. When I was old enough to cook, I would often prepare dinner for my mother, brother and me. These meals usually consisted of Hamburger Helper or tacos made from a kit. This was simple, working class fare, but to me, the food was anything but working class. It was a nice break from the daily grind of meat and mashed potatoes.

But Mom always made sure there was leftover meat and mashed potatoes for Dad to eat when he came home late after “working over.” I remember he threw a fit one time when there wasn’t—he threw a fit with a mouth stuffed full of taco meat from the dinner I prepared hours earlier. He claimed he didn’t like it, but he finished off the big bowl of leftovers.

My tastes changed as I grew up, went to college and moved out into the world. I still ate meat and potatoes, but in a different form. I tried different cuisines that were foreign to my home. I didn’t like them all, but I did like the experience of branching out. Meantime, I could always count on a visit to my parents’ home for meat and mashed potatoes.

What I didn’t realize was that while I was testing my palate, so were my parents. They even tried Chinese food and discovered they liked it. When they insisted on taking me out to dinner for my 34th birthday, I insisted we go to the new Mexican restaurant that recently opened in my hometown. My mother was excited and tried a burrito. My father pouted and had fried chicken wings. He claimed he didn’t know what to order. At least he picked up the check.

My mother seemed to enjoy these culinary adventures more than my father. When my parents visited last year for my mother’s birthday, I baked salmon and made sure to fry chicken breasts for him. I thought of my mother’s stock answer, “It’s what your father wants” as I prepared the two entrees.

After years of meat and mashed potato meals and catering to my father’s taste buds, he surprised me one evening with an excited phone call. “I just had the best meal,” he said. I took a breath and expected him to tell me about the fried chicken and mashed potatoes my mother prepared for him. I almost fell out of the chair when he said, “Your mom made chicken noodle soup. It was a recipe she found on a can of broth. It is the best meal I’ve ever had. I could eat this every day for the rest of my life.”

Nothing was fried or mashed. It was simply chicken, broth, noodles, carrots and celery. Yet I had never heard my father rave about a meal like this. He waxed poetic about chicken soup, giving me the play-by-play of Mom’s meal preparation. I never knew he could be so descriptive. All this from a simple recipe on the side of a can.

He was so thrilled with the chicken soup that I looked forward to sampling some during my next visit to the farm. My mother had invited me for lunch, and when she called to confirm my arrival time, I asked what we were having. I expected her to say chicken noodle soup but she surprised me. “Fried chicken and mashed potatoes,” she said, heaving a deep sigh. “It’s what your father wants.”

Some things never change.