Almost No Memory

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My husband’s favorite food, in childhood, was corned beef. I found this out yesterday when friends came over and we started talking about food. At some point they asked what our favorite childhood foods had been. I couldn’t think of any, but my husband didn’t have to think before answering.

“Corned beef,” he said.

“Corned beef with an egg on it!” one of our friends added.

My husband often ate in diners before we met. He had two he liked, but he preferred the one where they did a particularly good hot roast beef sandwich. He still likes a good piece of roast beef, or steak, or hamburger mixed with sauce and spices and grilled outdoors with brochettes of onions and peppers.

But I’m the one who cooks most of his meals now. Often I make him meals with no meat in them at all because I don’t think meat is good for us. Often there is no seafood in them either, because most seafood isn’t good for us either, and there is almost never any fish in them, partly because I can’t remember which sorts of fish may be safe to eat and which are almost certainly not, but mainly because he likes fish only when it’s served in a restaurant or cooked in such a way that he can’t tell it’s fish. Often there is no cheese in our meals either, because of the problem with fat. I’ll make him a brown-rice casserole, for example, or winter vegetables with parsley sauce, or turnip soup with turnip greens, or white bean and eggplant gratin, or polenta with spicy vegetables.

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