picky eater

Childhood Memories of Food and Family

Bud and I grew up together. He was raised like me, one of five. Like my home, there was plenty of food at mealtime but treats were rare. After school snacks were leftover biscuits, cornbread, or a grizzled flapjack left over from breakfast. Should a bag of cookies or chips miraculously materialize, ravenous kids would fall on it like a hoard of locusts. It brought new meaning to term, “first come, first served!”

Bud’s mom made cookies one evening. He ate all he was allowed before being dispatched to bed. Long after the house quieted, he lay sleepless, those cookies silently beckoning him from the cookie jar. He waited as long as he could stand it before slipping into the dark kitchen surreptitiously opening the cookie jar. Naturally, he was too wily to turn on the lights.

Slipping back into bed, he gobbled his bonanza under the covers. His appetite satiated, he laid back, finally ready for sleep. Moments later, Bud noticed a tingly, ticklish feeling on his hands. Upon investigation, he found them crawling with the remainder of the ants he hadn’t already consumed.

It was the same at the Swain house. I had some dainty little cousins. Their mother constantly worried that they wouldn’t eat. Invariably, Mother embarrassed me by remarking, “My kids eat anything I put in front of them!” Even a blind man could have inferred that by the smacking. It was hazardous to reach for the last piece of chicken. A slow kid might get a fork in the hand.

Anyway, I spent a few days with my non-eating cousin. Still smarting from Mother’s remark, I made up my mind to be a picky eater for the duration. Though it nearly killed me, I turned up my nose at every meal. I even spurned fried chicken and mashed potatoes and gravy, my favorites.

Aunt Bonnie tested me sorely when she emptied her freezer and offered up the remains of a carton of butter pecan ice cream before she tossing it. Along with her honestly snooty kids, I refused to consider it. I very nearly died of heartbreak as she rinsed the carton with hot water and ran the ice cream down the drain. I fear I would have lost my resolve and eaten out of the garbage if she’d left it in the carton in the outdoor garbage can.

By the time I got home, I was gaunt with hunger, having made a point to be pickier than her miniature children. Finally, my efforts were rewarded. The minute we got home, Aunt Bonnie claimed I was the pickiest eater she’d ever seen. I’d worried her to death!”

I was overjoyed! I rushed into the kitchen and snatched a dried out biscuit off Mother’s stove. I hid under the bed and ate it where Aunt Bonnie wouldn’t see me.

This is me and my cousin. We were about a year apart in age. Of course, I was the big one.

How to Raise Healthy Eaters in 5 Easy Steps

My mother was a child-rearing genius. She taught me her fool-proof plan for raising healthy-eaters, though she never sat down to delineate it for me. She was too busy trying to get dinner on the table. I’ve done that for all of you. You are welcome.

  1. There were five of us kids. Mother’s food budget was minimal. She put the food on the table, believing no child starved with food available. We ate like pigs in slop because should we we tarry, one of the other pigs got it. It would be a long, hungry time till the next meal.
  2. Kids don’t eat what isn’t there. She only bought and served nutritious foods, which we hated, by the way, but not as much as hunger. Our diet was based on vegetables supplemented by a modicum of chicken. Mother checked the markdowns and specials first. Though she bought many dented cans, she inspected them carefully for leakage, swelling, and signs of spoilage. It must have been a great disappointment, but she never managed to poison any of us. I often showed up at the table disgusted again to see beans, peas, greens, corn, rice, potatoes, corn, squash, spinach, tomatoes, and a tidbit or no meat on the table, again. A time or two, I tried turning my nose up at it. Mother’s response killed that. “Fine, maybe there will be a little left for supper. Now start on the dishes while we eat.”
  3. Leftovers were snacks. That meant, you might get a leftover biscuit, piece of cornbread, or flapjack if you beat the other kids off the bus. You had to be pretty hungry to go for flapjack. Mother’s flapjacks were disgusting. Sometimes, if she caught it on special, Mother bought peanut butter and saltines. We burned through those in a day or two. We made quick work Once in a while Mother made popcorn, but that was a family snack to be shared by the whole family while watching “Gunsmoke.” Remember “Gunsmoke?”
  4. Dessert was rare, usually reserved for Sunday’s and holidays. No cake, pie, cookies, lingered long. On rare blessed weeks, she went by the bread store to pick up a box of day-old bread, pies, cakes, hot dog buns, and various and sundry cast offs. One of my fondest memories is finding a lone, moldy Twinkie near the bottom of one of those boxes. I sat on my brother and ate it without chewing. If by some miracle a goody survived the initial family attack, the last piece had to be saved for Daddy. God help the misbegotten fool dared go there.
  5. Finally, she shared her pain when company dropped in for the WHOLE weekend polishing off the carefully stewarded foodstuffs that would have barely let her squeak through till payday, anyway. We needed to know that she would have to kite a check to get some dry beans, flour, shortening, and that a couple of chickens in the barnyard have a date with destiny this week. It stimulated our flagging appetites!

Sometimes, I’d hear Mother’s friends complaining that their kids were picky eaters. Once, just once, I’d have loved to hear her defend us saying we were, too, but, no! Invariably she’d crassly complain, “My kids eat anything I put in front of them!” She had no pride at all.

Tough Critics

We didn’t get out much when our kids were little.  We learned early on, if  people in our pay grade  had children, they didn’t  have much else.  What seemed like a fun and inexpensive hobby, turned out to be an expensive proposition. Having friends over for dinner was about as far as our budget stretched.

One night we had dinner guests and sat the two three-year-old boys down with a plate of what I thought looked like delicious manicotti, a dish new to both of them.  Soon, I realized it was a big mistake.  My John was a champion talker and felt everyone needed his opinion.  Tasting  the sauce sauce and announced.  “ I don’t like it.  Can I have a hot dog.”

“At least try it. I answered.   “If you don’t like it, you can have a hot dog.”

He poked it with a fork and spiced meat pressed  out.  “I can’t eat this, Mommy.!” He yowled. “ “It’s got doo doo in it!”

After that, his little friend Neil refused to try it..  “This is delicious.” He stated flatly, laying his fork down.

His mom cleared things up for me.  “He says food is delicious when it’s disgusting.”  I knew when I was whipped and went for the hot dogs.