Food Wars Round 2

To continue a train of thought that Kathryn started (it's all her fault, after all), I have to enlighten you a bit on the history here. This is all in regards to the yams comment raised in her recent post, but it may take a while to get there from here. I have to go way back to the days of yore, to Farmington Elementary School.

I recall a time when we had hard shell tacos for school lunch. At the time, I was not what I would call overly fond of hard shell tacos, but they were something I didn't reject outright. It's unfortunate that I didn't at that point because I recall eating these hard shell tacos for lunch. Approximately 6-8 hours later, I recall a significant worship session in which I spent a lot of type praying to the porcelain god. I was barfing so heartily, I was certain that I could feel my shoelaces coming up. I spent the next 12 hours wondering if I was going to die, and the next 12 hours sure hoping that I would die.

Sometimes it is hard to tell if some specific item is what may or may have not caused food poisoning, particularly something in the context of school lunch. However, my older sister had a similar experience, and I think my younger brother did too. Needless to say, the one common thread between all of us was school lunch and those hard shell tacos.

Now I look at the makeup of a hard shell tacos. You got a shell, usually made out of some sort of corn substance, likely the same stuff they make regular corn chips out of, only shaped more conducive to holding a load of stuff. The stuff on the inside is some sort of meat, usually ground beef, seasoned with some sort of spice that make it taste 'taco-y' (is that really a word?), then your various gambit of items such as lettuce, cheese, maybe some olives, and/or salsa. Simple right?

Only, now I can't actually bring myself to eat this configuration of items without having a desire to wretch. Of course, as time passed from the original episode, the desire to hurl has lessened, but I still cannot bring myself to eat a hard shell taco. I can eat the same stuff all covered on tortilla chips. I can even eat (and like) the whole thing in a soft shell taco configuration and not even mind. But I just can't bring myself to chomp into a hard shell taco. I acknowledge it is all in my head. There is no reason to believe that I would get the same reaction to a hard shell taco now. Not any more than any other food. But I can't do it. It is simple. Hard shell tacos gross me out.

Now we get to the yams part of the story. If you get my family together, particular those of us that were old enough to remember being afflicted with my Grandma Clark's cooking, you can quickly find out the source of the consternation of several of my family in regards to particular foods. Amongst those fond memories of nasty food and related food-borne illnesses lies the problem I have had with yams.

I think it best to recall you to the way my Grandma Clark used to cook. I loved my Grandma and I hope that you understand that before I start talking about her cooking. She was a wonderful person, but she definitely was not a cook. I think she felt like the whole cooking business was a supreme inconvenience and thus was more apt to try and make shortcuts in the interest of keeping out of the kitchen. I am not aware that she knew that there was a function on the oven that allowed it to be turned on to a different setting from 'as hot as it gets'. It was either the hottest setting or it was off. Simply put.

My Grandma Clark also had this idea that the best way to cook was to make something big and then eat it over several days, thus eliminating the need to cook everyday. So, she would make a pot of something on the stove, they would eat, and leave the pot on the stove. The next time anyone was hungry, they would just turn the stove on and voilà! Dinner is ready. It's amazing that my dad was able to survive this. The best I can figure is the whole family could have taken on anything they could have got by drinking the water in Mexico without even feeling slightly sick. Sadly, having a mother that was aware of food-borne illnesses, our constitutions were not quite up to the snuff of those that were.

Some people who get married have a problem when it comes to cooking. There is always the guy saying something to the effect that if only his wife's cooking was somewhat near as good as his mom's cooking, then the food would actually be edible. This was never, NEVER a complaint I heard from my father's lips. One could conclude that my mom was a spectacularly good cook (which she really was - she could make food taste good no matter what....well, she never got spinach down too well, but how could you? Oh, yeah. Then there was that period of cooked cereal we went through. Maybe we won't go there. Bleck, I hated them lumps)

We did the one year at the Clark grandparents house for Thanksgiving and the next year at the Peterson grandparents house. I recall spending the Peterson years in absolute bliss because my Grandma Peterson was (and is) THE master at cooking. Peterson reunions were culinary masterpieces. I think it was ingrained in the blood of the Peterson side to just cook awesome. Mom definitely got her talent passed down.

But, to coin a phrase, I digress.

I recall spending the Clark Thanksgivings longing for the Peterson Thanksgivings. Granted, my Mom would make something to bring, so we wouldn't have to particularly starve those years. But occasionally, it was hard to identify exactly what Mom had brought and what was provided by the local kitchen.

One of my Grandma's "masterpieces" was the yams. I spent a good portion of my early years wondering how she could possibly make something that was that nasty. By the time my little brother Andy happened along, I was old enough to help out with him and Mom relied on me to do just that. It may mortify Andy for me to bring up the fact that I used to change his diapers (sorry about that Andy), but I recall some deposits Andy left in those diapers that appeared to be FAR more edible than those yams.

They were usually cooked way beyond their time, were sort of a liquid, poo-consistency goo, all spiced up with who knows what (maybe dirt, or something like that), and covered in marshmallows all melted and mixed into this conglomeration of seriously nasty yuck. It smelled like crap, and I don't mean crap in the "it smells nasty" sense, but actually like crap.

I think I was guilted at one point into actually tasting this death brew by my Mom. I think she felt bad when we all went to Grandma's house for Thanksgiving and we would all gag over Grandma's dishes and horde Mom's. It wasn't long after that Mom may have clued in that it was more of a survival instinct, but for the time she actually made me put that yuck in my mouth and eat it. The resulting food borne reaction may have helped her decide not to do that again.

Now I ask you honestly. Look at this picture. Kathryn used this as an argument for her really liking yams. Does this or does this not look exactly like a big pile of cat-sick? I will say her 'real' yams look better than these. Just looking at that picture gives the urge to dry-heave. She keeps raving over her yams, as do many in the extended family. I am sure that they are accurate in their assessment. But I cannot get past the urge to yack every time I even think about yams. I love Kathryn and she is an incredible cook. I just can't do the yams. Sorry, honey. I don't eat hard shell tacos either. It's not a reflection on your cooking. It's more of a reflection of conditioning. I can't stop it. It just is what it is.

By the way, Miracle Whip is nasty. I don't have a conditioned response that taught me that. It's just that it tastes yucky. Mayo rocks!