Food - 1

Food. Glorious food. As a subject it will undoubtedly demand several posts. One will not be enough by any stretch. So let's dig in.

Where to begin? Prehistoric times, hunting and gathering, fire, and the very basic beginnings? The overall meaning of food in human life? The beginning of a meal, say, with appetizers? 

Let's just start with the joy of it all. Eating a simple meal by oneself and enjoying the aromas, flavors, aftertaste, and comfort imparted by food. 

Planning, acquiring ingredients, and preparing a full dinner for friends and/or family. Serving it to them as a gesture of nourishment and love. And enjoying it all as a most natural complement to their company (as well as their compliments) at a lively table. 

What else in life has this magical power? Does this? Nothing, I'd offer. Think about that for a moment; contemplate it; meditate on it. Chew on it even. 

I did not really discover food, real food, until I was about thirty years old. Before that, food was something to eat, to provide some pleasure, and energy. Three times a day with maybe a snack if I was lucky.

When I was young, it would be provided by my parents (mostly my mother) who would stretch my father's paycheck each week to the absolute limit when grocery shopping. So food consisted of canned vegetables, hot dogs (ugh), fish sticks (ugh again), canned beans, milk (lots of it as it was very cheap), cereal, eggs, sandwiches (grilled cheese, bologna, ham, and the king of them all, peanut butter and jelly -- with a fluffernutter thrown in now and then to spice things up).

With six kids rambling around -- eleven years apart and all with unique tastes and appetites -- we at one point had to drive up to the town hall and collect free food from the government food program (no idea what it was actually called). A food pantry now that I think about it some more. This consisted of large blocks of American "cheese," canned meat (think Spam -- slightly off color -- but in a large round tin can) or some kind of chicken concoction in water and salt maybe. Oh, and lots of powdered "milk" that my mother would mix up and add to regular milk to stretch it all out a bit. It was horrid and we could always tell if our milk had been polluted in this manner by our very loving and innovative mother. All of this food would have expiration dates from the NASA playbook should it have to be sent up on a long lunar mission. So we'd store it in the basement and grab it when needed. 

When I got older and had a few coins to rub together from my daily paper route (look it up if you have no idea what a "paper route" was/is) I was able to upgrade my intake to extremely nutritious things like Funny Bones (Big Wheels or Yodels if no Funny Bones available), Dr. Pepper (two liter bottle I'd split with my best friend, Paul), and a big bag of Doritos. Ah, life was good and my stomach could tolerate this garbage without any issues at all.

And what would a discussion about food be without mention of the "school lunch," that critical cog in the wheel of American exceptionalism and progress? Here's what that slop looked like (and, yes, they actually thought this was nutritious and fed it to millions of growing children EVERY day; well, unless you -- read, your parents -- were smart enough to pack and bring  very your own lunch to school in a fancy, well-branded lunchbox*** (look it up!):

• Monday: Hot dog (boiled) on a roll with mustard/relish mixture stuff*; cup of "fruit" cocktail; carton of whole milk.**
• Tuesday: American Chop Suey (what?); side of green beans (that were closer to gray than green and undoubtedly from a huge can); carton of whole milk. 
• Wednesday: Hamburger/Cheeseburger* on a bun; fries; ketchup; carton of whole milk. 
• Thursday: Chicken "croquette" with gravy; side of corn (mostly yellow and, as with all vegetables, from a big can); carton of whole milk.
• Friday: Pizza; with pizza; and more pizza if you wanted to buy a "double" or "triple" lunch (like the rich kids); carton of whole milk. I don't think there was any side dish with pizza but I could be wrong. Always the favorite lunch, hand down with those millions of children who had been feel absolute crap for the preceding four days. 

Variations:

• Weekdays (not an exhaustive list but pretty close)
• Salisbury "steak" with gravy (a dressed up burger outside of it's bun I think; or a piece of a discarded rubber tire; and there were a lot of those in my town); green beans; carton of whole milk.
• Spaghetti with meatballs; garlic bread (?); green beans; carton of whole milk.
• Meatball sub with tomato sauce; green beans; carton of whole milk.
• Hamburger* (and not called "hamburger" at all) disguised as something other than what has already been mentioned; green beans; carton of whole milk.

• Friday:
• Fish sticks* with tartar sauce (quite common during Lent as 49.9% of the town was Irish-American, 49.9% was Italian-American, and .02% was everything else (meaning they didn't go to church where everyone else did on Sunday and lived in some mysterious world even though they were everyone's next-door neighbors); fries; carton of whole milk.
• Dessert, you ask?:
• Now and then they'd throw in pudding (tapioca was common), a block of chocolate or vanilla or lemon cake, corn bread, or maybe even ice cream bars to add even more dairy to the mix.

Fun, huh? 

Not sure what's going on now with school lunch other than every kid I ask, including my daughter, says that it sucks and they just go to Chipotle or Subway instead. Amazing progress I'd say. 

Let's end Food - 1 there and we'll get to the next stages of my journey in future posts, including the epiphany and autodidacticism that occurred in my thirties and beyond.

*Ketchup was ubiquitous and always available with the staples one associates with, well, ketchup: fries, burgers, and to some extent (there is much debate here) hot dogs and fish sticks. See 1980s Ronald Reagan controversy (it's not as simple as people think even though it did involve budget cuts, the deep state, and its attempt to insert micro chips into ketchup to begin to take control of the next generation).

**Skim milk did not exist and/or was simply not an option. Lactose intolerance was but a ruse by kids to get to go to the nurse's office and get out of the classroom; so it was banned. Chocolate milk cost too much; a carton of milk was 3 cents, increasing to 5 cents by 5th grade due to rampant inflation.

***NASA/Astronauts; Six-Million Dollar Man; eventually any Disney character every created, etc. Thermos required as hot/cold liquid in such stays at proper temperature for up to 3 weeks and was thus approved for use in NASA lunar missions.