I am sure that almost everyone has a favorite food and as children so did we, but in my family there was a system of sorts about this. Whatever your favorite was, it might as well have been written in stone. You did not get to change this or add to this in any way. You picked your favorite and you lived with it forever. Not only did you know your favorite, but everyone else knew your favorite and they would often tell you what your favorite was, in case, you know, you forgot or something.
Now above all things, I liked cherries. This is a little strange in that there were very few instances that I had access to fresh cherries, but I remember them vividly. One spectacular memory is centered around a family trip we made to some relatives who lived in New Mexico. They had a big house which was necessary for a big family and we had a lot of fun playing on the bunk beds, that is until our efforts collapsed the bunk beds. One of my cousins and I had been lying on the lower bunk and pushing up with our feet onto the slats of the upper bunk bed. This would cause the upper bunk to rise slightly on one end which caused some more of my cousins who were perched on the top bunk to scream.
It was the most hilarious thing in the world right up to the point that we lifted the upper bunk just a little too high and caused it to shift off of its supports and come crashing down on top of us. I happened to be nearest the wall when this happened and it was lucky that I was such a skinny child because there was about an inch of room left between the two beds. My oldest cousin, a sensible girl who had not been a part of our bed lifting play, was about to call for the adults when I just wriggled my way out of the mess. We still had to call the adults to help put the bed back together, and although this was better received than if my crushed body had been part of the fiasco, we were still threatened with unspeakable punishment if we did not immediately go outside and play.
So out we went and my eldest cousin asked us if we liked cherries. This was met with stunned agreement. "Cherries are my favorite thing in the world," I said solemnly. As per the family rule, my sister also commented. "Cherries are her favorite thing in the world." "Well," my cousin said, "Would you like to go and pick some cherries?" She said this in a rather casual jaded sort of way without any kind of importance. All I could do was nod my head dumbly. What my brain was thinking was, "Yes, yes I would very much like to pick cherries, but you are obviously just teasing me because cherries are not something that can just be picked. Cherries are only found in stores and very rarely and in such small quantities that you are lucky to get a half dozen to yourself. Or else, cherries are found swimming in heavy syrup and soaked in such red dye number 2 that they are glowing neon in a bottle marked maraschino cherries and only available at Christmas time, and then only if you beg and beg and beg will you get to eat one." She might as well have asked me if I wanted to go pick up gold coins.
So, we went to her neighbor's house and there was this entire fence line full of cherry trees filled with red ripe cherries. We picked and picked and picked until we had filled a huge bowl. I ate cherries, my sister ate cherries, my cousins ate cherries and there were still more cherries in the bowl. Then everybody else had eaten all they wanted and the bowl was still half full. I continued to eat cherries and nobody told me I had to stop eating them. We decided to play a board game and I continued to eat cherries. Nobody else ate any more and in fact they sort of watched me in fascination as I ate more and more. Every so often and adult would come over so watch for a little while as I continued to eat more cherries. Everyone was just waiting to see when I would stop. I just continued to eat more until finally, it was like a level line in my body had been reached and I suddenly could not eat another one. I was full of cherries. For once in my life I had finally eaten enough cherries. My cousins asked me if I had enough. Yes. My parents asked me if I had enough. Yes. My aunt and uncle asked me if I had had enough. Yes. And they picked up the bowl and nothing more was mentioned. Nobody teased me about devouring the greater portion of what had been about 10 cups of cherries. Nobody speculated whether it was going to make me sick (I felt fine, very full, but fine). They just accepted that when you had something that was your favorite thing in the world and it was scarce, you were going to get as much of it as you could when the opportunity arose.
My family had better access to their favorites than I did. My sister's favorite food was sweet potato casserole. Now granted we only had that at Thanksgiving and Christmas but it was made in huge quantities and of course it was absolutely expected that a person overindulge. So she was set at least twice a year. My father's favorite food was peanut butter and bananas, a concoction he could have anytime he wanted since the ingredients were always available. For my mother, her favorite food seemed to be chile rellenos that we got from Pancho's Mexican buffet. All she had to do was raise the little flag at our table and they would bring her as many as she wanted.
Now, not only did you get to have a favorite food in my family, you were also allowed to have one food that you absolutely detested. Just like your favorite food, this was written in stone and unchangeable. Apparently it was something decided early on, maybe when you were just a baby and you turned your head at something, who knows. Interestingly enough, our detested food was often the favorite food of another family member. My detested food was sweet potatoes. I cannot ever remember ever trying sweet potatoes but since I was told I did not like them I accepted this on faith and avoided them. Now if I were to be allowed to have more than one detested food it would be my father's favorite, peanut butter and bananas. I liked these foods just fine separately, but mashed them together and they took on a strange and horrible turn. He gave me a bite of his sandwich one time and it was indescribably awful. My mouth just rejected it and would not let me swallow. But, since I was already assigned the sweet potato as my hated food I could not officially claim another.
For my sister, her detested food was bananas. However, not only did she not like the taste of fresh bananas, but she also confided she did not like to touch a banana. Now, it is one thing to hate a food for its taste, but it takes a certain mind to fear the touch of a food, especially one that comes in its own wrapper. This was valuable information that she should never have divulged because when I heard this I did the only logical thing a younger sister would do to an older sister who often tormented her. I immediately grabbed a banana chased my sister around the room with it.
We started in the kitchen with her on one side of the breakfast bar and me on the other. As I lunged toward her she displayed cat like reflexes and sprang back. I came around the end of the counter and she leaped ahead of me using every bit of her height advantage to run ahead of me. She raced around the dining room table and began to scream. I ran as fast as I could holding the banana out ahead of me as if it were some magical wand, which for that moment it was, a banana wand of older sister vexation. It was a feeling of incredible power I had never felt before. Finally the almost three years difference in our age meant nothing. Finally I had a way of making things even between us and it was in the shape of a banana. Unfortunately her panicked screams brought my mother into the room. "Don't chase your sister with a banana," my mother said patiently while my sister gibbered beside her, "You will break her brain even more." She made me promise not to torment my sister with bananas and reluctantly I agreed.
My sister tried to get me back the next Thanksgiving. My parents were out of the room for a moment. My sister sat next to me and with her plate piled high with sweet potatoes she taunted me, "Watch out," she menaced, "or I will touch you with my sweet potatoes!" I just looked at her. "I just don't want to eat them," I said, "I am not afraid of them." She grabbed her spoon filled with sweet potatoes and pointed it at me, "Wooooo! I am going to touch you with my sweet potatoes." I held up my index finger and and bent it into a curve. "This isn't my finger," I said, "This is a banana and I am going to touch you with it." My sister's eyes got wide and she jumped up from the chair. I jumped up and began to chase her with my crooked finger. She began to scream, "Noooooooo!" My parents came into the room and she ran behind my mother. "She's trying to touch me with her finger that she says is a banana!" my sister blurted out. I looked at my mother. She looked at me. "Don't chase your sister with..." and here she paused. "Don't..." She paused again. "Look, just tell your sister your finger is not a banana so we can sit down and eat," she finished glaring at me.
I still like cherries just about more than any other fruit. I also to this day have never eaten sweet potatoes. I don't particularly have anything against them. I just don't eat them as a tribute to my family's traditions. I never again chased my sister with a banana. Although I tried not to, I must admit, I occasionally would I tell her my finger was a banana.
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