Being an immigrant, there is one basic distinction besides language which can really set you apart from your new home country.
Food.
If you saw the movie “My Big Fat Greek Wedding”, you might remember the scene where young Toula is asked by the girls in her class what she was eating for lunch.
“Moussaka” was the answer.
“Moose Ka-ka?” the girls jeered.
No matter what country you come from, there is something you eat that is strange to other Americans. The further you are removed from your ethnic roots and assimilated into the American mainstream, the less you are connected to those strange ethnic foods.
Where I grew up, Italian food was “ethnic”. Chinese was so exotic that it was quite the buzz. At least it was to me as a youngster.
More commonplace to me, were dishes such as Schnitzel, spaetzle, sauerkraut, sweet and sour red cabbage, blood sausage, head cheese, a whole host of cold cuts and sausages you might never have heard of, smoked eel, and pig’s ears.
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| Appetizing??? Anyone?? |
Yes, pig’s ears.
Let me tell you, I do not like pig’s ears. They are not meant to be eaten by humans. They are nothing more than skin and cartilage. It has a beyond nasty consistency of wobbly, slimy covering over a disturbingly crunchy interior. It feels horrible in the mouth. It smells vile. The taste is enough to make you sick.
To my father, pig’s ears were a lip smacking delicacy.
To make my father happy ( or to shut him up for a while, take your pick), my mom, on rare occasion, would ask the butcher at the local grocery store for a pair of these porcine body parts.
“For your dog?” the butcher would ask.
“No. For my husband.” She would answer.
The butcher would shrivel up his nose and shake his head, not sure if my mom was pulling one over on him.
She would take these vile body parts home and cook them for my dad. Usually, she would just boil it in water with bay leaves, salt, pepper and a little vinegar. She hated it too.
In no time, the house would smell like a rendering plant. If you never had the opportunity to smell a rendering plant, I will tell you that on the scale of disgustingness, it ranks right up there with overly used porta-potties that have baked in the hot weather for a couple of days.
One particular weekend, my mom was making lentil soup which was one of my favorites (Dinner idea #12 of her 15 meal repertoire). My dad, wanting the lentil soup to be extra delicious, badgered my mom to put the pig’s ears in the soup instead of cooking them separately. My mom resisted best she could, telling him that the ears would ruin the lentil soup.
But in the end, my dad won.
It was lentil soup with pig’s ears for dinner.
The house smelled of the afore mentioned stench. I knew my favorite soup would be inedible. It would taste like the house smelled.
I would have to claim to have no appetite. I would have to claim to be ill.
This did not work with my dad, who insisted that we all ate together (my sister was about 3 at the time and a fussy eater, so she was somehow excused from the experience). My mom pushed the food around and barely ate.
I had a bowl of the lentils in front of me. A small bowl, but without a pig ear…oh wait, there was a piece of pork skin here and there that separated from the ears. Claiming to be ill was not a difficult thing to do, the smell of the pig’s ears helped me look green.
“EAT!!” my dad commanded.
“EAT!!” my dad commanded.
I took a spoonful avoiding the chunks of floating skin. The soup tasted strongly of the pig ears. It was DREADFUL. It was DISGUSTING. It tasted worse than lapping up any nastiness I could imagine.
I tried my best. I ate what I could. A spoonful here. Another spoonful there. Looking sick, I am sure. And worse, I was actually beginning to feel sick for real.
Then my dad decided that he needed to share his delicacy with me. He was going to win me over. I was to learn to appreciate the gourmet delicacy that he cherished. Or else!
He cut a piece of the pig’s ear and put a grey piece of what should never be eaten by a human being into my bowl.
“EAT!!”
“No!! I don’t feel good…I can’t eat anything…”
My mom chimed in.
“Albert….don’t make her eat that shit. You can see she doesn’t feel good. She should go to bed!”
Horray!! I thought, I have an ally!!
“Not until she eats what I gave her!”
What my dad said was law. No one dared argue against him.
What my dad said was law. No one dared argue against him.
“EAT!!”
I feared him. I feared his anger should I not do what I was told. I picked up the ½ ear he put in my bowl and bit a piece of it.
The taste alone was enough to make me wretch. But combined with the mouth feel, it was too much for me. I swallowed hard. I tried to keep it down. Really, I did. But the projectile vomit that spewed from my mouth and all over the dinner table was enough to make my father stop dead in his tracks, pig ear hanging from his mouth.
