CLEAN UP YOUR PLATE

                                               Eileen Cichello  

Meals were interesting...(.somehow, that word is just not strong enough!)...affairs at our house, back when all the kids were young.  No meal was officially complete until a cup of milk, usually full, had been spilled.  You grabbed a towel, mopped up the kid and the table, threw the towel on the floor spill and continued eating.  It’s called survival.

My husband Sam and I had very different theories about food and eating. I came from a home where “if in doubt, you throw it out.”  Sam’s motto was, “if in doubt, fry it.”  He convinced the kids that stale bread was terrific, that heels were the best part of the loaf.

He also insisted that they eat everything on their plates. 

I agreed with that theory...up to a point.  There was a disastrous morning when I decided to make hot oatmeal for breakfast.  (“Good mothers COOK breakfast for their children.”)  I’d never cooked hot cereal before, remembering vividly being force-fed lumpy porridge when I was little.  Unfortunately, Sam was in the kitchen at the time I presented the oatmeal.  Breakfast went on for a long, long time.  My sympathies were totally with the kids.  I later buried the box of oatmeal.

Another item I served just once was winter squash.  The seven kids played with it, moving it around on their plates, amid such comments as “we gotta EAT this stuff?” “Yuck!” “I’ll throw up if I eat it”...

Sam’s response: “If it’s not finished in five minutes, you get another serving.”  All believed and gagged it down.  All except Teresa.  Plop!  Another serving landed on her plate.  Teresa is now 35 years old.  Her voice still quivers with outrage when this subject comes up at family gatherings.  Then there was liver.  I cooked it with lots of bacon and most of the kids actually liked it.  Except Michael and Paul.  Especially Paul.  There was a dinner when Paul sat at the table for several hours after everyone else had left, glaring at the liver on his plate.

At some point, we modified the rules so that each child could pick one food they didn’t have to eat.  Not one food per meal.  One food, period.  Naturally, Paul picked liver.  Feeding seven kids on a tight budget, combination dishes were the order of the day, generally taken from my collection of “10,000 Ways to Cook Hamburger”.  Beef Skillet Fiesta was a weekly item on the menu for many years...a little hamburger with a lot of rice, corn and tomatoes. 

Just don’t mention it in Teresa’s presence.  Going off to college, Teresa announced HER rule for eating: “If it’s got more than three colors in it, I won’t eat it!”