My mom was not the world's greatest cook. She meant well and was a genuinely nurturing person, but back in the day the recipes for virtually all of our meals were lovingly lifted from the back label of Campbell soup cans.
According to Ancestory.com I am 6,000 % WHITE JEW (I am 1% African American, which explains why I loved Ralph Ellison, James Baldwin and Roy Campanella) and for most Eastern Europeans starch and truckloads of carbohydrates were considered haute cuisine.
Portions would make a grown elephant weep. I could have built a Close Encounters mashed potato mountain on my plate at every single meal.
Now to a little kid, some of that Campbell grabbed grub was pretty enticing.
A highlight was ham garnished with a wedge of pineapple, topped with a delectable no. 2 dyed red maraschino cherry and also right up there was meatloaf stuffed with alphabet soup. (A meal obviously not for illiterates).
Off the Campbell grid came more diverse offerings like spaghetti and meat balls that were the size of a large baby's head. Salmon croquettes (whatever the hell they were), and occasionally Duddy Kravitz sized platters of London Broil drowned in tanks of Heinz ketchup.
Best of all were the Swanson TV Dinners like Salisbury Steak with a warm only-after-you-finish-your meal muffin that you pretended to save for last while you secretly snuck nibbles every time your mom looked away.
TV Dinners and their shiny futuristic metal trays made me feel like I was sitting at the big boy astronaut table. To this day, If I had to pick a last meal, I would definitely go with a Swanson dinner. And a pizza slice which in those days were ten cents and the size and shape of a Little League field.
Dessert in the fifties was not taken lightly. Jello and Jello pudding, either instant or cooked (the waiting to gel period was agonizing and how the hell did they grow a layer of skin? Were they secretly sea monkeys?) were a staple as was anything from Hostess or Drakes.
Company, in the form of a gaggle of sugar shocked relatives, brought cake from Ebingers, whose pink boxes they would casually swing back and forth like church incense. Lard for Lourdes.
Entemanns also was a huge player as was anything from Nabisco.
On Valentines Day mom got a red ribbon wrapped heart box of assorted candies and it was your civic duty to search and consume all the chocolate covered jellies, often 25 at a time. The ones with nuts? Why did anyone even bother? And let's not forget the world of kid candy which were literally good and plenty. In those days Halloween was every day. Actual Halloween was our version of Lost Weekend.
It seems that the message was: diabetes is a badge of honor, so enjoy!
All the TV shows that we watched hawked, non-stop, all the desserts and most of all Wonder Bread which was the memory foam of its day.
I hated plain milk. I remember watching kids suck down their milk cartons at snack time thinking: why don't they just drink the blood of a dead squirrel?
But God in his infinite wisdom, provided us with Bosco, U-Bet and Coco Marsh---that had a toy under it's lid. And of course there was Cracker Jacks too which kept ERs hopping with their choke-able rings and other diminutive asphyxiation starters.
Which brings me finally, to breakfast, today's breakfast, which I am having right now. In the day your choice was Post or Kellogg's and since Superman did commercials for Kellogg's I chose to wolf that down as opposed to Popeye's Spinach. Sure he was strong, but he looked like he died from lip or lung cancer forty years ago. That never left his pipe obviously killed him.
The inspiration for what I'm writing today is based on my breakfast order.
My mom, created an incentive to get me to the bottom of the bowl, by drawing a picture of bear with the last few splays of oatmeal and to me that was Da Vinci brilliant. How did she do that? Was the bear always there and she was just doing a little deft porcelain excavation?
Besides being a huge fiber fan (to us middle age folks pooping is the new orgasm) I think I ordered the oatmeal in search of why most of us eat to this very day: comfort by way of a little time travel.
Over the weekend The New York Times said that Hilary could lose Florida which immediately made me think that any Floridian that is thinking of voting for that lying, xenophobic, misogynistic, business-failing orange freak show must be living just like I did when I was in my childhood TV coma days when I believed in the indisputable gospel of pure fantasy make believe while literally drinking the Kool Aid (often directly from the package) because doing all that would surely make my childhood great again.
The only difference between Trump and say Howdy Doody of the day is that Howdy Doody had an actual human with a heart, soul and brains pulling the strings.
Over the weekend, the bombings in New York was the big breaking news story and I felt so rattled from that and everything else that today the only clear remedy for what ails me was a nice bowl of oatmeal and I'm not ashamed to tell you why. It's simply because sooner or later, we all need desperately to be reminded that the bear is still waiting, ready to welcome, soothe and applaud us for a job well done.
How many humans, in the course of an average day, week or month are there to offer you that?
Maybe that is why we sooner or later have to hit bottom, so we can get to the bear who will dust us off, kiss us lightly on the cheek and send us on our way. Just like mom used to do.
Now go finish your oatmeal.