Respect Your Family’s Foodways
I grew up drinking milk like it was water, eating collard greens seasoned with pork, and devouring baked macaroni and cheese with so much milk, cheese and butter I could moo after a helping. My mom prepared chitlins for Christmas, and pig’s feet for New Year’s Eve. I didn’t have to eat chitlins and pig’s feet (thank EVERYONE), but I knew to expect them without fail once or twice a year (sometimes the pig’s feet made an appearance during cookouts).
I don’t eat most of what I grew up with today and I’m OK with that. My mother, on the other hand, finds it incredibly offensive that I don’t. I never told her she shouldn’t eat the foods she likes, never said any of the disturbing things about food people shouldn’t say at the table, and I will still swear by her down home, everything-from-scratch cooking. Nevertheless, my dietary philosophy is an affront to her sensibilities.
She doesn’t understand it. I don’t know how to explain it further to her. I eat for pleasure and health, but health usually trumps pleasure, and I rarely eat something I don’t like.
As you’re settling into your new dietary philosophy, try to remember that you once stood on the other side. Your relatives don’t have to be wrong for you to be right. Instead of being frustrated by their unwillingness to change for you (yes, that IS what you’re asking them to do) try to be grateful for the privilege of being able to choose what you want to eat every day.
Those white potatoes, Salisbury steaks, and casseroles saved you and your relatives many a night, and there’s nothing you can do to change the culinary choices that were made. Besides, all that food history is deeply embedded in your DNA – you might as well embrace your culinary heritage for what it is.
The best thing you can do is eat well for yourself at every meal, and pay it forward through your progeny.
Your relatives may never change their food habits.
You don’t have to like it, you just have to respect it.
