Good Morning.
When I was sixteen I was invited to Sunday dinner at the home of my late husband who was seventeen at the time. It was one of the most distinctly uncomfortable occasions of my life. His father was a doctor and doctors were men who drove big cars with black bags full of needles and cough medicine that was cherry-flavored if you were lucky. His mother was probably five inches shorter than I was, but she could have towered over me. I was scared to death of her.
Sunday dinner was a big deal back then. It was served between one and two, and the meal consisted of roast beef, baked ham, or fried chicken, some kind of potatoes, a vegetable, rolls, and dessert, always dessert. The table was set with a formal white cloth and matching napkins, the family silver, the good dishes, and crystal stemware. The husband carved the meat at the table for serving, and the side dishes were passed. Wine was rarely consumed except on holidays when Cold Duck was poured. It tasted like Kool Aid. Otherwise the beverage was water for the adults, milk for the children, and coffee with the pie or cake.
Good table manners were expected. You did not place the elbows on the table and did not slurp or chew with the mouth open. The dinner roll was broken in half and each part was buttered with the individual butter knife that was part of the place setting. Slippery vegetables were managed on a fork rather than stabbed with too much noise. After the age of ten, you did not hide peas or other disliked food in the lovely monogrammed napkin or attempt to wash them down with milk. If you complained, you were informed that there were starving children in China. They were always from China for some reason.
You stayed in your church clothes until Sunday dinner was over, and I am certain I wore a nice dress, a strand of pearls with matching earrings, and high heels to my boyfriend's home. The neckline would not have been similar to the one seen here, however. Young women did not show any skin except at a dance when the truly adventurous wore a modest variety of a strapless gown. My neckline for the dinner was probably something that would be appropriate for a nun who wears street clothes today.
In any case, into the rule-bound atmosphere at the home of my boyfriend's parents I came to find myself in the spring of 1960. I cannot remember the meat, the potatoes, or the dessert, but I certainly recall the vegetable. An entire artichoke was provided for each person along with an individual bowl of Hollandaise sauce, and I was horrified. I had never even seen an artichoke before although I'd had Hollandaise sauce on asparagus. The scary petite mother had to teach me how to pull the leaves off, one by one, dip them into the lemon velvet sauce and scrape the flesh off with my teeth. The physician father told me that the best part of an artichoke was the heart, but alas, I never reached it and was never invited to Sunday dinner again. That was all right by me. Suffering through a meal with people, especially a boyfriend's people, who dished up a vegetable the size of a small shrub so they could assess my level of breeding and sophistication was right up there with forgetting a piece of music in the middle of a piano recital or taking the SAT in math. I went home that day, certain that the doctor and his wife had told their son shortly after my departure that I was probably used to eating canned corn off paper plates in the kitchen and he needed to find more suitable companionship. When he looked me up forty-five years later, I mentioned the incident during the second or third phone call. He remembered it and laughed about it. I did not.
Best regards,
Elisabeth
Comments