Our family had four children in it, and my father made $8/hr grinding lenses in a glasses store when I was young. Finances grew desperately tight.
My mother gardened and canned, and made our food fresh mostly. Just getting the raw materials to cook with must have been a huge challenge.
If it wasn't for my church, and the extensive welfare program they developed, I believe starvation might have been in the cards for us. We visited the Church storehouse more often than we went to regular stores, and the storehouse continued as a regular fixture in our lives up until about 6-10 years ago. So grateful for that, as painful as it was to take a handout.
I Remember Eating Pets...
My father loved animals, and we raised all kinds. At one point, we raised rabbits. I named my rabbit Princess. The boys named their rabbits after themselves.
Big mistake.
One morning I woke up to find a ghoulish work going on in our kitchen. My father decided that we couldn't afford the rabbits anymore, and we needed to eat them. I don't remember if he or my mother tried to prepare us for this - the shock I felt at the sight of our pet rabbits hanging from hooks on the wall, having their skin removed, and the head of my brother's rabbit in the trash, staring at me, with blood trickling from its eyeball...I yelled at my dad, and he sent me to my room.
Later on, we had rabbit stew for dinner...a very quiet dinner. I was distraught, but I ate it anyway, since there wasn't anything else.
My brother Peter took it better than I did. He asked, 'Is this Peter we're eating?' When my mother said yes, he said meekly, 'He tastes good.'
I know now the kind of pressure my father must have been under to provide for such a large family. Still, the emotional impact of that moment took a while for me to move past.
...And Hiding Food...
Our household grew to eleven people. My five brothers, my sister, my mom and dad, and my father's parents. Grandpa and Grandma fed themselves, but the rest of us ate a lot of carbs - pasta, pizza, and sugary treats whenever we could get our hands on them.
Food moved fast in our house. You had to hide something if you didn't want to eat it right away. If my brothers got their hands on it, no amount of labeling would save it. I would strategically store things in the back of the fridge, or the bottom of the chest freezer under other things.
Sometimes it worked.
Eating Weeds
My mother gardened a lot when I was a kid, so I tried my hand at it when I got older. Not too good, but not terrible. We did get a lot more vegetables when I did. Some of my friends at church helped me figure out how to grow herbs, and that came in handy several times.
Then I tried eating plants in the yard that turned out to be edible - purslane and henbit. Free food, and it sautes up nicely in cooked dishes!
...And then I couldn't anymore...
There came a period of time when, for some strange reason, I felt almost narcoleptic. I found myself conking out for these 2-hour naps in the middle of the day. If I didn't sleep, I couldn't function.
This wasn't good, because I had small babies. I had to contain them in a play area, and sleep on the floor wearing a helmet so they couldn't crack my skull with their small, hard heads.
Trying to figure out what was wrong, I went to Dr. Weil's website (a brand-new thing back then in the early 2000s) and learned about high-fructose corn syrup
But our food budget skyrocketed, and we had to buy all-new products. Bad, bad news!
I couldn't eat unhealthy food anymore, but couldn't really afford healthy food either. I wanted to feed the kids better, but couldn't afford to, and I think that hurt me emotionally more than anything in those early years.
But I'm a big believer in teaching by example whenever possible, so I did the best I could.
People would move, and we'd take their food storage off their hands, which helped a lot too. Cooking is a great skill to have when you're trying to feed a family. Hubby has a degree in professional cooking and baking from his college in Baltimore, and he taught me most of what I know.
The Result Today
Today, I'm still struggling with my sugar habit, but working on it. Haven't had a Starburst or a can of soda in over a decade - most of the HFCS in my diet is completely gone.
Trying to eat less, and practice meals as meditating, but that's a work in progress as well.
I have these moment of 'mom victory' sometimes. My kids eat vegetables and don't think anything of it. Youngest daughter can cook better than I can, and puts veggies on every pizza she makes. Oldest girl can't cook much at all, but she does know about adding protein to her meals to balance them out.
Once a few years ago, my hubby and my youngest son went out to get Slurpees from the local 7-11. I'd never bought my kids a Slurpee ever, even though I practically lived on them as a young child.
My son bought a small one, and couldn't finish it. He said it was so sweet it made him feel sick. How do people drink this??? he asked me.
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