Let the children eat tripe

I remember how worried my parents used to get when I left all my
meal. I don't know if it was an eating disorder I had or not. The food
was absolutely AWFUL.

And I wanted them to know. I didn't need them to feel rejected, just to
stop expecting me to put this alien shit in my mouth. My jaw used to
clamp shut at the sight of foreign objects and I would sit at the table
, a small but iron mule.

Honeycomb tripe, trotter. Tongue with jelly. A lot of meat seemed to
have jelly. Pork pies. Slimy sloppy watery lancashire hotpot. Burnt
pastry crust. Tinned salmon. And for afters, rice pudding with brown
skin , or stewed gooseberries with lumpy custard. Fruit Macedoine in
summer, with Carnation cream.

I hated all the vegetables; peas, potatoes, carrots, onions. Of course
most children loathe cabbage and brussels. Needless to say vegetables
were always boiled to oblivion, apart from potatoes which tended to be
underdone. Eat your greens might well have included potato.

I started school when I was four. Here I was introduced to bizarre
varieties of pickle, which were used generously to garnish
indeterminate "meat". Beetroot, picallilli, pickled red cabbage,
pickled onions, and worst of all , salad cream.

It was to coincide with my Salad Cream Initiation Day that the
Headmistress , Miss Walsh, having heard of my daily refusal to eat,
came and sat down next to me. She was very harsh and large and I can
remember the nightmarish feeling of being forcefed with a forkful of
boiled potato and salad cream.

I was sick all over the table and Miss Walsh, whom I remember as a
woman with steel-grey hair drawn back and a hooked nose, then smacked
me. She punished me for vomitting!

Later I realised my pink teddy bear had a look of Miss Walsh, so I
dropped him down the toilet. My mother rescued him as he was a present
and I began to love him once more.

I could go on and on about food, but I don't want to give it a bad name
as I have gradually grown to like it. I love many things I was never
offered as a kid, rice, and pasta, mushrooms. I will eat most veg
except beetroot and green/black/blue potato. I love food which is all
mixed up and granular. I still don't like the meat and 2 veg
arrangements.

And I can't believe they still produce salad cream. It's a sick world
we live in.