Name Your Meals to Make Your Family Meal Special Again
Family eating practices are primarily efficiency oriented. Cook in bulk . Freeze the dishes immediately for a month . Buy the damn Instant Pot already.
I understand. There is never enough time and we need to keep moving the belly feeding conveyor. But what about experience? What about joy? (Okay, yes, Instant Pot can be really fun. WE GOT IT, INSTANT POT PEOPLE.)
Here’s a tip to help make your family meal special again: Name the dishes.
In Dad ‘s delightful novel, Matt Berical writes about his childhood memories of his dad, a lousy cook, but a magnificent signature machine. His dad wasn’t in charge of dinner very often, but on the nights he was, he magnified his magic by giving his dishes fun, catchy names. Dad’s famous fried sandwiches with Bologna! Mikey’s Potatoes! Big Beef Chili! “Everything had a name and everything was flavored with exclamation marks,” Berikal writes.
He adds:
When he named his dishes, my father gave them power. Coupled with the fact that he rarely appeared in the kitchen, the food took on an otherworldly quality. It wasn’t dinner, it was special. Besides, my dad couldn’t be bad at anything, let alone what he put his name on. It should have been good.
In hindsight, were his culinary creations delicious? Of course not. But 8 year old I didn’t notice the difference. All that little Optimus Prime loving and big-headed bastard knew was what Daddy cooked, and we were lucky enough to have a signature dinner.
So what are some of your favorite homemade foods? I’m thinking about serving super super sesame noodles, Mom’s best beef sandwiches and insanely good chicken curry. So what if you found a recipe on the back of a craft paper box? Try this while your kids are easily impressed (and too young to be interested in intellectual property rights).