Sunday, October 18, 2009

An Ongoing Conversation




A couple of posts came up lately, one mine, one over at Mayberry's. In a way, the both of them kinda got me thinkin'. So I went and talked to my mom and Aunt's and uncles and the old folks back in the Italian rural ghetto I grew up in.

What I talked to them about was how folks ate. I didn't talk to a person who was less than 79 and I listened harder as the folks got older. What I talked to them about was their eating habits and how they used things like clothes.

They ate low on the food chain. Even I remembered that part. Gardens were big. Canning was a fact of life. Meat portions were small and you got one piece.  Potatoes and polenta was used as filler.  Green beans in a mason jar were a fact of life.  Sweets were simple like cakes and cookies and were used as bribes for children and when visitors came over.

But they remember having a good life.  That is the key to the whole banana.  Try stopping the fancy crap that you see on restaurants and TV cooking shows.  Try eating basics.  You will find that by stopping your pretensions and your striving and just eating simple good food you might start a process of simplification that will make you a better person.

2 comments:

tweell said...

Dad said that as a child his Mom would bake potatoes in the morning and hand them out. The hot potato served as a hand warmer as they went to school/work, and they ate cold potatoes for lunch.

Mayberry said...

That's why we always have beans with BBQ! Roasted corn is delicious. Simple stuff like 'tater salad is cheap and easy to make. Gotta stretch that meat....