As a child, one of my chores was to set the table for the family dinner — to set out the silverware, napkins, drinking glasses for the parents, plastic cups for the children. This preliminary chore helped me work up an appetite, but also tended to produce anxiety about the upcoming meal.
The anxiety was directly related to the nagging question: What vegetable would we be having?
Mother typically dished up a well-balanced and nutritional meal. Some type of meat — roast beef, perhaps, or fried chicken — and some type of starch — often a baked potato, maybe rice — and a vegetable.
It was understood that a dessert of some kind was waiting, out of sight, in the fridge, or in a kitchen cabinet.
It was also understood that the dessert — whatever it might be — would remain unavailable to me until I’d eaten every morsel of food on my plate.
Including, the vegetable.
This requirement typically transformed what could have been a joyful sharing of food into a painful ordeal to be faced.
Today, I intend to focus my criticism on the vegetables themselves, rather than on harmful child-rearing practices.
The vegetable my mother included on our dinner plates was occasionally palatable, though habitually overcooked. But all too often, the vegetable was possessed of a disgusting texture and an even more horrible flavor.
When I learned, last week, that November was National Spinach and Squash Month, I got a queasy feeling in my stomach just hearing about it. Was this somebody’s sick idea of a joke? November 2024 has been hard enough for me, without this kind of nonsense going on.
Of all the vegetables I was required to suffer during my childhood, spinach and squash had been among the most challenging. I would put them right up there with eggplant and asparagus.
But I honestly cannot recall ever being forced to eat spinach and squash at the same meal. That would have been unbearable.
From the website, HolidaysCalendar.com:
Despite devoting a considerable amount of time to finding out about Spinach and Squash Month, we simply were unable to uncover the origin of this month. We’ve been unable to discover when it was created, why it was created, or who created it.
This makes the whole thing even more disturbing. Apparently, whoever thought up this gastronomical travesty against nature, is unwilling to reveal their name, or their intentions.
My heart goes out to any child who gets caught up in this culinary perversion.
I could theoretically support the idea of “National Spinach Month” or “National Squash Month”. But whoever is to blame for this national celebration of two foul-tasting vegetables during the same 30-day period should be forced to eat nothing but spinach and squash for the entire month.
There. I’ve said my piece. We can all relax.
But thinking, now, about why my parents forced me to eat vegetables in order to qualify for dessert… I can forgive them, and even appreciate what they did.
They wanted to teach their children that, eventually, good things will come to us, but only after we have suffered.
Which is why I’m already looking forward to the 2028 election.