Everyone’s a Food Critic

Has your mother ever squawked in your ear to eat your vegetables? You have my compassion. What do you think happens when a parent’s blind fanaticism for a clean plate collides with the confused taste buds of their offspring?

My goal in sharing this story is to personally validate your feelings, your dietary freedoms, and the innate wisdom of your taste buds. My personal mission is to liberate children everywhere from the tyranny of law when it comes to mealtime, so that children alike, whether seven or ten, can have free agency over what they put in their mouth. Put your fork down and buckle up. This is my story – a true story.

I was about 13 or 14. My brother was 10. We sat at a round table directly across from each other every night. It was near impossible to manage anything covert at dinnertime except for a two-second facial expression.

My mother happened to overcook the cauliflower that night. It happens. But I mean she realllllly overcooked it. Let’s be honest, the kitchen wasn’t her forte, but the food was only inedible about three percent of the time. This happened to be one of those times.

As I became aware of how dire the situation was, I looked to my right to send an S.O.S. signal to my father. I’m not sure what I was hoping he would do. Perhaps fabricate a story about how he caught me in a lie and send me to my room without dinner?

Ever the supportive husband to my mother, Dad intercepted my gag reflexes with stern looks rather than relief or compassion. It seemed as if he was almost daring me with daggers of doom to critique her Wednesday night masterpiece. Why did I suddenly feel like a criminal when I was, in truth, the victim of a botched dish?

He probably thought I was being melodramatic. (I wasn’t.) He wanted me to swallow. (I couldn’t.)

Look, the cauliflower was a liquefied mess. It was cloudy gray in color and had a curious, if not ominous, odor. You might be thinking to yourself that the path to remediation would have been to simply hold my nose and bite the bullet. However, I was under watch. Holding my nose would have been ruder than a verbal protest. Don’t think the ‘ol nosehold would have landed.

In desperation, I went straight to the source.

“Ma,” I pleaded, “I canNOT eat this. I really can’t.”

“Finish your plate,” she said unmoved. Clinking forks. Silence.

GAAWwwHHHhhh

Oops, I puked it all over my plate. Totally involuntary. It’s nature, I can’t help it, I thought to myself, clearly attempting to self-soothe from the impending fallout.

Like a rocket, my brother shot milk through his nose at 50 mph, while collapsing onto the floor in total hysterics. I am a deer in headlights; frozen and in shock at what just transpired.

Half-proudly, I stare at the evidence which is now People’s Exhibit A – a true miracle sent from God -- proving I wasn’t being a total drama queen after all. I am feeling vindicated that the cauliflower returned to my plate of its own volition. I am not involved in this decision and my hands are clean (so to speak.) You can argue with a food critic, after all...

You can’t really argue with an esophagus in labor.

“Well, don’t just stare at it!” My father yelled, “Clean it up!”

My brother, well on his way to soiling his pants is in a fit of convulsions. Meanwhile, I’m trying to mitigate my father’s anger and “keep a low profile” while in transit with my plate of puke. Solemnly, I escort my plate to the kitchen sink like a funeral dirge.

🤮🤮🤮

Yup.

It happened again into the kitchen sink. The double puke.

And that, my friends, is how you prove a point without trying to prove a point. The moral of the story is to listen when your taste buds scream and let your children veto the current food laws – at least three percent of the time.

P.S. My mother must have felt guilty as she later relented, “Well, it wasn’t the best cauliflower I’ve ever made.”

Thanks, Mom.