One day, when I was
about five years old, my mom counted out fifteen peas for my dinner. This was
the minimum intake if any of the children at the McGlinchey table wanted
dessert. My little brothers got more because they loved those disgusting,
roly-poly green balls, but I made it up by eating more than my fair share of
spinach. After finishing my pork chops and apple sauce, as well as my mashed
potatoes, I would push five of the alien-puke-colored orbs on to my spoon,
using my fork because I didn’t even want to touch those vile critters. With my
left hand on my glass of milk and my right hand holding the spoon unsteadily, I
would, in quick succession, toss those putrid pellets to the back of my throat
and then force them down my gullet with a cleansing mouthful of milk. The
process would be repeated two more times, at least once a week, for the next
thirteen years.
Once I moved out of
home, one of the most liberating feelings for me was to be able to leave the
peas on the plate. Not that I ordered them, but they would occasionally show up
as the veggie side dish that came with the order. Or I would segregate them
from the rest of a beef stew, leaving a dozen of them crowded into a corner of
the plate. If anyone asked, I was man enough to admit my aversion to the
emerald globules and confident that if that if any derision followed, I could
probably name off half a dozen vegetables, from asparagus to zucchini, that the
insulting party despised.
Seven months in Wales
gave a whole new dimension to my disgust for peas. Every Wednesday, lunch was
mutton with mint sauce (a vile dish in and of itself) and mushy peas served
with an ice cream scooper. It was explained to me how the proper consistency
was reached by one of the cooks, but since I was trying to suppress the gag
reflex the whole time, I didn’t remember what was said afterwards.
Arriving on Taiwan, I
was introduce to more varieties of vegetables, legumes, fungi and lichen with
only bitter melon entering that “No-entry” group. Thanks to the freshness of
the veggies, I have grown to like previous foods that were on my “Don’t Eat!”
list, like broccoli, string beans and eggplant. In fact, the only food from
childhood that remains verboten are
peas.
Enter the concept of
presentation. When I was young, a slab of meat to the right, some greens to the
left and some form of potato at the top of the plate was Mom’s idea of
presentation. If you didn’t like the veggies and/or their juices skirting along
the edges of the scalloped taters, well, then eat faster. Nowadays, the words
“wonderful presentation” is like a name brand sticker on a pair of jeans or a
T-shirt. You could probably get the same dish for a quarter of the price at a
New Jersey diner. And with the savings, you could leave nice tip without getting
a service charge.
Chinese cooking has
always made presentation a cornerstone of its cuisine, especially with the use
of colors. A gray-skinned fish, complete with the head and tail, is covered in
orange-tinted sweet-and-sour sauce with green shredded scallions thrown on top.
Chicken soup, complete with the head and claws floating inside, is served in a
colorful ceramic pot. White lobster meat is laid out on a bed of lettuce on one
side of a long serving dish next to the head, antennae and tail of the boiled
crimson crustacean.
Peas, due to their
beryl color, are often used to add colorful contrasts to a dish. They are
sometimes thrown into fried rice, along with corn and chopped-up slices of ham.
Sweet and sour or spicy sauce is occasionally laced with peas. I have seen the
meat fillings of steamed dumplings containing peas.
So, it just seems
natural for Costco, in order to cater to the Taiwanese palate and sense of
presentation, to serve a combo pizza with not only peas and corn, but also
pieces of carrot. Whatever happened to onions, mushrooms and green peppers?
No comments:
Post a Comment