Eating Out
I love to dine out and do it every chance I get. I have no doubt it's
because my family so rarely ate out. It was customary for us to eat at
home. My mother didn't seem to mind cooking three meals a day; after all,
it was for her family, the focal point of her life. And my father loved
to eat at home.
I can't recall an occasion when my parents and I were invited to dinner at
someone's home--other than for simkhes-- celebrations--at the home of my
brother and his wife. In my parents' set, people ate at home.
Once in a while, however, on a rare occasion--a Jewish holiday, a time when we
were out of town--the family would eat at a restaurant. It was always a
disaster.
We'd sally forth to the restaurant, but none of us would be happy about it.
My father was unhappy because he didn't like spending money for restaurant
food; my mother was unhappy because my father was unhappy; and I was unhappy
because we were going to a kosher restaurant, to eat the same food I'd gotten
three times a day for every day of my life. I wanted to taste shrimp,
lobster, and Chinese food, but those were not kosher and, therefore, forbidden.
"Verem," was the word my mother used derogatorily to refer to
shrimp--"worms." "If I served you something at home that
looked like that, you'd never eat it," she'd say. "But in a
restaurant, it's good."
During and after the meal, something always went wrong. The food
didn't taste right. It wasn't cooked sufficiently. The bill was too
high. My father would refuse to leave an adequate tip; my mother would be
embarrassed and they'd wrangle about it. I'd want to escape through a
hole in the floor. Or my father would get sick days after the meal and
point to the restaurant as the culprit.
On one occasion, in the middle of the dinner, my father developed a
nosebleed, and we had to leave our meals half-eaten and rush home so he could
lie down. It only proved what he'd known all along. It was always a
mistake to eat out.
My parents were similarly wary of eating at other people's homes and rarely
did so. As I grew up, however, I would receive dinner invitations from
friends from time to time. Mother, with typical Jewish angst, would say
to me, "Eat first--you don't know what they'll give you." She
wanted me to have a complete dinner at home before going out. She knew
all the ingredients she used would be fresh, kosher, and geshmak--tasty.
Who knew what one might get on the outside?
Copyright© 1999 by Sonia Pressman Fuentes
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