There are several small memories that I relate to a specific meal or dish in my life. Since it is Fall Festival week, I will start there. My earliest memory of the Fall Festival would be eating corndogs when I was around 7 or 8. I remember that my parents never wanted to spend much money on food at the Fall Festival, so they would tell us we could pick out one thing to get. Usually, we would get a corndog. We would pick one day out of the week that we wanted to buy bracelets to ride all the rides we wanted, and our parents would buy it for us. Us kids would get around 30 dollars apiece to spend on what we wanted at the festival. If I ate a corndog before rides, my stomach would get queasy, but it was never too bad. However, if I got adventurous and chose deep fried corn fritters as my meal, my stomach usually couldn’t take it when I would get on the rides. In general, Fall Festival food doesn’t settle well with my stomach. I haven’t really eaten there in a couple years, but it seems like my stomach has went downhill since then, so I am curious to see how I handle all the greasy food this year.
One of my earliest food memories, if you could even consider this food, was when I was 3 or so and I had an obsession with gum. I loved the taste of it, and I thought it was so strange that you could chew it for hours and it would never go away. I’m not sure why my parents trusted me with gum so young, but they did. I just remember every time I saw my great-grandma, Ma, or my Nana, I would ask them for gum. I was watching my little sister’s baby video the other day. I was about 2 and a half in the video, and my parents were bringing my sister home from the hospital. My great-grandma walked in, followed by my mom, dad, and the new baby. Instead of me asking to see the baby, you see me in the video tugging on Ma’s dress and asking her for gum. It was cute to look back on because I had forgotten how much I loved gum and I didn’t really realize how much I related gum to both my great-grandma and my grandma.
Then, of course, there is school lunch. 99% of the time, the food was nasty. But there was always that one day during the week that the food was good. During elementary school, it was Thursday, pizza day. We would all get so excited to go to lunch and eat pizza. Looking back now, I’m pretty sure it’s the same pizza that disgusted me in high school, but oh well. One thing I will always remember about elementary school is the milk in the plastic bags. You would just take your straw and stab it through the bag. At the time it was no big deal, but when you think about it, it’s a very strange thing. The bags always had little cartoon characters on them saying random things. During middle school and high school, it was Wednesday, mashed potato day. It either came with mini cornies, beef fingers, or chicken nuggets. For some reason, this made the whole week okay. In high school, when I would be having a terrible day, my friends would always just be like “at least it’s mashed potato day!” I have no idea why these instant mashed potatoes had such an impact on our lives, but they did. How strange.
Hospital experiences have had a way of affecting my views on certain foods. When I was in St.Louis Children’s Hospital, they had a Dairy Queen. I would always get a blizzard with my dinners. Now, every time I eat a blizzard, I think of my time in the hospital. Same goes with meatloaf, and green beans. I have a hard time eating those without thinking about the hospital because I ate that so much there.
Lastly, food also has a way of reminding me of home. I still live close to home, so I can always go back to get my fix, but my mom is the best cook. She makes awesome chicken dishes, spaghetti casserole, pumpkin bread, etc. She always has something good to eat. My nana lives in an apartment connected to our house, so if Mom doesn’t have something cooked, Nana will. Nana always has good spaghetti dishes for us to try. I love going home for a home-cooked meal. I’m lucky that they live so close, so I am able to do this pretty much anytime I want. It’s the best.
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