Post 4: Love — Right Between the Lettuce and the Leeks
American media loves to push narratives: from political, to social, and everything in between, narratives are constantly being built and shown time and time again. One of the most famous of these narratives can be traced back to many different media sources: children hate vegetables.
In all forms of media, from Disney movies such as Inside Out to children’s literature such as “A Bad Case of the Stripes” by David Shannon, children can be seen pushing away plates of broccoli, rejecting their peas and carrots, and refusing to eat celery. This trope has become so common that it is almost the expectation, with adults often expressing surprise when a child eats their vegetables without complaint, and especially when they voluntarily eat more of their own accord.
To child me, however, eating vegetables was never seen as a chore or an impossible task. For me, love has always been stored in the lima bean.
For my whole life, my grandmother has lived in a quaint little seaside town forty-five minutes from my own. Despite the distance, and the fact that she could barely be considered a competent driver, she always made the effort to come and drive my brother and me around whenever she could.
My very earliest memories of my grandmother driving me and my little brother around are some of the most special. She would pick us up from our elementary school, and we’d hop in the car, so excited for the rest of the evening. Riding with our grandma was the best for two reasons: one, because she would always tell us silly stories that could make us laugh for hours, and two, because she would always give us an afternoon snack. Once we were in our seats, she would pull out two little plastic containers: one for him, and one for me. While other students’ snack boxes may have contained cookies, chips, and chocolate, ours were filled with what most kids dreaded: vegetables.
Getting those little plastic boxes piled high with carrots, cauliflower, and cucumber was such an incredible treat. Even now as I write I can feel the excitement that came with opening that box to find black olives, and laughing until I cried when my grandmother put them on her fingers. No matter how my day had gone or how I was feeling, my afternoon vegetable snack never failed to make it better.
Even as I grew older, the vegetable snack boxes continued to be a staple of driving with my grandmother. I still remember munching on a bell pepper as she drove me to my first ever day of dance class, or nervously crunching down on some jicama as she took me to my middle school choir audition. Just as a little girl never truly outgrows her baby blanket, I never outgrew my vegetable snacks with my grandmother.
Now that I am much older, I have come to understand that these reusable plastic containers filled with vegetables were not only a healthy afternoon snack, but also have always been a way for me to connect with my grandmother. Whether we were laughing over the squirting of a cherry tomato, or simply talking about our days over some corn on the cob, vegetables have always been a way for us to come together.
My love, both for her and for vegetables, has also allowed me to experience my heritage in ways that I otherwise would have never been able to. My grandmother’s parents immigrated from Italy to America when she was very young, and although that side of my family’s culture is all but lost, it lives on through my grandmother’s cooking.
Many of my grandmother’s traditional Italian recipes are primarily centered around vegetables. Since she had fostered my love of vegetables at such a young age, I began to be curious about her cooking, and we began working together in the kitchen. One of my fondest memories I have with my grandmother is making gnocchi, her hands guiding mine through the proper motions in order to make perfect ridges on the little balls of potato.
Even now that I am in college, I see my grandmother in every vegetable I eat. Whenever I add spinach to my omelet, or spread some fresh avocado on a piece of toast, I am thankful for all those days I got to spend with her, and all of the shared memories we have of enjoying vegetables together.
While vegetables have always been a common love between us, they are truly nothing more than a vessel for fostering our relationship of love and trust in one another. I love my grandmother with all my heart, and know that no matter how old I get, I can come home to her, and she will always have a plastic box of vegetables ready for me to enjoy.
