Food Royalty

It's funny how you see things, measure things, or perceive things when you're young. Based on what you observe, you may categorize something a certain way just based on the person that is using it.

Take dad for example.

Every time we ever had fish for dinner, my dad got something else. He always got cubed steak for dinner instead. Whenever we would sit at the table with our fish, there would be dad--eating his cubed steak. As I got older it became more and more noticeable. It was as if he were royalty. He was an island of beef among our ordinary, humdrum sea of fish. We were eating peasant food. I grew envious as the years went by, wishing that I could have the cubed steak instead of dad. Why should he get the good stuff while we were denied the pleasure?

What I didn't know then that cubed steak is usually some of the worst, crappiest beef that the meat department had left from their usual butcher tasks. It may have been plenty flavorful, sure, but was so tough it bordered on inedible until it was run through whatever the machine is that pulverized it and made it edible. Little did I know then that we were the royalty. We were eating the best during those meals. All those times mom was providing us with a nourishing meal, while at the same time keeping harmony within the household.  Dad just wouldn't eat fish. I pity him for his narrow range of acceptable foods. For example, his choice at a Mexican restaurant was always nachos. That was the only thing he would eat. The rest scared him. He was that way with anything ethnic. He only wanted meat, potatoes, and a vegetable. That was it.  If he went to a restaurant (which was itself an extremely rare occasion) and didn't get a vegetable on his plate we would never hear the end of it.  It wouldn't matter if we were at the restaurant with him or not--he would talk about that event for a long time afterwards.

When I went off on my own into the Air Force, my taste buds were never so happy. Of the branches of our military service, I've heard that the Air Force feeds their people the best of them all.  I believe it. My previously narrow range of food was suddenly flung wide. The plethora of foods was like nothing I had ever seen before. I saw, I tried, I asked questions, I learned. I ate things I had never eaten, tried things I didn't even know existed, and loved almost every single bit of it. There is a wide world of foods and flavors out there for us to try.

Do I thank Dad and his royal cubed steak for focusing me on it, or the Air Force for opening my eyes?  I think both.