Back to school

I got up early, peeled and chopped a bunch of apples, added some cinnamon, nutmeg and two dashes of cloves, squeezed in a little lemon juice, a handful of light brown sugar, a little water, and set it on the stove in a pot with a lid to simmer. 

I love piping hot fresh homemade applesauce in the morning for breakfast. 

Once the apples were soft, I took the potato masher to them.  They were still a little tart, so I added another spoonful of sugar.  Then I cooked up some breakfast sausages, a couple English muffins and we were ready to go.

It’s funny this whole hot breakfast thing. 

I’d read once when the children were small, that kids who ate a good breakfast did substantially better at academics, math and reading and what-not, than children who skipped breakfast, or had a doughnut or something.  So, my kids have had to suffer through hot breakfasts every single school day of the year. 

In our house, a special treat on weekends, was going down to the store and buying sugar cereals.

But I wonder now, after all those years of getting up early and making pancakes, and waffles, and crepes, and omelets, and hot porridge, and eggs easy-over, and warm gingerbread cake, and coffee cake, and blueberry muffins, and scrambled eggs, and fried eggs and Mom’s breakfast cinnamon puffs, and boiled eggs, and applesauce, and Mom’s breakfast mash, and homemade hot chocolate, if it made a difference?

If I could have fed them pop-tarts, or cold cereal day in and day out, and they would have been just as happy and done just as well?

The hot breakfasts didn’t help Emily one bit in the Math department.  And both David and Will struggled with reading.  Would they all have struggled more if they hadn’t had hot breakfasts?  Or would it have all turned out exactly the same. 

Now that Emily is grown and comes home to visit, she rarely will partake in breakfast.  And when Dave comes, if he’s not off to an early mountain biking start, he’ll generally sleep in and eat a large breakfast at lunchtime.  And this morning, Will barely ate anything, and didn’t even make a dent in his hot freshly made applesauce.

And I wondered if, my way of loving, cooking heaps of food, so no one will ever be hungry and suffer through a growling stomach, is a tyranny of another kind?  Where people feel they have to eat, whether they want to or not.

See, my mother didn’t cook once we got old enough to.  I only remember two meals that she actually prepared.  Both were memories from before I was in school, so I must have been three or four.  One memory was her at the stove making oatmeal, and the other was a pot tuna casserole. 

My children don’t like tuna casserole.  But, the odd thing is, I do.  I think it is all tied up with memories of a time when things were different as a child.  The time before she met our step-father, John.  When our life was more normal.  And sometimes, when the children were out, visiting their fathers, I would get myself a can of tuna and some cottage cheese and mozzarella and noodles and I’ll try and reproduce that tuna casserole that my mother made and I’ll eat it and feel loved.  Same thing with clam chip dip.  We made that once, and every time there is a special occasion, like a bunch of family coming over, or Boxing Day or New Years Eve, I’ll make clam chip dip and it feels like a party.

Posted by Meg Tilly on Wednesday, September 03, 2008 in Chewing the Fat

Page 1 of 1 pages