Fare

Articles

Fare

By Brian Michael Barbeito
Oct. 25, 2006

His parents had named him September Wednesday. He was not born in September and he was not born on a Wednesday. His mother was a secretary and his father ran a machine shop. The family was well off, but not ‘rich rich’. ‘Rich rich,’ was the colloquialism his mother had used when describing the extremely rich. September, long after he had grown up, and left the home, remembered fondly the food of the household. His mother always found the time to cook plenty of food. There was steak, always served with vegetables and potatoes. There was spaghetti and meatballs, served with salad and large glasses of milk. He remembered corned beef and cabbage, and mashed potatoes, and fried potatoes, and scalloped potatoes, baked potatoes. A favorite was roast beef, with Yorkshire pudding, and with a dish like that, there was always thick gravy, often mushroom gravy. At other times, but not as often, there were curries, and these were made with beef, or shrimp, or chicken, served with rice, or large and fresh round rotis. September also remembered large breakfasts, which lasted at least an hour. Eggs, bacon, sausages, fruits, tomatoes, pickles, pancakes, cheese, orange juice, toast, jam, peanut butter, corn syrup, marmalade, bagels, honey. On days like that the smell of fresh coffee wafted throughout the home. There were cupboards and cupboards stacked with all kinds of foodstuffs, not to mention the pantries, and extra freezers which housed everything from pork chops to spare ribs to peameal bacon. There wasn’t much someone would not find among a kitchen like that. While surveying beans, cookies, corn, bananas, apples, peaches, plums, apricots, fig newtons, raisons, grapes of various varieties, prunes, canned juices, croutons, onions, garlic, spices, cough drops, candies, chocolate, French dressing, ice cream, crackers, or a baked ham, one thing that would never be found was white bread. White bread was a big ‘no no.’ It was regarded with great contempt, and unhealthy not only for the body but, though not exactly verbalized in such a way…for the soul too. White bread was something for other people, somewhere out there, but not for September’s family. White bread was not even really food, but more akin to a trick. The house was not allowed to have Orange Sherbert ice cream either, as that was not real ice cream. These things were for wimps, and for people who were not as real as they should be. People who used such things, perhaps through no fault of their own as it were, had been misled. September didn’t know who had misled the whitebread eaters, or the sherbert eaters, but only that they were to be both pitied and avoided, for they had taken a wrong turn in the road somewhere. September remembered also, on top of all the varieties of food, that they were served in ridiculously large portions. Actually, they couldn’t rightly be called portions, but rather piles, because there was never, for instance, a baked potato on his plate, but three potatoes. People were encouraged to eat everything on their plate, and to learn to love even the foods they disliked. Later in life, he was surprised to see other people, in homes or restaurants and the like, take food and then waste it. He was also surprised that people were so picky about what they ate. The more he ate with other people through the years, the more he came to regard the foods he ate as best, and moreover, his attitude to food not only different, but also better, than many people. September Wednesday made a mental note to let his folks know that they’d done well by him when it came to food. He made a second mental note to inquire about his name, and why they had chosen to call him September Wednesday, because the name was a mouthful, and a strange mouthful at that.

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