The Trouble With Food

By Peggy McManus Mar 2026

Family dinners were the highlight of my young life. We gathered at the kitchen table, enjoying Mom’s cooking, sharing stories of the day’s events, and laughing. Generally, the recaps of my days were tainted with awkward moments and unfortunate outcomes.

“A boy at lunch was chewing with his mouth open today,” I reported one evening. “It was so disgusting, I accidentally let out a scream.”

“That’s a bit of an overreaction,” Mom said.“Did your teacher tell him to close his mouth?”

“No, she didn’t say anything to him, but I got in trouble for screaming,” I replied. “I had to spend recess in the principal’s office.”

Dad flashed me a mischievous grin, and I knew I would have no trouble getting him to sign the note the principal had sent home with me.

As much as I loved Mom’s cooking, I did not love all the work that went into getting it on the table. First, there was the weekly trip to the dairy farm to pick up a couple of gallons of milk. It came in jars with a float of cream on top that Mom would skim off and save to whip with sugar and vanilla on nights she served dessert. This was by far the easiest “food” job, but the trip to the dairy interrupted my Saturday morning cartoons, and I found that annoying.

“Can we go when ‘Scooby Doo’ is over?” I’d ask, not sure why I had to go anyway.

“No, I’ve got too much to do today,” Mom always said. “Get in the car.”

Then there was the monthly trip to the meat locker. It was an eerie place. Silent, dark, and icy cold, with wooden ramps lined with row upon row of locked, walk-in meat freezers. 

Dad and I were responsible for the monthly trips to the meat locker. Mom always tucked a list of what she wanted into Dad’s pocket so we wouldn’t forget anything.

“You’ve got the meat list, right, Pat?” she would inevitably ask when we were ready to head out.

“Yup, right here,” he’d said, patting his pocket. 

At the meat lockers, Dad and I made our way down the ramp to our freezer. After rummaging around for the right key, he unlocked it, and we went inside.

“Okay, what’s on the meat list, Piggly?” He’d say, cupping his hands to his mouth and blowing warm air on them.“Let’s hurry; it’s freezing in here.”

“I don’t have the list,” I said. “Mom gave it to you.”

On a good day, Dad would say, “Oh, that’s right, here it is.” But on most days, he’d check all his pockets before remembering he’d changed into a warmer shirt before we left, and we’d have to drive back home to get it.

“Okay, Piggly, read me what’s on the list and check it off as I put it in the box,” Dad would say once the meat list was finally in hand.

“Okay,” I said. “Five pounds of hamburger. Check. One venison roast. Check. Whatever’s left of the frozen perch. Check.” 

On it went until we gathered everything on Mom’s meat list. Then, with frozen fingers, Dad put the padlock back on the locker door and hauled the box of meat up the ramp and out to the car. 

Like most people, we also made monthly trips to the grocery store. There we bought staples like salt and sugar, soap and toothpaste. We rarely bought produce, though. That came from our garden.

Mom was a superb gardener. Each year, under her tutelage, we planted, weeded, and watered. During the summer, Mom also sent my sisters, the Trolls, and me out to the garden for salad fixings, corn to shuck, beans to snap, or peas to pod for the evening meal. These were, by far, our biggest and most time-consuming jobs, but that’s what happens when your Mom is an original farm-to-table cook.

Nothing from the garden went to waste. If we didn’t eat it fresh, it was frozen, dried, or canned and stored in the cellar. Even dandelions were harvested and made into wine.

Carrots and potatoes were preserved by burying them in a crate of sand stored in the cellar. To me, this looked like our cat’s litter box, and if I thought that, she probably did, too. Best to make sure all those lumps I dug out of the sand were actually potatoes.

Mom didn’t like having kids underfoot when she was cooking. Other than being called in to set the table, my job while she was cooking was to keep the Baby Troll out of her hair until she called us to dinner.

We each had our assigned seat at the table. Mom and Dad sat opposite the Trolls along one length of the table. I sat at an end, with the eldest Troll to my right and Dad on my left. Baby Troll was across from me at the opposite end, next to Mom. Food was passed from Dad to Mom (who served Baby Troll), to the older Trolls, and finally to me. This routine never varied.

On special occasions, we had steak for dinner. It was always round steak, the only kind of steak I knew. Mom cut it into pieces, then dipped them in flour and seasonings, and fried them in oil in a cast-iron pan. The smell was delectable. On those nights, we raced to the table when Mom called us to dinner. As usual, Dad took the first piece of steak and then handed the platter to Mom. By the time it got around to me, there was no steak left, only a small round bone with a tiny morsel of gristle attached. 

“Why do I always end up with the bone?” I demanded one night.

“What do you mean, Piggly? Dad asked. “We save the bone for you. It’s the best part of the steak.”

“But there’s no steak on it, Dad,” I said, holding up the bone for him to see.

“Yes, but it has the best part of the steak, the bone marrow,” Dad said. “That’s a delicacy, you know. Now suck out that bone before someone changes their mind and trades you for their boring ol’ steak.”

I sucked on my bone a bit, then dug out the marrow with my finger and licked it off. It’s true. It is delicious, I thought, and never complained about getting stuck with the little round steak bone again.      

One night, Mom made venison liver and onions for dinner. The offensive odor permeated everything in the house. You couldn’t escape it, even by burying your face in a pillow, which is what we were all doing in the hours leading up to the meal.

“Supper’s ready,” Mom yelled. The time had come. Like mourners in a funeral march, we shuffled silently toward the kitchen.

“Okay, everyone, stop pinching your noses and get ready to try something new,” Dad said. 

“We aren’t eating that,” the Trolls cried. “It’s disgusting!” 

“That is no way to talk about your mother’s cooking,” Dad scolded. “Just try one bite. I bet you’ll be surprised at how much you like it.”

“Nooooo,” the Trolls wailed. 

“Piggly, take a bite and show your sisters what wimps they’re being,” Dad said, looking at me with such confidence in my liver-eating ability that I couldn’t bring myself to refuse. 

“Fine,” I said, cutting off a chunk of liver and swirling it around in the oily onion drippings. “Watch this,” I said and shoved it into my mouth. 

The taste was worse than anything I could have imagined. My eyes began to water, and I broke out in a cold sweat, but still I chewed. I was determined to show up the Trolls and secure my position, once and for all, as my parents’ favorite child. 

Suddenly, my stomach flip-flopped, and the color drained from my face. Apparently, the foul substance I was frantically gnawing on didn’t like me any more than I liked it. For a second, I thought I might be able to choke it down and save face, but that was not to be. Instead, I erupted like a volcano, spewing liver all over the dinner table and everyone seated around it.

The Trolls shrieked and pushed their chairs back from the table so abruptly that they tipped over. Their screams turned to sobs as they scurried away on their hands and knees. Mom leaped up and yanked Baby Troll from her high chair, but not before I pelted her, too.

After what seemed like a very long time, my stomach settled. A shocked silence had fallen over the room. Finally, Dad cleared his throat and addressed our traumatized family. 

“Well, that’s the last time we have liver and onions for dinner,” he said. 

And it was.

Illustration by Shannon McManus, "Whatchagot Stew".