Pater: mustard, sardines, and oatmeal...

Pater: mustard, sardines, and oatmeal...  At right you can see my dad, standing at the bottom of an old and quite large incense cedar (he stood there for scale, so we could later estimate its height).  This was one of many nice specimens we saw along the trail to Devil's Kitchen in Mt. Lassen National Park, in June 2007.  This was one of the days we ended in the Happy Garden Chinese Restaurant in Chester, California, with a huge bowl of wor wonton mein soup...

Mustard, sardines, and oatmeal...

When I was a kid living at home on our farm, we could normally count on eating first-class fare, thanks to my mom's old-fashioned cooking repertoire.  There were quite a few dishes – all vivid in my excellent memory for food :) – that we thought of as just ordinary, but which I later discovered were rarely to be obtained outside of a fine restaurant.  It's not that we had fish thermidor, deep-dish apple pie, or a perfectly roasted chicken every night – we did not.  But we did have quality, nutritious food on our plates, and plenty of it, as a matter of utter routine.

Except, that is, when my dad was responsible for preparing our meals.  That didn't happen all that often (I suspect my mom was afraid for our very survival under such circumstances), but once in a while it did occur.  I don't remember any long stretch when we kids were dependent on my dad for food, and I'm pretty sure I'd remember that if it ever happened.

You see, my dad thought it was very entertaining to combine foods in ways that we'd never seen before.  Some of those combinations I suspect have never been tried by anyone before we did.  Sardines on our oatmeal probably was one of those; yes, it was just as bad as it sounds – though we sure laughed a lot about it as he served it up.  And we ate it.  Some of the other things he tried have stuck in my memory: chocolate syrup over hamburgers (not too bad), scrambled eggs and peas (ok), mustard on chocolate ice cream (very bad), fried eggs with pickled herring in sour cream (excellent), and blue cheese sandwiches with ketchup (surprisingly good).

After one such occasion, I remember my mom's face upon learning from one of us kids what we'd had to eat.  She couldn't figure out whether to be angry or to laugh, and she ended up sort of being both at the same time – which wasn't actually a very convincing anger, and only encouraged my dad to be even more creative the next time.

I think if you were to ask any of his kids what my dad's most memorable food-related episode was, they'd likely answer the same way I would: it would be my dad's “mustard kick”.  I don't remember how long this actually went on, but it must have been at least several months, probably in the mid '60s.  I have no idea how it got started, either.  What I do remember, very plainly, is how he would delight in eating just about anything with a generous dollop of mustard on it.

When I say anything, I mean it.  He tried mustard on potatoes, on oatmeal, on shredded wheat, in yoghurt, on ice cream, on Swiss chard, and even (just once) in his coffee.  Every time he did this, to the horrified screeching of us kids (which, of course, absolutely delighted him), he'd swear that the mustard was the perfect compliment to whatever dish he was slathering it onto.  He slurped that mustard-laden coffee with great apparent relish, smacking his lips like a chimpanzee drinking a banana smoothie (though I don't think he ever put mustard in coffee after that one time).  He took a jar of mustard on our work trips, and as the rest of us ate our relatively normal sandwich, fruit, and yoghurt – he'd make a big show of dipping his apple wedges into mustard.

My dad had a great deal of fun torturing the rest of us with his mustard kick.  To this day, I still have no idea whether the entire thing was a show, done just for his own entertainment – or whether he really did enjoy mustard on his fried eggs.  Either way, it's a great example of my dad's nodding acquaintance with normalcy.  He'd never want to be known as “normal”, and I can safely say that there's very little chance that will ever happen...