I was a typical boy raised in the twenties – that’s “2-aught-20’s
to most of you. It was in the post
Bernie Sanders' mandatory food safety laws era where nothing that might be
considered dangerous or unhealthy was allowed in food. In fact the very act of eating could be equated with
sex for the sole purpose of procreation- “Get
it in, and get it out- nothing more”. Thus our family meals consisted of organically
grown brown rice, non-GMO, salt-free, additive-free soy protein blocks with no
added flavorings, or coloring, and lots of organically grown kale. For special
occasions, like birthdays, we were allowed gluten-free-sugar-free-dairy-free-fat-free,
GMO-free birthday cake with sugar-free-additive-free-color –free tofu “ice
cream”. On movie nights we’d have raw carrot sticks and celery, toasted flax
seeds with no added salt, and rarely, but best of all, carob drops with no
added sweeteners. Life was good….until I went to college and in my freshman
year entered the forbidden world of illegal food.
Sure, I knew about Pizza.
It was the stuff made with gluten-free spelt flour topped with soy cheese and
organically grown kale and tomatoes. It was nothing special. But one day my
college roommate had a friend visiting who had been to one of those illegal underground restaurants- the
kind that made pizza that contained wheat gluten and mozzarella cheese that had actually
been made from dairy products! Late that night, after smoking some legal grade-A
medically certified recreational pot, he took us to one of those underground pizza places. The menu had
all kinds of toppings that you could get on your pizza; of things I’d never
heard of- pepperoni, Italian sausage, salami. Things that had been banned by the Nutritional Food Act of 2019. I can
still remember that intoxicating smell that came from the kitchen. “What is that
smell”, I inquired. “It’s the smell of actual
wheat dough cooking in a pizza cooker, or ‘oven’ as he called it.” A few minutes later the pizza laden with
“everything” was placed before us. There was actual grease from animal products swirling in amongst the crisp
melted full-fat mozzarella cheese. “Go ahead”, he said, “take a slice”. Before
I could stop myself and consider the lifelong health consequences of what I was
putting into my mouth, I grabbed a piping hot slice and took my first bite ever
of that forbidden pie. Immediately the swirl of flavors overcame me, and
despite burning my lips on the hot gooey cheese, I devoured the whole piece –
and then another, and another, before long we had consumed the entire large
pizza.
Fully satiated now, we headed back to our dorm room where our
new found friend regaled us with his tales of other forbidden foods he’d
tasted. He boasted of going to “Hamburger Joints” where patties of
non-organic ground beef were cooked over burning carbon and then were placed inside
something called a “bun” made of gluten impregnated bleached white flour. He
described French Fries -slices of potato
actually fried in fat with lots of
salt! He then went on to describe washing it all down with a drink made of pasteurized
milk, chocolate syrup, and ice cream- real
dairy ice cream. I could only dream of such delights to the senses. I
begged him to take us with him next time. Over the next year we would slip into
the non-agricultural commerce zones and sample these forbidden exotic fruits of
Eden. Doughnuts – gluten-laden
sugary rolls fried in fat and filled with chocolate crème! Pig ribs cooked over
burning wood with some type of indescribable tomato and molasses sauce, and
more. We even went to a baseball game (football
had recently been banned), and in a back alley near the stadium a man had a
little cart from which he pulled out pink tubes of nitrite laden meat
byproducts which he placed into one of those buns and smothered them with
mustard, ketchup (that actually contained
corn syrup), and onions. We sat in the stadium watching the game eating
those “dogs” as he called them,
although he said they didn’t actually contain dog meat, and washing them down
with real Beer that contained both alcohol and gluten. Baseball games
were never so grand after that.
Now as I enter my 108th year of life, still in
good health, though my hearing and eyesight are failing, every night my dreams
steal away to those great times eating the forbidden fruits of Eden and
relishing in their delightful aromas and flavors once again.
