Humans are creatures of routines. Our whole life is composed of various routines, whether we like it or not. Some routines are more rigid, some are more flexible but they are still there.
Meal time is, in itself, a routine too. Usually, we will eat the main course before dessert, right? Some foods seem to go naturally together, some not. But those rules and routines are often personal, and specific to each family.
In our household, Wednesday night is called spaghetti night. And it has been the case for many years now. We almost always have spaghetti on Wednesday, and it is funny when we have something else on that day, or when spaghetti is served on another day. Do you want to know why?
Hectic schedule
Several years ago, when my kids were younger, they were involved in two sports: karate for the boys and rhythmic gymnastics for my daughter. Karate was twice a week: Mondays and Fridays. Gymnastics was 3 times a week: Mondays, Tuesday and Thursdays. Since my job is out of town, I would come home around 5h30 at the earliest, after picking up the kids at daycare or after school. But their practice was always at 6. Around that time, my husband was either in college, and arriving at the same time, or working all week out of town.
Not much time to cook
Our meal plan was often based on how fast something could be cooked. If something could be made ahead of time, and just reheated in the microwave, that was the best. Otherwise, something that would take 15 minutes to cook, would leave us just a few minutes to eat. Yes, I know, it is not good to eat fast but I certainly could not let them starve until after their practice, could I?
Two lunches
At times, I would send the kids to school with an extra lunch that they could eat after school, around 5. It would often be a sandwich, so that could be considered a small meal and maybe they could eat something else after the practice.
Why the spaghetti?
The kids always loved spaghetti, and even though in itself, it is not a long meal to prepare (especially since they loved the canned sauce), it still takes time to boil the water and cook the pastas. So, we agreed that we didn’t have time to cook that particular meal on Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays or Fridays. So by default, Wednesday was the only day of the week we could make that spaghetti.
The schedule changed, but…
Although the various practices changed schedule somewhat over the years, there was still nothing on Wednesday nights. Eventually, the kids grew older and more independent, and could make dinner before I came home, Wednesdays still stuck as Spaghetti night even if the initial reason for it did not exist anymore. I guess it will just end up as a family tradition!
Do you have food or meal routines that came from a reason unique to your family? Or do you have any particular routine even unrelated to food and meal? Share your story as i am sure reading this post sparked SOMEthing in your mind. And remember mostly to jot it down somewhere, in the comments or in your notebook!
3 thoughts on “Remember when…? – Food routine”
My birthday happens to be somewhat close to Valentine’s Day, and I am not overly fond of cake, so my mother took to making a heart shaped cherry pie for the birthday. She was not the world’s greatest cook, but she could make a matchless pie! We didn’t have many meal traditions, but there were always pancakes or waffles or French toast for special day breakfasts (it was really special if you got waffles), and, somewhat more random, banana bread which filled the house with great smells. My mother and brother liked to go to swapmeets so after they left, my father would take me out for breakfast–his favorite place was run by a retired player and decorated in baseball memorabilia. Now this is going to sound nutty but I had a maltese-poodle for awhile. My mother and I would take her with us to pick up ice cones (yes, now I know this wasn’t good for her but she had a long doggy life anyway) and Whimsey got her own cone. She would lick the ice cream off the top and then very delicately bite down on the cone until she could get to more ice cream…in other words, she ate it just like a person would (except one of us would hold the cone for her). She would end up with vanilla ice cream on her upper lip so she looked like she had a little white moustache. At the end of the cone, she would stick out her tongue and lick all around her mouth…I guess she liked to save a little ice cream for the end.
I know what you mean about Whimsey, I had a golden retriever, Gemma, who would eat anything including wood – she chewed a paling fence right down at one house! Anyway one day we stopped for icecream and my friend had an ice on a stick which she didn’t want to finish. She offered it to Gemma to lick, but typically Gemma grabbed the whole thing, stick and all, and swallowed it in one gulp! It took a few days but eventually the stick re-appeared, still in once piece – it must have bent round all the corners. She was very lucky nothing was torn inside. Didn’t stop her chewing wood though.
It probably helped that Gemma was a large dog (certainly bigger than my Whimsey was). Sometimes I wonder if dogs do these things just to make us a little crazy.