By John Pierce
After more than week of overly abundant holiday meals strung together by an endless parade of Christmas goodies, I’m ready for a return to better (as in better-for-me) eating. I’m not worried about missing out on good-luck food on the first day of the New Year.
I just need to miss out on a big chunk of what I’ve been eating the last several days — so I don’t become a big chunk. The problem is that I’m not very picky about what foods I like.
When growing up, my mom didn’t take dinner orders or seek to satisfy our individual tastes. She cooked; we ate.
Of course, she was always open to positive suggestions, like: “That meatloaf sure was good last night; hope we have that again soon.” But usually we ate whatever was placed on the table.
Today, I’m more likely to make food choices based on nutritional data as well as taste. One of my favorite meals is grilled salmon.
Outback does this fish well with mixed vegetables. Longhorn puts it on a good salad with a house dressing made of chopped olives. Yum.
But the one meal my mother made that did not appeal to me was “SAL-mon” patties. (We didn’t know the “l” was silent. As a trade-off, folks in our region omitted pronouncing the “l” in other words — like “gulf.”)
The salmon my mother formed into patties was not flown in from Seattle, Alaska or Norway. It came in a can. The finished product was not as bad as the smell that came from the preparation. For some reason, it turned my stomach.
But I didn’t complain at dinnertime. Just doubled up on the mashed potatoes.
I couldn’t imagine doing what I’ve witnessed some children do when an unfamiliar or undesirable dish hits the table. Turning up their noses and saying: “Yuck, what’s that?”
Such a response would have resulted in spatula marks on my disapproving face. Around our dinner table an unwritten policy was enforced: “Don’t ask. Don’t smell.” Just eat it or hide it in your napkin.
Now the test: Can I skip the chocolate-covered everything and go for the recently-ignored apple today? A good food-related resolution should last for at least a day.
Have a happy, healthy New Year.
Director of the Jesus Worldview Initiative at Belmont University in Nashville, Tennessee and former executive editor and publisher at Good Faith Media.
