I was talking with my grand-mother recently, and looking into her cupboard to help make lunch. What did I find there? Can upon can of canned vegetables and chicken sauce and soups and... and... and... Imagine, a cupboard that is about 36x18-20x24 in size that is completely absolutely full of canned goods. All 13680 cubic inches of space taken up with salty, soggy, mushy vegetables.
Oy! And here we (her family) are trying to make sure that she follows her prescribed diet as she should. One thing that is on the no-no list is salt. So she doesn't salt her food. Good thing, considering that one serving (1/4 cup) of chicken sauce contains nearly all of her required daily intake of salt! So... I tried to find a way to help my grand-mother find a way out of the canned goods aisle. Keep in mind that she is alone in her home now, and though she often has family over at meal times, we often bring our own meals so that we don't strain her limited budget. Yet here she sits with at least one cupboard filled with canned goods. If she never bought canned goods again, she would have canned food through to next summer if not next fall!
So as we were talking, she kept saying how she liked her canned goods. Then it struck me. We grew up in different times. I've always known the freezer and refrigerator. I've grown up with frozen vegetables. My grand-mother though grew up with the ice-box. She was an adolescent during the depression. What little they had, they had to ration and preserve to keep for tomorrow whenever they had any bit extra. Salt being one of the oldest, best, and cheapest preservation mediums available at the time, my grand-mother has developed a palate that requires a strong salt presence.
Medical concerns may weigh heavy on our minds, yet how can we disregard everything that my grand-mother has been through and grown up with? So we humour her canned goods cupboard, and we watch how much rotation goes on in that cupboard. We try to help her understand the importance of portion control - especially with the canned stuff. She seems to be catching on, but we know that she is probably sneaking in some "banned" foods. They are a comfort to her and so we turn a blind eye - to a certain point.
I blog this in my cooking blog because although we are what we eat, we are also who we were. The flavours we grew up with are the ones we search for in our old age. They speak not only of the foods we used to eat, but also of where we've been, of who's travelled along life's road with us and the comforts or struggles we've encountered along the way. For although food will nourish our bodies, who can deny that it also feeds our spirit?
