Food for Thought

These days I do not make a habit of giving thanks to imaginary deities.

When I was four my grandmother came to live with us and she always said "Grace" before eating. This was something my parents did not do. My grandmother explained it as thanking God for the food we had been given.
I pondered this for a time.

When we moved to Albuquerque when I was three-and-a-half we had very little money. Mom was starting on her Masters degree at the University of New Mexico. Dad didn't have a job yet since the move, and we were dirt poor. The state did not give out Food Stamps to the hungry back in the mid-'60s. They gave people food. We went down to the "food place" and they stocked us up.

This was not a "food-bank" as one might know them today. It was all food packaged by the State or Feds. So no name-brand foods, and no processed "junk food" either.

On that Fall day in 1966 the state of New Mexico gave us something like the following:

10 pounds of flour
5 pounds of sugar
10 pounds of Pinto Beans
5 pounds of lard
4 cans of some meat-product called "Bulgar"
A large container of Peanut Butter

This was supposed to last us a month. Next month we'd get another batch of the same. One should remember that this was Albuquerque and the vast majority of the poor were Hispanic. Also, most people still cooked at home. Pinto beans were a nutritious staple. The flour and lard were meant for making tortillas.

But what was our family going to do with all this flour, sugar, lard, etc that we had? My dad learned to bake!

All of a sudden the house was filled with the smell of yeast and baking bread. We now ate fresh homemade bread every day. We had Cinnamon Rolls. Dad even came up with a use for all the lard. He made doughnuts! There is nothing on earth quite so wonderful as homemade, lard-fried doughnuts!

Dad eventually got a job with the Microbiology Lab at the County Medical Center. But he baked bread and rolls and cookies for the rest of his life. Later that year we moved into a bigger house and my grandmother came to live with us. This helped with the rent, and my parents decideded to adopt a little sister for me.

So, as I mentioned above, my grandmother had explained "Grace" as thanking God for the food we had been given. Ever a smart little boy, I finally asked, "If we thank god for the food we have, do we blame him when there isn't any food?"

My dear grandmother had no answer for that.

Today I am thankful to loving parents (now gone), a wonderful boyfriend, a slightly-deaf Boston Terrier, and the 1960s government of the State of New Mexico who gave us so much flour and sugar and shortening that my dad had to learn to bake bread. Now I do the baking of bread.

My Father, who art in the kitchen ...

David

When you talk about this blog later, and you will - be kind.
Copyright 2007 D. H. Maxine.