“What’s the matter with you?” he asked wiping the pig ear juice from his mouth. That was his usual question when he knew he was beat, and lost the battle.
“I’m sick….”
“See what you made her do!” my mom scolded. “She should have puked in your bowl, it wouldn’t have tasted any worse!”
With that, she sent me off to bed.
I couldn’t stand the sight of lentil soup for years after that. But my dad NEVER made me taste a pig’s ear again. Ever.
My Lesson:
Puking is a defense that many animals have when frightened. Humans can use it too, especially when forced to do something distasteful. It is a great defense against an iron fisted member of the family who would not give in under other circumstances.
Good Heavens!!! I don't have anything in my repertoire to compare to that one. You certainly had a human reaction to that one. Like you, I grew up eating things many of my friends did not. With half my heritage as Italian, though, my friends did like pizza. But many of the vegetables they never ate. My parents would try to get us to eat different foods when we were young but they told us we only had to taste. If we did not like it, we could then refuse it after a taste. They told us that tastes change as we grow and would make us try things later. Even as an adult, I had people asking me what I was eating or buying and remember cluing in many a supermarket checker what a particular item was and how it was used. I once worked with a girl who drove me nuts. Each time we sat down for lunch in the office, she would look at what I was eating and announce loudly, "You eat the strangest things!" The fact that she only ate burgers, fries, and fried chicken seemed, to her, to have no bearing on her comments. One day my mom had fixed artichokes. I was really enjoying mine when I heard once again, "You eat the strangest things!" All my explanations, etc., had had no effect and I was tired of her nonsense so I just as loudly said, "And YOU have no romance in your soul!" I must have hit a nerve because she never said it again and there was no retort. I felt guilty for about two seconds and then went back to enjoying my artichoke. Too bad your dad was so adamant, but I think you did the only thing you could, voluntary or involuntary. I'm not sure my reaction in your shoes would have been any different.
ReplyDeleteWow, that made me laugh, and it made me wonder why I never did that when my dad would make me eat liver, I was not allowed to leave the table until I had finished it, smothered in ketchup, but it never hid the taste, but alas, I never threw up all over him, and that would have ended it for sure!! Oh, by the way, I love, and make a mean lentil soup, love almost everything you mentioned but head cheese and blood anything....
ReplyDeleteThanks for making me laugh
Danielle
Carol,
ReplyDeleteAmericans as a whole have such limited diets. It's no wonder why we are so sick... especially with the limited variety of fruits and veggies most eat as a whole. I love the variety...and often when I shop the checker is clueless. "What is that?? What do you do with it??" are questions I get a LOT of.
Italians (and countries on the Mediteranean as a whole) have the healthiest diets. Lots of fruits and veggies.
My daughter and I often get the same comments as you did. (You eat the strangest/most exotic things) when to us it was normal.
I guess we (and you) were sophisticated "Foodies" before it was fashionalbe!! :)
Danielle,
Only too happy to make you laugh!! Bringing people laughter is one of the things that gives me the greatest pleasure on this earth.
I grew up eating liver, and actually didn't mind it. Wasn't my favorite thing, but I did like it. With onions and bacon, its not so bad. But I have not had liver in maybe 30 years....once in a blue moon, I do get a craving for liverwurst (from a GOOD deli, not the usual packaged stuff) with a good strong mustard on a good pumpernickel or rye with a good kosher pickle....YUMMMM
When I was growing up, we had a neighbor who had the same volatile reaction to cooked carrots. Raw carrots, no problem. Cooked carrots, clear the path away from the table.
ReplyDeleteSadly, the hostess at a dinner party did not believe her and badgered her into eating the cooked carrots she had served. Being a polite Southern lady (or more accurately, to shut the hostess up), our neighbor at the carrots, with the predictable results. Apparently, the dinner party broke up pretty soon thereafter...
This made me chuckle; my still hated food are peas. Still cannot choke them down. My father's parents were from Poland and Mom use to make a lot of different Polish foods. Once she made a soup called Czarnina (Ducks blood soup). I remember the headless duck in the basement sink; draining blood. There was NO way I was going to try that soup. But somehow Mom or Dad talked me into it. I tasted it and loved it. From that time on I was less afraid to try new things. But I still cannot eat Peas!!
ReplyDelete