Tuesday, September 13, 2016

Food Irony

Tonight I was preparing one of our favorite, or at least most frequent, meals.  Essentially I take whatever leftovers we have that sound good together, add some veggies, heat them up and scramble in a few eggs.  If Penguin is not planning on eating with us, I melt in a bit of cheese as well.

It's fast, easy, and also serves as comfort food.  It turns leftovers into a second serving (and there have been days where I make pasta or rice simply because I want to turn it into second servings)  As providence would have it, we've nicknamed this meal "hash" since it's pretty much a hash up of all the still edible leftovers and we never really get the same meal twice.

Not long ago, I was talking to my mom when I mentioned using leftovers again like fried rice.  Before I could get too far, she made a disgusted sound and said it reminded her too much of what her mom used to do.  Which was throw leftovers into a frying pan and scramble in an egg or two and call it hash.

My mom hated that meal when she was growing up.  And to be fair, I've seen some of the recipe booklets from the 50's and I swear, people back then had some very questionable tastes (Like lemon jello with chicken salad in it as a delicacy)  And my given diet is drastically different than theirs, namely that mine tends towards veggies and theirs would have been more meat and potato-ey.  So, it's quite possible that her version of hash and mine vary in appeal.  It's also possible that her leftovers were less than appealing to a young child to begin with; making the leftovers even less so.

Then again, maybe my version of hash will go down in the history books as unappealing goop.

At any rate, I love that my experimenting led me to create a meal that my mom never once considered serving because she found it so unappetizing as a kid.  And that I nicknamed it the same thing my grandmother named hers.  I've racked my brain and can't recall having hash; unless it was hash browns.  I do recall that my grandfather occasionally got a different meal than my brother and I and it may have been hash. But I never got a good look at it, and accepted that it was for grown ups.

Is my meal palatable?  Well, Mr Violets hasn't complained.  He's even offered to make rice so we could turn it into hash...So it can't be too bad.  The kids, however, reserve judgement.

Like most kids, they'd rather have pizza.  Even if it is gluten free and dairy free from a box.

1 comment:

River Glorious said...

I have to try eating rice again! :)

Your story reminded me of the time I found out my grandmother used to crochet. She never mentioned it and never saw me making anything until one summer some years ago. She looked surprised, turned on her heel and went to her room and came out with the same crochet hook she used as a girl. I cherish it.

Have a great week, Violets!