Poetic Justice
When we were children, my siblings and I were not shy about expressing our distaste for some of the foods our mother served. In point of fact, we were total brats. Looking back, I am ashamed of the nose holdings, the groans, the grotesque faces and the retching noises we made when presented with rutabaga, spinach or - heaven forbid! - kale. "Eeeuw, kale! I won't eat that junk!"Now that I'm the cook and I know how sensitive I am to criticism, I'm a little surprised she didn't slap us upside the head or rush from the table in tears when we exhibited such incredibly boorish behavior. Instead, she just made us eat Every.Single.Bite. Poetic justice, I suppose.
Fast forward to my new resolve to try one new thing each time I go to the grocery store. As I was bopping down the veggie aisle, what should I spy but a nice, healthy bunch of organic lacinato kale. Even as I was mentally making those same retching noises, I was thinking, "Yeah, but you haven't tried it in 50 years; why not give it a whirl?"
So, here it is, simply rinsed, coarsely chopped and sauteed in bacon fat with a leftover slice of bacon crumbled in amongst the dark green leaves. Next time, I'd remove most of the unpleasantly fibrous stems but it was good. Seriously good. Surprisingly good. So good that I'm mentally apologizing to Our Mother Who Art In Heaven for all those disgusting noises and crass comments.
Labels: kale
posted by Zoomie at
5:33 AM
4 Comments:
Bad bad zoomie! LOL! Next time, blanch the stems first and then, saute them with whatever seasonings you are going to add before you add in the leaves. I love kale and fix it all the time. BUT my parents would never have allowed the kind of behavior you describe. The only food we got away with not eating was my mother's fancy aspic (very fishy tasting) and liver. At one point, my mother kept bringing out the increasingly moldy aspic and liver to try to force me to eat it. I just could not gag it down and finally my father took pity on me and let her throw it away. But making a gagging noise? We would have been picking teeth out of the back of our heads.
Nice to grow up, isn't it?
I too never had the privilege of not eating what my mom served for supper. But it usually didn't occur to me not to like it. Spinach, pork chops, tamales, avocados, sashimi, baklava, chili, tenderloin of beef... My mom put on a good table.
(I was not allowed to be a brat.)
Once upon a time I refused to eat tomatoes or cheese! It is indeed, good to grow up and say sorry to our mums!
Nancy, we never got away with not eating it - that was her revenge!
Cookiecrumb, most meals she served were delicious, I have to admit. It was only the occasional rutabaga or kale that elicited these kinds of rudenesses.
Morgan, imagine! Kids are so weird! Luckily, mothers know to wait them out.
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