My Big Brother , who I consider to be Mycroft , (no ,that doesn’t mean I’m Sherlock, ), because he knows everything, and forgets nothing, mostly in a happy way, has this to say about Upma and Potatoes-
“The best cook never made the perfect upma, and the worst cook never made a bad potato curry.”
I believe it’s true. I also know that everyone reviles upma but eats when it’s dished up, regardless, while the potato , well, who can resist it. It’s the one vegetable that comforts you while you wallow in the guilt of consuming it.
Meanwhile there are other things, veggies and fruits that fall somewhere between the upma and the potato, that mom says , have to be eaten. Lady’s fingers for the brain, carrots for the eyes, and cabbage for the mmmphm ( grown-ups can be pretty vague about the goodness of cabbage, and know they sound very very fake indeed as they try to persuade you that it is “good for you”, while finding it disgusting themselves.
It just so happens that some jolly grown-ups remember exactly how it felt when they were kids, and moms and grandmas were trying to stuff their face with broccoli and beet and parsnip, and have written some jolly rhymes and poems to savor while actually eating the yucky stuff.
I found this delightful book , at Herndon Fortnightly library, that understands the child’s and the child inside the grown=up , who likes to play with food, talk to it, scold it, and threaten it, and pretend it’s a person ,over whom you have absolute control.
There won’t be a child (6-11 years) who will not delight in the smorgasbord of over 60 poems in the book, which has themes like “Silly”, “We like”, Table Manners, and the difficulty of eating with chopsticks.
Here’s why , according th Susan Alton Schmeltz, you should Never Take A Pig To Lunch-
Never Take a pig to lunch Don’t invite him home for brunch Cancel chances to be fed Till you’re certain he’s well-bread
Quiz him! Can he use a spoon? Does his sipping sing a tune? Will he slurp and burn and snuff Till his gurgling makes you gruff?
Would he wrap a napkin round Where the dribbled gravy’s found? Tidbits nibble? Doughnuts dunk? Spill his milk before it’s drunk?
Root and snoot through soup du jour? Can your appetite endure? If his manners make you moan, Better let him lunch alone.
A clever trick, doubtless, to make it about the other kid, the pig, when you tell the child about table manners!
I found this little gem from Richard Armour,
Shake and shake the catsup bottle nothing will come and then a lot’ll
And how can we not have Ogden Nash, in a kid;’s book about food? Celery, raw/ Develops the jaw,/ But celery stewed, /is more quickly chewed, says Nash, before busting the scam called parsnip in these lines- The parsnip, children, I repeat Is simple , an anemic beet Some people call the parsnip edible Myself, I find this claim incredible.
Eve Merriam speaks of a Peculiar boy – I once knew a boy who was odd as could be He liked to eat cauliflower and broccoli And spinach and turnips and rhubarb pie And he didn’t like hamburgers or French fries.
Not just peculiar, I’d say. A boy who brought disrepute to the cult of kiddyhood whose motto is to revile the veggies!
A poem on learning to eat with chopsticks, by Arnold Adoff drops down like the food that a kid is trying to pick uo with chopsticks- I am learning to move my chopsticks through the vegetables and meat and through the oriental treat we have tonight but in between my smiles and bites I write a emssage to the sweet and sour pork I need a fork! goes this poem as the words drop down in a tiny confetti.
In My Mother Says I’m Sickening, Jack Prelutsky laments that his mother says he’s crude when she sees him playing Ping pong with his food! And in a long poem, Trouble With Dinner, J.A.Lindon wonders “Why can’t I dig with my spoon and make potato castles like on the beach?
It’s Spaghetti! spaghetti you wonderful stuff, I love you and Wouldn’t you love to have lasagna any old time the mood was on ya? and there’s a joyful poem about how you make a peant butter jelly sandwich from scratch , and the joys of eating icecream, and chocolate. And this big giant who calls for one hundred pancakes , not one less and enough maple syrup yo amke a giant mess!
There’s a poor crocodile who finds being l—o—n—g a great trial. Said a very long crocodile/My length is a terrible trial! I know I should diet/ But each time I try it I’m hungry for more than a mile!
Time to sign off with this wisely anonymous poet’s Fatty Fatty Boom-a-latty; This is the way she goes! She’s so large around the waist She cannot see her toes!
A great book to spend an afternoon with, whether you are o r a kid or a grwon up! The book is been illustrated by Nadine Bernards Westcott, who also selected the poems.
This is what Kirkus Review had to say about the book:
There isn’t a child on earth who won’t sample, snack, and nibble with delight at this delicious smorgasbord of more than 60 poems. A first course on eating “silly” things (Nash’s “Eels”; Livingston’s “O Sliver of Liver”) is followed by a section on eating things “we like” (“We All Scream for Ice Cream”; Prelutsky’s “Fudge”). Gobble up a group on eating too much (Ciardi’s “Betty Bopper”) and another on table manners (Burgess’s Goops show up here, as does the title poem). Meanwhile, Westcott’s zany children, animals, and food race riotously across the pages; the gusto with which these pint-size epicureans take to their tasks is contagious. A wish: that one positive poem had countered the two negative ones about the difficulty of eating with chopsticks, if only because children don’t always read the difference between laughing “at” and laughing “with.” Still, three-star attention to detail coupled with four-star appeal.