Sell by

I want to talk a little bit more about asparagus.

My mother was a good cook. She was, as she would freely admit, not much a baker, but she could put together a good meal. Not that she attempted to share much of that expertise with me, her only child. The kitchen vibe was not let’s all gather in the kitchen and merrily work together to prepare the feast but rather leave me alone and let me do this.

I don’t have any photos of the kitchen, but this was my dad’s study.

I’m not saying that as a point of resentment. As any of my five kids will tell you, I’ve adopted the same operating strategy. I like to cook. I’m an introvert. Don’t mess with my vibe here.

That said, I don’t remember many of my mother’s greatest hits. I actually remember more of my father’s, thanks to the grill. I still make flank steak the way he did. One of my mother’s dishes that sticks with me is chicken tetrazzini, which was a favorite, and which I make frequently. After holidays, it’s a staple, but with turkey.

But what I do remember are what I hated and swore I would never make any of my family eat, ever.

Of course, since don’t we always remember the negative?

The three things are:

• lima beans
• liver
• asparagus

To this day, I do not understand why anyone, if they had other options, would freely serve or eat lima beans. The liver I get – it’s disgusting, but apparently very healthy, so go for it.

And now the asparagus.

Up to recent years, I could not even consider the existence of asparagus without feeling queasy and just generally disgusted. Pale green, slimy and just weird. Why did she prepare this? Why did she make me eat it?

To give my mother due credit though, she was reasonable about any food she served me that she knew I hated. There were not evening-long battles at the dinner table. Her motto was take three bites and you’re done.

It was, as she said, just about being polite. If someone went to the trouble of giving you food, it was only polite to eat it.

A philosophy and habit that has served me well. I remember going to a friend’s house to spend the night as a teenager, and in the morning, the opening act of breakfast was a glass of tomato juice – something I’d never had before and was nothing I’d ever hoped to consume.

But you know – those good habits kicked in, I said thank you to Mrs. von Buelow, and gulped it all down. I told my mother about it when I got home and I could tell she was surprised, and also a little proud. Not bad emotions to aim for as a parent.

Well, back to the asparagus.

Asparagus was never, ever on my mind as even the faintest possibility to cook for my own family. I would not burden them with lima beans, I would not torture them with liver or asparagus.

But then my youngest – health conscious as he is – asked for…asparagus.

And it finally dawned on me that, as they say, this isn’t your mother’s asparagus.

For all these years, asparagus had meant one thing to me:

Yes, slimy, pale green, stringy stalks from a can. She’d usually dress it up with some kind of sauce with boiled eggs, but that just made it worse, since I was not a fan of hard boiled eggs, either.

The worst.

No, liver was worse. But pretty bad.

What a revelation to slow-witted me, fifty years after the fact, that my experience was not the definitive, platonic experience of asparagus. That it could be crisp and fresh and not awful.

I’m thinking about this, not just because I happily stir-fried some asparagus the other day, but also because it’s time to start thinking again about the Gallery of Regrettable Lenten Food and how much even home cooking has changed over the years, mostly thanks to access to higher quality ingredients – and also because I made salmon cakes last night. I’ve never made salmon cakes or loaf or croquettes in my life, but it was also a regular part of our menus growing up (not with fresh salmon, but with canned, of course) – and also because as I was making the slaw to go with the salmon cakes, I pulled out some powdered mustard and some celery seeds, saw they were from Kroger’s, which meant they’d come from my parents’ house, looked at the sell-by dates, saw they were….. 2004 and 2009 – since my parents died in 2001 and 2011, that was not surprising, and well, I guess it’s time to toss them. Finally.

Create your own Metaphor and Life Lesson Here.

Well, here’s mine:

Learn from the past, but don’t be defined by it.

How’s that?