I have a certain loved one who's put on a few pounds, and I'm not talking about me. He tells me he's losing weight. Every time I see him he looks bigger, yet he drives the conversation by talking about how many pounds he's taken off. He's usually filling up a Kaiser roll while he's telling me.
My problem is: I love to feed him. This is true for everybody I love. In fact, when someone I love wants to hurt me, they’ll simply refuse my food, which hurts. I’m not alone here. Mothers all over the world understand my pain. Yet most of them have prevailed in their struggle to overcome rejection. Take a look around.
This isn’t so true in Italy, where conceit trumps all. Don’t get me wrong. They eat like pigs. But they’ll starve themselves back into their clothes so they can attract the opposite sex as long as life allows. The vaunted Italian diet involves bouts of extreme hunger, followed by an eating binge, which contributes to the storied Italian temperament. Add their mothers and you have a stereotype.
None of this is true in my family. My mother-in-law never cooked a meal in her life, unless she was on vacation and under duress. My own mother was always hiding the food, or doling it out in rations, like when she was a child during the Depression, forced to shop and cook three courses for 20 ingrates every day. She hated food.
In my family, I’m the anomaly, even though I’m completely normal, at least according to me. My in-laws think my cooking is quaint and somewhat eccentric, as if I enjoyed ironing and was able to deliver a perfect shirt. Whenever I cook for my in-laws I get the feeling a chicken must have in the farmer’s arms, all cozy as he pets my thigh.
On my side we have a lot of eaters - like the Depression is over from one day to the next. Overeating is not the acceptance of a mother’s love, but a continuous rebellion, which can’t be very healthy. One thing is for sure - nobody is losing much weight around here. And who’s in a position to think about it when it’s time for lunch?
