Wednesday 7 November 2012

Z doesn't eat a slug

Ro is now a home-owner.  He and Dora are planning to move at the weekend - their landlord doesn't mind them staying on in their present place until they're ready to move their stuff. Not that they have much, they are going to start almost from scratch.  Except for kitchen utensils of course, Ro has a well-equipped kitchen.

He's always enjoyed cooking.  When he was at university, sometimes I'd get a phone call - "I've bought some tuna, can you suggest a recipe?"  Or he might ask for a good sauce to serve with chicken, or enquire about the finer points of making gravy.

It does't happen every day of course, but a few times a week I spend half an hour or more going through a pile of cookery books, deciding what I'm going to serve for dinner.  I leave the more experimental things for when the Sage is out and sometimes take the opportunity to cook a fairly elaborate meal containing ingredients he isn't too fond of.  Not that he's overly fussy, just compared to me.

Having said that, I frequently don't follow recipes at all, or use one just for guidance.  I cook quite simple food most of the time, though I've been giving a bit more thought to meals with Elle to cater for. Not that she's difficult to feed, she eats almost anything too.

It puzzles me that children nowadays seem to consider eating vegetables an ordeal.  I never did, it wouldn't have occurred to me, and I don't remember any children of my age being fussy about food.  Of course, anyone can dislike certain tastes, but that's not the same thing at all.

Having said that, I probably was less fussy than most.  I remember one occasion, I was probably about seven, and my mother opened a tin of celery hearts.  Now, cooked celery is about my least favourite vegetable (though I like it in casseroles and soup) but I wouldn't have dreamed of leaving it on my plate.  But I cut into it and found, right in its heart, a slug.  A cooked, canned slug.  Fortunately, my mother left the room to fetch something from the kitchen at that moment (we were alone together) and I picked it out quickly and slung it in the fire, where it sizzled.  Then I ate the celery.

10 comments:

Ivy said...

Ugghhh - a slug like that. You should have got your mother to send it back to the firm - and made a fuss - they`d probably have sent you a lot of vouchers, to keep it quiet from public health officials!!

mig said...

Canned slug sounds worse somehow than a fresh one. If a slug can be called fresh under any circumstances.
I was a dreadfully fussy eater and have terrible memories of things, both meaty and vegetable that didn't seem to get smaller after hours of chewing. My children were all fussy too but they all eat almost everything now with enthusiasm. As do I. I blame the parents.

Anonymous said...

" Brick laying mostly"?
Rely?
I bet Dwight 's got a lotta info about houses and barns.
Red ones, especially.
I hear he built the foundation for " The Outrigger Hotel"?
And it gave that razor edge to Ada and " Farisu Nyannyan"
who gave Jon Kerr 1 the ball in " Ballancelle".
ME.
I think someone contacted....
" Indianacosmetologybarbersassociation.org?
And that's some razor!
( With cow)

Z said...

I was immensely polite and didn't want to upset her. Although I don't think public health would have been that interested back in the early 1960s! It was right in the heart of the celery, impossible to find. There was a little hole where it had been lying, I remember it clearly.

I had a tiny appetite and hardly ate anything, but that's in terms of quantity, not range. I cut all the fat off meat, but otherwise was awfully good. I might have received medals for goodness, had my name been Bertha.

Anon, I promise it's true and I help a bloggers' party last year to celebrate the building of the famous wall.

Roses said...

I would have eaten the slug and dumped the celery. I despise celery.

Lawrence says it adds a bit of something to a meal. He takes out all the celery after it's added a bit of something.



Unknown said...

You should have eaten the slug! The protein.

Liz said...

My experience of children and vegetables is completely the opposite to yours. I hated vegetables as a child and my poor mother used to employ all sorts of bribery and corruption to get me to eat the dreaded broad beans (which I still don't like). My little niece and nephew on the other hand are as good as gold about eating vegetables. Boy cub doesn't like tomatoes but apart from that will usually eat whatever you put in front of him.

I was well into my 30s before I would eat many vegetables unless they were peas, carrotts and cabbage. Nowadays I like asparagus, spinach, parsnips, squash, broccoli and I'll even eat sprouts. Mind you, sprouts have been carefully bread to make them less bitter so they taste a lot nicer than they did 30+ years ago.

I still don't like broad beans and I am not at all keen on celery. Sir Bruin loves celery so I do put it into meals where it is just another ingredient but I couldn't munch it on its own.

Z said...

If faced with more food than I could eat, my kind mother advised me to leave the vegetables and eat the meat because I needed the protein.

The Sage isn't fond of celery because his prep school headteacher loved it and the smell of celery soup cooking filled the corridors. Or so he says. He also doesn't like bananas, because they weren't available when he was a child, or mushrooms. I don't know why he doesn't like mushrooms.

luckyzmom said...

My husband is, compared to me, a quite a picky eater. I love celery in all forms except in green jello, but I would eat it to be polite.

Z said...

Me too. I'd eat anything to be polite, even if I had to hold my breath so as not to taste it!