Meme: Childhood Memories. It's all about food.

Well it seems that there is yet another meme going around and I have been tagged not once, not twice, but three times. I know, I am a bad person. But I blame it on my previous computer problems and my head being in the clouds what with my recent move. And, when I could post, it was a toss up between talking about myself or talking about Paris. Paris won. But here I am, and my brand new computer is affording me much more time to post.

This meme asks us to delve deep into our memories for 5 things from our childhood related to food. Like Melissa, I wish I could tell you about the first time I tried lobster, or something equally refined, but as a kid, I was lucky enough to escape my maternal grandmother's green jello made with green olives inside.

Chocolate Hail (otherwise known as Chocolate sprinkles)
In the small town where I grew up my father used to frequent a food store specializing in Dutch products. Having grown up in Belgium, which is both french and dutch speaking, the foods this store offered reminded him of home. One of the items that always made it onto his grocery list was chocolate hail. In Belgium, this is not just a topping for ice cream, it's a breakfast staple. And much to the delight of my brother and I, he brought this habit with him to Canada and shared it with his children. Every day that we went to school we found a chocolate hail sandwich waiting for us in our lunch boxes --white bread spread with a generous layer of butter to hold the hail in, which is then folded in half to minimize lost sprinkles. Every lunch hour our classmates would gather around us and barter with their own sandwiches, hoping to make a trade. Being a kid with a chocolate sandwich can certainly make you popular. At least in the lunchroom.

Dote on me, please
I'm a sucker for birthdays, Christmas, or any occassion that can be used as an excuse to pamper or be pampered. I learned this behaviour from my mother. She was a skilled pamperer. Whether it be my birthday, Valentine's Day, or even Halloween, I could always count on being able to find something tasty waiting for me in the kitchen first thing in the morning. She would inevitably have set my place at the kitchen table, with a card, a trinket related to the occassion, and some sweet pastry that she had picked up just for me. She knew my favourite was a fresh croissant, sometimes plain, but more often than not I craved the ones drizzled in chocolate. To this day, I still expect my birthday pampering to start from the moment I wake up, which can be irksome for my boyfriend if I happen to wake up before him.

Ketchup, without the bottle
For some reason, my father, who did all the cooking and grocery shopping in our house, never purchased a bottle of ketchup. Yet we never found ourselves without ketchup in the house. It wasn't magic. It was the result of saved ketchup packages from trips to McDonald's or Burger King or Harvey's, a Canadian favourite. There was a parcticular spot in our refrigerator reserved for these little packages and it often seemed to be overflowing. When I moved from home to attend university at the age of 17, one of the first things I bought for myself was my very own real bottle of ketchup. This was back in the day when you could still find them in a glass bottle, and you had to smack the bottom of it repeatedly to get the ketchup out. It was such a satisfying sound. I never looked back.

Strange inventions
My brother had and still has the heartiest appetite of anyone I know. There was nothing that he would not eat. And he often made the strangest concoctions of whatever leftovers were to be found in the fridge. I can recall many breakfasts where I would look at him strangely as he started his day off with cold spaghetti bolognese on a bun. His inventions never ceased to amaze, but there was one that came as a surprise. It looked very unappetizing and it sounded even worse. White wonder bread, topped with a slice of mozzarella (the fake, rubbery kind we used to buy in the supermarket), a slice of bologna, and some sliced pickles. Ok, but then. THEN. The sandwich is microwaved until it is reduced to nothing but a soggy mess. We were all rather embarrassed and surprised to find that it actually tasted quite good. It became the reigning family food invention and held top spot for many years.

It can still taste good, even if it's not all that pretty
On one particular trip to visit my dad's family in Belgium we all went out to a greek restaurant for dinner. Being one of 6 boys, my father's side is a numerous bunch. We've often in the past had to book a whole restaurant or small hotel for whatever occassion was being celebrated. As a child I was not a very adventurous eater, much to the dismay of my father, who did all the cooking in our house. At the restaurant, because there were so many of us, our food was served on oversized platters, each of them holding literally piles of food. I oogled the feta and the fresh tomatoes and olives, and everything else that looked familiar and safe. But what they set down right in front of me left me horrified. There lay before me a mound of dead fish, browned and dirty looking, with heads, eyeballs and all. I ignored the culinary details which explained its appearance: it was in fact a platter of fried smelt, which are little freshwater fish that look similar to sardines. I didn't care what they where, I just knew I wasn't going to touch it. To my young eye it looked as though the fish had been scooped up dead right off of the beach. The brown colour and rough exterior texture from being fried looked to me like dirt and sandy grit, only encouraging my "fresh off the beach" theory. I was mortified and wanted nothing more than to change seats with anyone who would understand my inevitable suffering if I were forced to stare at this platter for the rest of the evening. My father, never one to put up with my fussiness, insisted that I try one before making any judgements. A fair and reasonable request, yes, but it's not about being fair and reasonable when you are a kid. But when dad says do it, you do it. So when I could finally refuse no longer, I closed my eyes, and slowly put one, head first, in my mouth. It went down fairly quickly, and so did the many that I ate after that. It was from that point on that I realized that when it comes to food, looks can be very deceiving. And much to my father's delight all traces of fussiness that I once possessed are now gone.

Now the 4 people that I tag to continue this meme are:

1. Tara from Seven Spoons
2. J from Kuidaore
3. Boo from Masak-Masak
4. Bakerina from Prepare to Meet your Bakerina

I know I have messed up my 2 previous taggers, and for that I apologize. I have just used the path from the latest tag because it's easier that way. Hear my nervous giggle.

When it's your turn, simply move down the list, dropping number one from the top spot, moving the numbers down, and placing yourself in the number five spot, linking to each:


1. Cuisine et Compagnie
2. Chocolate and Zucchini
3. A Finger in Every Pie
4. The Traveler's Lunchbox
5. Oswego Tea