Funny how our hated foods of youth become our favorites later on. Not, ‘ha-ha? funny, just peculiarly.
When I was a lad, carrying my lunch to school 8 miles away, uphill both ways, mother frequently made up bean sandwiches. She’d mash navy beans left over from dinners and spread it between two slices of homemade bread.
I don’t remember ever not eating every bite.
Today I still love beans, souped or saladed, baked or casseroled with franks, bacon or ham. I can’t say the same for sweet potatoes, rhubarb, broccoli or cauliflower. I spent many hours of my youth sitting at the table until that stuff mother told me to finish got finished.
Of that list of four, there is only one that I still resist today . . . sweet potatoes or yams, same thing. My mother, then wife Hazel and now daughter Luan still insist on spoiling the Thanksgiving Day spread with those orangeish tubers.
Also, in those home-bound school days I’d resist macaroni and cheese. Today I have a supply of Stouffer’s frozen mac and cheese ready for my taste’s call.
Dad grew our own eggplant. Mother fried it. I was force-fed it. Sometimes nowadays it’ll appear on a menu with Parmesan accompaniment and I’ll make it my main course.
I don’t believe I was even exposed to anything Oriental in my early farm-life cuisine, but I would have undoubtedly disliked it. Today, teriyaki is another favorite.
However, I never liked dumplings, corn bread, rutabagas or squash. Squash got better with age and I’ll go for a second helping of that over mashed potatoes.
Perhaps the biggest change in my eating habits and choices comes in soups. Mother probably made other soups, but bean is the only one I remember. Add a little vinegar and m-m-m-good.
But there is great inconsistency in soups. Cooks think we need cubed potatoes in practically every spooned liquid. In truth, I don’t think they should even be in potato soup. Keep them out of my clam chowder. They’re like filler. Cheap filler. Some cooks also think potatoes (filler) are needed in beef noodle, French onion, chicken noodle and beef barley soup.
What I’m getting at is, when you order your favorite soup you may be getting an experimental offering.
For that reason, whenever a waitress asks, ‘Do you want soup or salad?? I say, ‘Salad.?
It’s hard to screw up lettuce.
Another thing. I swear recipe writers are fiction happy. They all have a theory that soups need a certain number of ingredients, like thyme, curry, or balsamic vinegar. What the heck is balsamic?
I read that ingredient, if that is what it is, in someone’s squash and apple sauce soup in The Detroit News. Why would anyone try to link squash and apple sauce? I think some cooks are sniffing too much ginger, dill, paprika, sage, oregano or beau monde.
I’ll close with some soup for thought, also from The News. Nearly 3 billion cans, boxes and other containers of soup are sold annually in the U.S. in hundred of flavors an styles.
Two companies – Campbell’s and Progresso – make up the vast majority of the market. Until 1950, top-seller Campbell’s offered only 21 flavors. Now they make 200 different soups, not just in cans but in cartons, microwavable containers and 1-cup size portable portions, many of which are ready-to-serve.
Progresso soups, which never require the addition of water or milk, now number 70 varieties.
Back to me. For some reason I’ve avoided Campbell’s soups, thus Progresso’s in my cabinet turntable. Taken with a handful of saltines, they satisfy that lunchtime urge.