"Devour that food, or you won't go and play."
"You finish that food, or else….."
What is this? Did I have to be forced to consume nourishment? I love eating; I get up in the morning because the breakfast I like awaits me.
The baby, clutching the blue plastic handle of the silver spoon in the fist of his right hand, waves it like a flag of victory. He's just succeeded in one swoop, decorating the kitchen with gooey porridge, causing his nanny to laugh her head off. Best of all, his mother notices his existence, letting out a growl and threatening to knock the living daylights out of him. This continues to be nothing more than a threat: screaming humans don't bite
Meals at fixed times were the order of the day in the typical Jewish household in the 1940s. Breakfast, lunch, and supper had their set hours. Coming late for a repast incurred punishment or at least chastisement.
Mothers rouse babies from sweet dreams because mealtime has arrived. The mother bares her breast and demands that the baby suckle; if he doesn't, he must be ill, but all he wants is to go back to sleep and see the rest of the dream. Since then, the dilemma between sleeping and eating has arisen. "Am I tired or just hungry?" I ask myself because my mother woke me up for a meal.
I fall asleep only when my tummy is full, and by eating when I should be slumbering, I have a voracious appetite which has made my stomach grow.
Each repast also consisted of specific foods dished up according to the days of the week and brought to the table according to a set order.
The day's central meal was supper, always presented at six in the evening. On Sundays, it was lunch, which took place at one PM. These two foremost meals followed a pattern, but the details varied. First helping: some seafood, like gefilte fish (minced fish, rolled into a ball), boiled carrots, and pickled cucumber; second course: soup, barley, bean, or chicken soup; third course: meat or fish and cooked vegetables; like potatoes and pumpkin.
Roast beef on Sunday lunches was my favourite. Other amazing dishes served on this day were minced herring and chopped liver, served after the clear, golden chicken soup with "kreplach," better known by the Chinese name Wonton. The grand finale of weekend lunch was raspberry jelly with custard.
My mother or one of the aunties we used to visit on Sundays always served afternoon tea with scones topped with strawberry Jam and whipped cream. A cake was often served, gloriously decorated with white macaroon icing and hundreds and thousands, tiny pebble-shaped candies of various colours. The best touch was the chocolates wrapped in silver paper.
Mothers did everything to make edibles appear appetizing so the child would eat. "Why did parents of those days think that children don't want to eat, coercing them, making the sustenance attractive, so that it is an irresistible attraction?"
I lived in constant fear of bursting from all the food I ate. "Eating made one healthy" was a lie. Nobody said, "overeating will kill you."
It's suppertime, and I'm expected to sit at the round table as the plates of food are put before me. "You will eat whatever food is in front of you."
Once, I got carried away playing with my friend Maxie on a fascinating old motorcar engine in his backyard. Maxie's mother called from the kitchen, "Leon, your mother's on the phone. You are to return home immediately." This was like a death sentence for not being at the dinner table at the specified time.
Eating in the way described above became so ingrained through enduring habit that one's conscience pricked when changing the order or the content. At six in the evening, a bare table betrays a sacred heritage. People who moved from the 1940s in South Africa to 2024 in Israel were shocked that meals had no fixed time of day. Fried eggs for supper at nine at night and falafel or humus at eleven o'clock for breakfast. Some have adapted, and others have fallen by the wayside.
People must eat what their mothers put on the table at the specified time. The only advantage to obeying our parents' laws was that life was simple; one didn't have to think for oneself. Obey the regulations, and life will move smoothly for you. Defy them, and you'll go to purgatory.
"Are we in heaven or hell?" is the question people of the new era ask themselves. Whatever we do requires thought and decision; there are no rules. "Am I eating the right food?" "Am I overeating?" "Am I eating too little?"
The media and the medical profession have stepped in to fill the breach left by the collapse of tradition. We have been released from the chains of rules, and the media and medical experts know this and are vying for our decisions. They tear us apart like two dogs fighting over a bone. Every morsel of food comes with a label: " Eat this; it's got vitamins." The medical profession says, "Don't eat that; it's got harmful vitamins.
"I am one of the lucky ones whose infected intestine revealed that too many fibre-rich foods caused my ailment. This idea ran counter to the widely advertised benefits of fibre-rich foods. A lifetime of stomach aches came to an end. These days, I eat cheese, meat, fish, and chicken with a little whole wheat bread and small amounts of fruit and vegetables. At last, I walk the earth a happy, free-thinking, pain-free man.
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