Chili, Tunafish, and Jelly

From the time my brother, Jacob, was about six months old to about when he started talking, he had an acid reflux disorder that prevented him from eating anything.  Once he was physically able to eat again, he would only suck the juices out of food and spit it back out, out of habit.  It took an effort to teach my brother to eat normally.  After he started swallowing solid food, mm my family would let him have anything as long as it was somewhat healthy.  I remember multiple times where my brother requested other food and got whatever he wanted.  Sometimes I would get jealous of the special treatment my brother received, especially when he was able to substitute his meal for foods I preferred to the dinner at hand.  Other times I would cringe in disgust at what he chose, glad I was not being forced to partake in his meal.

            My first memory of my family allowing Jacob to eat as he pleased begins with my mom’s chili.  When I got home from school I was greeted by a warm kitchen filled with the smell of chili beans, tomatoes, and freshly grated cheddar cheese.  I immediately dropped my bags at the door and ran up to the counter to steal some of the cheese.  My mom turned away from the chili she was preparing to scold me.  “Save that for dinner, Brittany!”  To appease me, she walked to the counter and sliced me a piece of cheese from the block.  “Now here. Go do your homework and I’ll call you when it’s ready.”  I was happy with the thick slice of cheese she had given me, so I hurriedly grabbed my homework and set it up at the kitchen table. 

As I worked, the paprika and cumin from chili engulfed my senses.  Every now and then, my brother would toddle into the kitchen to get something to drink or snack on.  One specific time, he clumsily walked in and pulled on the refrigerator door.

“What do you want, sweetie?” My mom stepped away from the stove and picked Jacob up.

“I’m thirsty.”  Jacob pointed at the refrigerator.

“How about some juice?”  Mom walked to the cabinet with my brother in her arms, ready to fill the cup with the cranberry grape juice she had bought him earlier that week because he pointed it out in the store.

“I want sweet tea.”

“How about I give you sweet tea with dinner?”

My brother shook his head.

“Okay then.” My mom set my brother on the counter next to the refrigerator as she poured sweet tea into a sippie-cup.  My mom twisted on the cap, handed the cup to my brother, and took him off the counter.  Jacob ran off into the living room, stopping at varying intervals to drink his tea.

“Has he even drunk any of that juice yet?”

“Not since I bought it.  I think he just wanted it because it’s what grandma buys.”  My mom went back to cooking the chili.

As it began to get dark outside, I started hearing the clanging that accompanies the searching for pots in a crowded cupboard.  I turned around to see my mom filling a large pot with water; she was about to boil the rice. 

“Hey mom, why do we eat brown rice now?  Can’t we have white rice?  I miss it.”

“Maybe another day, but brown rice is better for you.  Not only that, but Jake doesn’t eat much.  It’s important to make sure that whatever he does eat has some nutritional value.”  Mom put a few bags of rice in the water-filled pot on the stove.

“The texture’s funny, though.”  I complained.

 “Oh, quit whining.  Go on and clear off the table.  Dinner will be ready soon.”  I picked up my books and threw them on the fire place in the next room and rushed back into the kitchen to help.

            When dinner was finally ready, my mom fixed my brother a small bowl of chili: a scoop of steaming brown rice, a dab of butter, a giant spoonful of chili, and a handful of cheese.  After my brother’s bowl was made, we all got our own bowls of chili and sat down at the table. The chili was so hot that the cheese had melted before I had gotten it to the table.   When I sat down to eat, I mixed the contents of my bowl, releasing steam and the smells of earthy spices I knew so well.  Even though the chili was almost too hot to eat, I refused to wait, shoving the first bite into my mouth.  It burned my tongue as I opened my mouth to try to cool the food.  My mom laughed, “Be careful, Brit.  It just came off the stove.” I took a sip of water to cool off my tongue as I impatiently waited for some of the steam to subside.  After a minute or so, I picked up another spoonful, blew on it for good measure and ate it.  The cheese acted as a gooey spider web, holding the rest of the contents together as the tender chili beans meshed harmoniously with the ground meat and tomatoes.  The intermingled spices lit up my tongue in a parade of warmth and earthy tones.  It was at this time my brother pushed his bowl away, “I want something else.”

            I was appalled.  I knew my brother was just getting used to eating solid foods again, but my mom had started making food with special, healthier ingredients just for him, and for him to say he didn’t want it was just ridiculous.  My mom, viewing the situation differently, picked him up out of his chair and carried him to the pantry.

            “Okay, what do you want, Jake?” She bounced him on her hip as they looked through the pantry.

            “This!” His hand grabbed a bag of wheat English muffins.  “And this!”  His other hand touched a can of tuna fish.

            “Are you sure?”

            “Uh huh.” Jacob nodded his head.

            “Okay.  Do you want it toasted?”  My mom grabbed both ingredients and walked back to the counter.  Mom set Jacob down on the floor so he could walk back to the table, but he ran to the refrigerator and opened it instead.  “I want this too!”  My mom turned to look at what he was pointing at, her face immediately turning into one of shock and disgust.

            “What?!” My mom’s exclamation caused my dad and me to look up from our respective meals.  “Are you sure you want this?”  My mom picked up a jar of Welch’s grape jelly.  I cringed thinking about what Jacob was about to make mom make for him.

            “Brit, come here and mix this for me,” she said as she strained the can of tuna fish over the sink.  I could smell it from the table.  I hated the odor of fish, especially tuna fish.  The stench filled my nostrils as it took over the kitchen and made it reek like a fish market.  Mom emptied the can into a bowl and handed me the mayonnaise.  (Jake loved his tuna with mayo.)  Pulling away from the offensive aroma, I held the bowl on the counter as I dropped a huge glop of mayonnaise into the tuna.  As I stirred, the squishing and smacking of the tuna made my stomach turn.  I tried holding my shoulder up to my ear to cover the sound to no avail.

            “That’s good, Brit.  You can finish dinner.”  Mom took the bowl of tuna from me and poured it out onto a toasted English muffin that was slowly absorbing a dollop of butter.

            “Mom, that’s disgusting.  He’s not going to eat that.” I whispered to her.

            “He might eat some of it.  It’s what he wants and he needs to eat.”  She looked just as disgusted as I.  The scent of the sweet grape jelly hit my nose as she lightly spread it on the muffin.  The stench of the mayonnaise and tuna mixture with the jelly was just wrong.  It smelled as if someone had vomited on a toasted English muffin, but it was a very buttery and fishy kind of vomit.  When my mom finished making the abomination, she took it to my brother on a paper towel.   We all sat down to continue dinner, but we couldn’t.  We were all too busy watching in horror as my brother ate every single bite of the sandwich in silence.  When he was done, we all were able to return to our own dinners.  No one said anything about it during or after dinner, but to this day, it is the one memory that my family recalls the most when we talk about food.