Tuesday, April 29, 2014

Free Reign at Grandma's



            My mom had a litany of food rules. Cereal had to contain 100% whole-grains, more than three grams of protein per serving and less than five grams of sugar; any beverage we wanted had to have at least 70% juice; no artificial flavors or colors; no MSG; no pop or white bread. My brother and I were well aware of the requirements that governed our trips to the grocery store. We quickly became literate in nutrition labels and food-packaging claims and spent a lot of time in the cereal aisle attempting to find new varieties that fit into complied with the restrictions. We were sick of Cheerios.
                I commend my mom for her keep-them-busy-in-the-grocery-store tactic. I think she made up many of the requirements on the spot, needing an explanation for not allowing Kix, Cinnamon Toast Crunch, or even Honey Nut Cheerios into the house. “But mom, the Murray’s always have this kind, and Mrs. Murray says she eats healthy!”
She stuck to her rules, and at least the specificity made it feel like we had some choice in what ended up in our cart. I spent less time blindly requesting the packages of ‘extreme’ chips and ‘very berry’ fruit snacks that I saw in my best friend’s pantry - always followed by a curt “No” (or a ‘did-you-really-just-ask-me-that’ eyebrow raise) - and more time with my head bent over nutrition labels. I had some understanding of why we could buy cinnamon raisin bagels, but not blueberry (blue dye number 2), not that it made me much happier about it.
                Every single restriction went, or rather, was forcibly thrown, out the window at Grandma’s. Being besieged by artificial colors, flavors, sweeteners, preservatives, and empty carbohydrates was arguably the best part of our weekly sleepovers at her condo. In the morning I laid in bed, staring at the caricatures of my mom and her two brothers on the wall and dreamily anticipating my grandma’s special toast: Pepperidge Farm cinnamon raisin bread smeared with Jif Creamy peanut butter.
My grandma was always awake, in her blue floral chair watching a morning talk show or AMC, when I wandered downstairs. Her face broke into a huge smile, lips already coated in Maybelline’s ‘Sienna’, as I crossed the baby blue carpet to her chair.
“Ready for me to fix you some breakfast?”
I helped spread the peanut butter on the hot toast - the hydrogenated oils and diglycerides making it possible to get a nice even layer with one stroke of the butter knife. I flipped the toast upside-down before taking a bite so that the peanut butter wouldn’t stick to the roof of my mouth. The raisins we still warm and perfectly gooey. A heaping bowl of Rice Krispies followed, and I did put my ear close to the bowl, listening for the ‘snap’ ‘crackle’ ‘pop’. I could only hear the crackle part.
                A few hours later - after playing Chutes and Ladders, counting change from one of the royal glass dishes on the mantle, pulling 50+ boxes of shoes down from the shelf in my grandma’s closet, and painting our nails – we were ready for the lunchtime snack. While my grandma assembled various packets and containers on the counter and mixed up the French onion dip, I went to the pantry for a fresh bag of Lays. I poured the chips in the moat around the bowl in my grandma’s blue pottery chip-and-dip platter and carefully carried it out to the coffee table.
                Once in a while my mom would come over on her lunch break to join us. The pharmacy my parents owned was just down the road from the condo, and she had a weak spot for chips and dip. We sat together on the blue plaid couch in front of the bay view window, munching away. Why was it so good? There’s something about Lays potato chips – just thin enough, optimal crunch, and ideal salt content. And with the creamy tang of the dip…it’s just an unbeatable combination.
This was the food my mom had grown up with. She had had all the Wonder bread, Fritos, Fruit Cocktail, and Jello a kid could ask for. And more. She was overweight and uncomfortable for most of her adolescent years. In Pharmacy school she expanded her knowledge about food and started to change her habits. By the time my brother and I were born she was a full-fledged health-food nut boycotting preservatives and MSG.
Sitting on the couch next to my grandma, my mom wore a long linen dress, her dark hair held back with a barrette – classic 90s co-op frequenter look. But at her mom’s house it was her mom’s rules. This was the place where we could all enjoy a freedom from the restrictions. We could accept offerings of love and respect differences in food choices. Though very few other exceptions were made (I was once grounded for coming home from a friends house with gum in my mouth) it was understood that we could accept everything my grandma spoiled us with. My mom licked a glob of dip off of her knuckle and took another chip from the moat, “Delicious as always, Mom.”  
                I urged my mom out the door, wanting grandma all to myself. The best came last in our perfect day of food. After our dinner and baths, my brother and I sat on the barstools facing the kitchen - kicking our legs, swiveling slightly side-to-side, already in our pajamas. Grandma shut the freezer door with the carton in her hand. I studied her gold, silver, and diamond-laden fingers as she pulled an old-fashioned metal ice cream scoop from the drawer. We used to compare our hands side-by-side and she admired my ‘young skin’, rubbing and trying to smooth out her protruding veins. 
                “Here you go Dolly.” Breyer’s Neopolitan Ice Cream: three scoops and always the option for seconds. My grandma knew how to dish up a bowl of ice cream - generous, rounded, actually scoop-like mounds, (not like the pile of chunks I ended up with after going at the carton) with equal amounts of strawberry, chocolate and vanilla. I liked to wait until the ice cream softened, until glossy puddles began to form around the edges of each scoop. Since I usually wasn’t patient enough to let it reach this optimal consistency, my first bite was always a bit of a disappointment – still too cold to taste the full flavor.
As my bowl of Neapolitan melted, the three flavors came together into a wet-sand colored substance with a fragrance of cocoa, vanilla, and that not-actually-strawberry flavoring. It was the perfect consistency; smooth, but not completely melted – like a soupy milkshake.
At my house, I was sullen as I unloaded the groceries and helped put them away. It was a reminder of everything that was banned from our cupboards, refrigerator, and freezer. I wanted peanut butter that didn’t have a thick layer of oil on top that I could never still in completely with my butter knife; I wanted cereal that had animated characters on the box; I wanted chips that would stain my fingertips.
My brother and I made each spoonful of Neapolitan last, knowing we wouldn’t taste this sticky-sweet artificiality until our next sleepover at grandma’s.  
*
As I got older I started to notice the way different foods made me feel. After a stealthy Cinnamons Toast Crunch binge at the Murray’s house that used to satisfy an intense craving, I found my stomach a confused, bubbly, jumble. I craved fruit more often than candy and was grossed out by the bright powder flavoring on Doritos. I started putting whole-wheat pasta, Vruit (vegetable and fruit juice), and bags of spinach in our cart at the grocery store.
I had internalized most of my mom’s food rules, end even made a few of my own: don’t eat anything you can’t pronounce, no ‘juice cocktail’, no more ‘walking tacos’ at volleyball games. Despite my new self-determined food choices, anything at Grandma’s was still fair game. Her condo was the vacuum where we could give in to the artificiality of All-American industrialized foods. Though no longer seduced by bright packages and intense flavors, following my mom’s lead I continued to partake in the peanut butter toast, chip-and-dip, and Neapolitan rituals. Participating in my Grandma’s food culture was more important than staying vigilant to our health regimens. Plus, it tasted good. 

No comments:

Post a Comment