In this memory I reflect on childhood and the lengths my mother went to, to prepare us real food.
A real happy meal
By Jen Curcio
It was the school holidays. Every single day, my younger sister and I would beg our mother for the smartest meal marketed at children on the planet. Hint: it came with a toy.
In our home, a ‘no’ was commonplace, especially when it came to food.
‘Can I leave the table?’
‘No.’
‘Can we buy those chips for our lunchboxes? All the kids at school have them.’
‘No!’
‘Can we buy this magic chocolate sauce? It goes hard and then you break it with a spoon to eat it. I’ll use my own pocket money!’
‘No.’
So, it was no surprise that our repeated requests for the aforementioned kids meal were constantly denied. However, one day, ever hopeful, we decided to ask again. Mum’s response surprised us.
‘I’ll make it for you.’
What? We were confused. Didn’t she hear us? At the time, we probably felt that our mother making us this kids meal was possibly worse than not having it.
‘It isn’t good for you. What I make will be healthier, better. I’ve even got a special box.’
Now things had taken a turn. A box, you say? So, we watched, slightly baffled, as Mum left. To be completely honest, when she went into the kitchen, we had no idea what she was doing or what she would come back with.
A good while later (because Mum’s kitchen is slow food not fast food), Mum presented her, let’s call them ‘joy’ meals. There was a burger. It consisted of a juicy chicken patty, carefully placed on half a store-bought burger bun. She’d topped it with a slice of tomato and lettuce leaf. I remember she’d separated the other burger bun half, so we could place it onto the patty ourselves. The burger occupied half of a square, oatmeal-coloured Styrofoam box (the special box she’d mentioned earlier). The other pocket of the box contained an olive oil slicked mound of homemade fries (Mum’s homemade chips are the best and still my favourite). She’d even gone to the trouble of including a squeezable ketchup pouch, the tiny book shaped ones you might find at a fish and chip or pie shop, that she’d saved from an earlier visit.
As my sister and I sat on the cement steps leading to the backyard, something had changed. Mum’s willingness to realise our request in her own way revealed a kind of tenderness I hadn’t noticed before. I was well aware that the meal she’d made was nothing like the colourful, shiny one about a kilometre down the road and at market value, a lot cheaper than my Mum’s version. But in that moment, nothing beat the surprise of my Mum’s actions, the homemade novelty of this meal and our unity in that moment. On those steps, the three of us sat enjoying our ‘joy meal’.
Over the years those same steps had become a gathering place for a number of moments. It was a place where the everyday happened like Dad reading the newspaper or the unusual, like the summer we had a flock of cockatoos sit on our almond tree for about three Sundays in a row. It was also where the more meaningful things happened, like where my father and I sat in a cloud of shock after a phone call where we’d learnt my grandfather Francesco, my mother’s father, had passed away on the other side of the world in Sardinia. This day too, gathering to eat Mum’s meal was significant.
There was no toy, but to be honest I’m not sure that I expected one. As I reflect on this memory through my lens as a mother, I’m in awe of my own. It takes great patience and often frustration to say no to your children. Sometimes you feel you could just say yes to make things easier, but you are doing your children a disservice in doing so. So, we carry on saying no, seemingly disappointing our kids. 35 years later here I am cooking meals for my own children, going to lengths to make food that will nourish them (nourish is a word my mother uses a lot when it comes to feeding children). One day I’ll make them a lasagna. Yes 90% of the time I use store-bought sheets but 100% of the time I make my own meat sauce and besciamella. Sometimes I’ll serve it to my children and they’ll eat it, giving me the thumbs up, demolishing their entire plate. The next day I serve it again, chuffed and telling myself this mealtime will be easy. I place their plates in front of them and they turn to look at me like mini Gordon Ramsay’s, in disbelief that I would offer something so beneath their tastes.
So going back to those steps, eating that DIY fast food dupe created by my mother decades ago, I’m not disappointed at all by the lack of toy or anything else. I’m grateful and I hope that in the future my children will be thankful for my rejections to their fast-food requests. The true gift is memory and the example of making good food, no matter the objections.
[Read Lasagna and last meals – a story.]
