The over-crowded bookcase above my mother’s kitchen desk did not discriminate between healthy cooking and indulgence. Adele Davis’ no-nonsense Let’s Eat Right To Keep Fit cozied up alongside James Beard’s Fireside Cook Book and Julia Child’s butter-stained Mastering the Art of French Cooking.
Published in 1970, Davis’ timeless reference guide to nutrition served more as a suggestion and less as an ultimatum. My mother’s casual promotion of health food to a family devoted to lofty cakes and lattice-topped pies, aligned with my father’s dictum to diet and exercise. “Everything in moderation,” he would remind us after his morning jog, slicing off a small triangle of apple pie for breakfast and pouring himself a second cup of coffee from the Chemex. One might say my mother was a thin-shelled health food nut, while my father was a tough nut to crack.
My mother’s interest in diet and nutrition stemmed from both her upbringing and her education. The daughter of a dentist, she enjoyed a lengthy career as a dental hygienist, admonishing us to brush our teeth and floss regularly. As children, a visit to my grandfather’s office overlooking Bryant Park, was a healthy contradiction. Armed with new toothbrushes and pocket-sized tubes of toothpaste, we paused by a behemoth glass jar on my grandfather’s desk to pluck a handful of cello wrapped candies. Planting a good-bye kiss on his cheek, we headed to Katz’s for hot dogs washed down with Dr. Brown’s cream soda.
Even at the height of the health food craze, my mother’s approach was far from a religious pursuit, more akin to a hobby. Most mornings, she orchestrated four brown bag lunches. Even though her valiant attempts to coax us towards whole grains fell flat, I had to applaud her tenacity. She was subtle, sandwiching peanut butter or cream cheese or egg salad between two slices of whole wheat bread, cut on the diagonal. We pleaded for pedestrian white bread instead. She reluctantly obliged with multi-grain bread which was lighter on the wheat, adding an apple or a small box of Sun-Maid raisins for good measure.
Lunch wasn’t the only meal exposed to a healthy upgrade. The Tupperware turntable in our kitchen cabinet designated to vitamins, flax seed, oat bran, and banana chips also housed unsweetened breakfast options. Spinning the turntable unleashed a waft of health-food-store-Brewer’s yeast that we considered toxic. Avoiding that turntable like the plague, Grape Nuts and Shredded Wheat were as far as we dared stray from sugar-kissed cereals.
When carob chips and honey were touted as healthful baking substitutes, my mother combed through a stack of glossy food magazines until she found a recipe for carob chip cookies. The results were underwhelming at best, reinforcing Toll House morsels as a pantry staple. The lackluster cookies enjoyed a field trip to science class and a little extra credit for the baker; my mother was thrilled.
The 1970s and '80s introduced consumers to kitchen gadgets that encouraged nutrition. New appliances intrigued but left my brothers, sister, and I nonplussed. The peanut butter spinning out of the Salton peanut butter machine was tasty but not sweet enough. The thermostat controlled yogurt maker produced five tangy portions yet severely lacked fruit on the bottom. We balked; my mother persevered. Although the counter-top bread machine turned out crusty loaves of multi-grain, slices dunked in skim milk were a far cry from challah French toast doused in Vermont maple syrup.
Adele Davis encouraged fresh juices, prompting the purchase of a juice extractor. It wasn’t unusual to wander into the kitchen and witness a scene reminiscent of Muppet Labs. Strewn across the Formica countertop was a riot of carrots, apples, crimson beets, and knobs of fresh ginger. Standing at the helm was my mother, guiding the fruit and vegetables as they tumbled headfirst down the chute of the extractor. When offered a juice glass of the health tonic, I politely declined. My mother declared it, ‘out of this world’ while my father opted instead for a dry martini with an extra olive.
I did share, however, my mother’s passion for lemons, both the thick-skinned grocery store variety and the elusive thin-skinned Meyer lemon. Squeezed over ice cubes in tall glasses or bobbing in a cup of hot water, we drank these beverages in lieu of coffee after dinner. In her classic yin and yang philosophy of sharing, my mother reminded me that lemons eroded tooth enamel but were packed with antioxidants.
Circling the dining room table nightly provided an opportunity to over-share the day’s events, fill (and refill) our dinner plates, eating just enough vegetables to ensure smooth sailing to dessert. My mother’s attempt to replace white macaroni with whole wheat was almost as dire as introducing brown rice instead of white. The dinner table mutinies were blissfully short lived. “Your father prefers regular spaghetti,” my mother assured me as she squeezed fresh lemon juice over a bowl of whole wheat pasta salad.
For a very brief period, I encouraged my mother to enroll in an aerobics class and promised to join her. With Billy Joel’s greatest hits pouring out of a boom box, our blindingly white sneakers zigged instead of zagged across the floor, turning to the left when the rest of the class was turning right. Desperately trying to avoid facing the wall of mirrors, we laughed more than we aerobicized. Class concluded with a series of cool down stretches and shoulder rolls. As Barry Manilow crooned “I can’t smile without you,” we decided he could, making a beeline for the car. We stopped for frozen yogurt on the way home. —Ellen Gray
See what other Food52ers are saying.