Most kids grow up with carrot sticks, peanut butter, apples, and juice boxes, I grew up with a variety of other foods. Foods that other kids considered “weird and gross”. Both my parents are in the food industry—my mom wrote cookbooks when I was little, and my dad imported olives and Mediterranean specialties for “gourmet” grocery stores like Whole Foods. By the time I was five, I had eaten cow tongue, tripe, liver in all sorts of ways, countless pates, octopus, fish cheeks and roe, and many more strange foods. My lunch boxes were full of saffron rice, lentils, saag paneer (an Indian spinach dish), and Brie cheese instead of cheese sticks, and I drank home made juices instead of juice boxes. I longed for a regular peanut butter and jelly sandwich and a capri sun. But as I grew older, I learned to love my more varied palate, and I wasn't as picky as other kids. My parents often received compliments. “She’s so easy, she eats everything!” or “How lucky you are to have such a non-picky child”. Being blessed with high quality meals for lunch and dinner did sometimes lead to comical situations at friends’ houses. For example, as a Frenchman, my papa often brought back chocolate from business trips in France. So I learned to love French chocolate, and was certain that it was the best on earth and that no other chocolates could be worth my time. So one day at a playdate, when offered a square of Hershey’s chocolate, my polite three year old response was “No thank you. I only like French chocolate.” To this day, we laugh about this, but as comical as it may be, I believe it was the beginning of my appreciation for great food.
We had one big dinner rule at our house: you must be part of the clean plate club, meaning that your plate had to be sparkling clean, no sauces left, for the standard dinner baguette was used to wipe up every last scrumptious bite. Other dinner rules that followed were the common table rules such as “Chew with your mouth closed,” because great food demanded equally great manners. Papa also had another rule, that we could never say we didn't like something without trying it first, and he wouldn't tell us what we had tried until after we had tasted it and weighed in as to whether we liked it or not. This taught me that a food’s look or smell can be deceiving, and without the willingness and the adventure to dive in, we would miss out. I was also taught that great food was meant for sharing, and thus creating a community. As I grew up, my community of wonderful food changed and morphed, as I went from watching meals being created to creating my own. As I’ve created my own foods to share, I’ve realized that the table manners and maxim of finishing every last bite were as important to the food community as the food itself, because half of good food becoming “great” food is the result of sharing a good atmosphere.
Growing up with strange foods made me appreciate the unexpected, the hidden, being different, and most of all it made me appreciate the community and memories that are created by food.
