Soybean Potluck
Second grade was my first school year in small-town, rural Iowa. All my classmates were born in the area, played together as toddlers, started school together. And then there was me: a unknown from far away, dumped in the middle of Iowa, not really fitting in.
One fall afternoon the class (elementary school?) had a potluck and everyone brought in food to share with the class. Parents – mothers – showed up at the scheduled time with their contribution and most stayed while the food was sampled.
Mom showed up with roasted soybeans. To Mom, soybeans are a protein-rich, healthy snack; to everyone else, soybeans are fed to hogs to fatten them up for slaughter. Soybeans are most definitely not viewed as edible. To their credit, my teacher and some mothers did try them and acted nonchalant, but my classmates thought otherwise and made fun of it – and me.. I remember being more confused than embarrassed or horrified, likely because really didn’t understand the whole farm thing yet.
Ultimately Mom started a health food store in our small town, selling all sorts of organic and healthy food that no local had ever dreamed about.
Play Practice Potluck
The high school typically put on one play per year – Oklahoma, Finian’s Rainbow, How To Succeed In Business Without Really Trying are the three I remember – and I worked backstage: lights, curtains, set changes, whatever. One year we needed a Saturday day-long rehersal to prepare for the upcoming dates. A potluck lunch was planned and everyone was asked to bring in a dish. I brought brownies that Mom made.
During lunch a full-blow food fight broke out, started when someone took a bite of an unsweetened, tasteless brownie and threw it across the room in disgust.
I’m not absolutely positive, but my fear was that they were Mom’s brownies. I said nothing, and, at the end of the day, very quietly retrieved our pan to bring home.
Even Mom wasn’t convinced she added sugar: it would have been very easy to be distracted with three toddlers running under food. I retold the story a few years ago and she just shrugged her shoulders as only she could and said, Well, it could have been. And everyone had a good laugh.
Image Credit
“Soybean Harvest” by UnitedSoybeanBoard is licensed under CC BY 2.0.
