Sometimes I sense that to put real confidence in my memory I have to get to the end of all rememberings. That seems to say that I forego remembering. And now that strikes me as an accurate description of what it is to have confidence in one's memory.
          --Stanley Cavell, The Claim of Reason

I remember my downtown grandparents' kitchen table, where they would eat when they weren't having company. I'd eat with them there too, often before spending the night on the couch. I always faced the window when I ate, and my grandfather faced me: behind him was the sink and fridge. It was sitting there that they taught me to play Tatch. And also, probably earlier, that they taught me to eat spaghetti without getting any on my chin. That is they taught me to roll it up on the fork and put it in my mouth, and then dab at my chin in case any sauce got there. I would ask them, "Dirty? dirty?", a memory reinforced because it was part of my grandmother's lore: she loved to remember that scene. I believe that I used to sit on the step-ladder from which I fell off once and "didn't even cry." Then we'd move it back to the little table against the facing wall, where they had a toaster and I think a radio.

I remember that I had favorite foods associated with my grandmothers. My downtown grandmother would ask what I wanted and I always answered, "Spaghetti á la Bologense." I always asked for filet mignon from my uptown grandmother, which she always claimed to give me, but which was really skirt steak or something similar. Once in a restaurant I ordered spaghetti á la Bologense, and it was much meatier than what I expected -- no good at all! And once in a restaurant I ordered filet mignon, and got a tourando of steak that was good, but not what I wanted. I don't know how I got the idea of eating filet mignon -- probably from something I read, maybe James Bond. I also liked my downtown grandmother's chevapchichi (as I thought the plural was spelled), which were really finger-shaped fried hamburgers with lots of chopped onion in them; in Yugoslavia they turned out to be raw. I did like eating my mother's raw hamburger meat when I was in high school. Now I'll never quite know what my adult taste would be, but I doubt it would ever compare to the pleasures of having my granmothers cook me just what I wanted.

posted by william 9:41 AM
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