Stomach of Steel

As with most people I’ve discovered that I am a mix of both of my parents. I seem to have inherited the most defining characteristics of my mother: her temper and laziness. But I’m proud to say that the bulk of who I am has come straight from my father. We are so alike that at times I think that I’m looking at an aged, bald, male version of myself. I have developed most aspects of his personality, ranging from his unceasing curiosity to his culinary preferences.

If you were to ask any member of my family or anyone who has ever had dinner with him, they would all tell you the same thing: my father has a stomach of steel. His daily meals consist of: two cans of tuna fish, two cans of mandarin oranges, one can of spinach, and the occasional can of whole potatoes. He doesn’t seem to understand why at break time, his fellow employees steer clear of him. I think the closest he has ever come to understanding the bizarreness of his meal was the time that the toilet backed up at work. He was telling me how it smelled really bad. He walked into the bathroom and found his two bosses snaking the toilet. He stated the obvious: “It stinks”, and as an after thought “I don’t think I’ve ever smelled anything like that”. To which they responded in unison, “Tuna Fish.”

I love my dad, but it seems that he was unjustly denied any chance at being able to naturally eat or cook normal foods; the cooking gene just seems to have skipped a generation with him. My Dad’s mom, who incase you didn’t know would be my grandmother, is an amazing cook. It seems to me that she finds the same kind of rush in cooking, that an adrenaline junky finds in sky diving. Food was part of our family’s culture. If you were sad, grandma would fix you something to eat. If you had just completed some amazing feat, like eating a 42 pound turkey in world record times…..well congratulations! Grandma will make you some mashed potatoes and gravy to go with it. I was never able to escape my grandparent’s home without some sort of morsel of food being crammed into my hand. Too often I heard, “Your grandma spent all day making those cookies and if you don’t eat them, you will hurt her feelings”. So I would trudge off to college with a freezer bag of snicker doodles, and a cool whip container of her infamous Rodeo Spaghetti.

But my dad, as I said, was not blessed with the skill of cooking. As a matter of fact, when my parents got a divorce I thought I would have to move back home, for fear of my dad and brother starving to death. Instead I’d come home on break and find the cupboards brimming over with canned food; unfortunately it seemed that the store that he shopped at only sold four different kinds of food. You could either eat ravioli, spaghetti-o’s, tuna fish, or mandarin oranges. If you wanted something else, well you were on your own. Dad didn’t have a desire to eat it; there fore he didn’t have a desire to cook it.

Don’t get me wrong, my dad has given his most valiant effort at cooking. I remember sitting at the table when I was in elementary school eating some coleslaw that he had prepared. Actually I remember sitting at the table with my older brother, having an ongoing contest to see who could hold it in our mouths the longest. Apparently ¼ means a quarter of a cup of onions, not one to four onions. Our dog Sarge, who was either a Heinz 57 or a Bermuda rat, wouldn’t even touch it; this from the animal who fished from the ditch.

But, my dad seems to be aware of his culinary inabilities. I think that he even sees a little bit of himself in me. Too many times I’ve happily made meals from cold spaghetti, sardines with mustard, and have the sudden craving for Braunschweiger (smoked pork liver cold cut) topped with onion and mustard; not typically at the same time, although it has been know to happen. He also seems to think that because I share his stomach of steel, that I also share his culinary expertise. If the cooking gene skips a generation, and my older brother is a professional pastry chef, then I must not know how to cook. Although this is perhaps a plausible hypothesis, I think that a more accurate conclusion is that the culinary apathy has skipped a generation. I guess that it doesn’t really matter and basically my kids are screwed.