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undergroundgourmet

When we’re kids we eat the food our family eats. All families have particular eating styles, and foods they’re accustomed to. It’s the sort of thing we’re unaware of  until we start to venture out, and notice things like Patty’s mom cuts the crusts off her sandwiches, or Beth’s mom gives us French fries with lunch. As kids we just register that as other. But what happens when other is your house?

After my mom died my grandmother moved in with us, in fact, she moved into my room, sleeping in the other twin bed. I had never been all that fond of her, and for two years she was my roommate. Vi was a bitter, unhappy woman. She and my grandfather had divorced when my mom was a baby, and losing my mom, her only child was understandably hard on her. She had definite ideas about what and when we should eat, and it was very different from the food we were used to, it was other.

One day my dad packed my brother and me into the car, to go for a picnic. We were going to meet a friend of his and her daughters.  At the park we met Julie and her girls, Susan and Connie. They were two years apart, and at age eight I fell right between them.  They were much tougher than I was (my creampuff tendencies having been intensified by a grandmother who had very definite ideas about how a lady— albeit an eight year old one —should behave).  They had come ready to play; I was awkward and shy.

We played an elaborate game with one of those small pink balls. The game involved a series of tricks to be performed with the ball, starting with very simple things like tossing the ball in the air, and clapping once before catching it, but progressing rapidly to moves way beyond my skills. They were clearly disgusted with me, and then, one of them said “You know, your dad and our mom are going to get married”.

No, I didn’t know.  I denied it, I refused to believe them, but they were quite certain. They knew this and I didn’t, I was further humiliated. By then my dad and Julie were starting to get the hamburgers ready for the grill, and both girls ran over and snatched hunks of raw hamburger and popped them into their mouths. What were they doing? Raw hamburger*? Now my honor and dignity were at stake, so acting as cool as I could I grabbed some too. It was wonderful, other, but good.

My father and Julie married the following May. Once again my life, the life I had adjusted to after the death of my mother, after my grandmother moved into our house, radically shifted again. I now had two sisters, a new mom, and more new food to adjust to. They ate salad, every night. We started eating fresh fish, and fresh vegetables. Julie was ahead of her time, keeping an organic garden, getting rid of the canned and frozen veggies we’d been eating.

On their first anniversary my parents got a copy of The Underground Gourmet, and the six of us would travel to the city exploring the hidden, ethnic restaurants of New York. Our blended family was a poorly formed emulsion, filled with tirades, tantrums and angst, but those trips to New York, exploring new food are the basis for the passion I now have for all food.

 *E-coli didn’t show up until 1982 and eating raw beef in 1966 posed no health threat

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  • November 11, 2014 - 8:42 am

    Peggy Gilbey McMackin - Nice article Nancy.ReplyCancel

    • November 11, 2014 - 8:52 am

      nrlowell@comcast.net - Thanks Peggy!ReplyCancel

  • November 13, 2014 - 10:30 am

    Jasbir @jasbeeray - She surely was ahead of her time.ReplyCancel

  • November 13, 2014 - 11:43 am

    Linda Roy - This is so beautifully written, I could picture it all vividly. You certainly went through a lot as a child, so much change and upheaval. How wonderful that you found common ground and inspiration in through your experiences with food.ReplyCancel

    • November 14, 2014 - 10:20 am

      nrlowell@comcast.net - Thanks Linda!ReplyCancel

  • November 13, 2014 - 9:14 pm

    Nate - so much can be learned about a family from what and how they eat. You soon-to-be sisters eating foods that were foreign to you and how that grew into a love of food. Nicely done.ReplyCancel

    • November 14, 2014 - 10:19 am

      nrlowell@comcast.net - Nate, thanks so much!ReplyCancel

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