Strange Foods and Good Times

A Bizzare Culinary Peek Into My Childhood

Food was a huge part of my life. And it was a huge part of my relationship with my father.

Anyone who knows me knows I was a daddy’s girl. Where he went, I went. What he did, I did. And what he ate, I ate.

Before I get into the meat of this, I have to pause to thank Steffany Ritchie for the idea for this story. It was her piece about foods that remind her of her grandfather that made me think about my relationship to food and my father and how inexorably intertwined they are. Do check out her story, it’s a good read:

Be warned, you’ll find no seafood or coffee ice cream here. We weren’t that sophisticated.

My father loved food! I mean LOVED it, probably to his detriment. He grew up during the Great Depression and World War 2 as the oldest boy in a family of 12 children (13 if you count Grace who died as a baby). Poor wasn’t a big enough word to describe his family.

Work was scarce for the best of men. Work was scarce for everyone. And for a Black man like his father, it was even more scarce. The only work to be had in Atlantic Canada during those times for my grandfather was dirty, backbreaking and low paying. And he was thankful to get it.

My father keenly remembered hungry nights. He keenly remembered his father pushing his own chair from the dining room table after a long day’s work, refusing to eat a bite until his children and wife had their fill. Sometimes there was something left. Sometimes there wasn’t. You can read about that here:

But somehow, my dad took his upbringing and his 4th-grade education and joined the Canadian Army. He got a decent job with decent pay and benefits. He could afford not only to eat but to feed a family. And feed, we did!

Many of my memories of my father are centred around food. And not the best food. Honestly, most of the stuff we enjoyed, I wouldn’t even touch now. Snobby? Privileged? Maybe I am, but still, you be the judge.

Chicken Gizzards: I can hear you groaning, but read first. My daddy grew up in a time when meat for the family was a luxury. And more often than not, that luxury included organ meat, the least expensive meat there was. It was a fact of life. Black people in Atlantic Canada were not dining on filet mignon back then. Hell, most white people were having a hard time. It was what it was, as they say.

Friday nights, from the time I was 4 until I was about 12, my dad and I would “camp out” in the living room. We each hauled out our sleeping bags and stayed there all night.

At 11:30 pm, we watched Grand Prix Wrestling, the Maritime version of the WWF of the day and for a glorious 30 minutes. Killer Karl Krup and No Class Bobby Bass were the heroes of the day. Daddy would fry up the gizzards and we’d munch and watch and laugh while my mother wrinkled her nose at us.

Then, we’d take out my 3 or 4 piggy banks and roll change. I could roll change with flat paper by the time I was 6. We would take the change to the bank and get paper money for it and I’d buy whatever my heart desired.

I loved wrestling, or wrasslin’, as my father called it. And I loved rolling coins. And I loved those damn gizzards!

Bean and Cheese Sandwiches: If we didn’t have gizzards on hand, my father made bean and cheese sandwiches. Basically, they were grilled cheese sandwiches, but with a layer of canned beans. Toasty, gooey goodness!

Pickled Pig’s Feet: Don’t even ask me how my Black father, living on a white army base got his hands on pickled pig’s feet when the only supermarket was Jewish, but he did. Somehow, he found these things at Steinberg's.

They came in a jar like a Bick’s pickle jar, only bigger and they contained the feet of pigs. And we LOVED them!

My daddy and I would fight over the biggest feet while my mother frowned and admonished him for exposing the baby to such disgusting fare.

The feet were my special treat. After Smith and Smith ended (My Canadian friends will understand, Red Green before he was Red Green), and before the wrasslin’, my father broke out the jar of feet as my reward for successfully doing a backflip.

I was in gymnastics at the time and had initially suffered a good deal of fear at the idea of just throwing myself backwards. So, during the summer offseason, my father took it upon himself to move all the furniture to the very edges of the living room, put down foam mats he borrowed from the base rec centre and help me learn.

I found that with his huge, strong arm stretched out to catch me, I wasn’t afraid. Every time I did one and didn’t touch daddy’s arm, I got a foot to munch on. And when I returned to my class in the fall, I could do a backflip with ease.

Chocolate Cake With Peanut Butter Icing: I hate peanut butter. Never did care for it. But my father could bake like a beast! He learned from his granny who was a scratch baker. No measuring, just delicious goodness.

On Sundays, after Sunday School (I didn’t know about our Jewish ancestry then, and neither did he, I suspect), my dad baked. Often he made things to force me to drink milk, something I refused to do at the time.

He made the best chocolate cake with peanut butter icing ever! He always made 2. One for us and one to take to the barracks he supervised. He always said the young recruits, boys of 18 and 19, needed a taste of home.

I still can’t replicate his recipe for the icing. I’ve tried. But hey, I still don't really like peanut butter, so, ya know, moot point.

Corn Dogs: When I was young, Saturday was shopping day. Everyone went into “town” and did the weekly run. We were no exception. Daddy would take me into Fredericton and we’d get the groceries at the local discount place. Then we’d browse the department stores.

One of my favourites was Woolco. Again, my Canadian pals of a certain age will understand. Well, the Woolco where I lived had take out, slushie stand thing right at the exit. They sold all sorts of things, but the best was the corn dog!

I didn't know the term corn dog. Daddy and I called it a weiner on a stick. I suppose we know it as a POGO now. But whatever it was, it was 49 cents and it was delicious with mustard and I always got 2. My father got 6.

Food was a huge thing for us. If truth be told, it probably killed him. His obsession with eating was almost pathological. Given his circumstances, I kinda get it. It left him with heart disease, diabetes and kidney disease. He had a quadruple bypass and a kidney transplant. He died at 64.

I look at the foods that bonded us with a love/hate relationship. I get why he loved them. I did too. But I had the privilege of being raised to choose. These things were treats in a home that was chock full of every fruit, veggie, fish and grain I wanted. If I said I wanted to try something, be it the exotic kiwi (it was exotic in the 80s) or lobster, I was never denied.

I had the benefit of what his parents couldn’t give him. For that, I’m thankful. But I’m also thankful for the wonderful memories the crazy foods still evoke in me. I can’t fry up a batch of gizzards for my pup, Rudy, named after my father, without feeling him beside me and wanting to watch some good old fashioned wrasslin’ or trying a backflip. But I’m almost 51, I best not taste the gizzards and I better just stick to cartwheels.

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