Food

Reading Stanley Tucci’s book Taste — My Life Through Food which reinforces what my wife says about growing up in a rich food tradition. “You just know.”

And, I did not grow up in such a tradition be that Mexican, Italian, Vietnamese, Chinese, but rather in the American midwest after World War 2. At home, overdone meat, jello, but, in our family, many kinds of fresh vegetables and, always, fresh salads. The idea of vegetables that were not boiled too much wasn’t known. And lest we forget, casseroles from tuna to green bean.

Celebratory dinners were centered around turkey, roast, ham or chicken all oven cooked. We didn’t eat out much and by the mid-1960s, going out meant a hot dog at A&W or a burger at the Whatever.

I had my first Chinese food in Edinburgh, Scotland; Indian food in London ; real spaghetti in Trentino. And when ethnic foods came to the midwest, I was ready for the glories of Vietnamese, Nepalese, Moroccan, Ethiopian – do I need to go on, or should we talk about eating in Mexico.

In some ways I am luckier than Tucci or my wife – I remember the food made here with love quite well and have moved beyond it.