What though on hamely fare we dine...

   It's one of those odd things you remember about someone without knowing why. Inconsequential in the bigger picture, and completely irrelevant to one's opinion of the person, just a funny little detail. In the case of my Grandmother, it's mushy peas.*
   She would take a can of peas that had already been sitting, sealed in their own juices, on the grocery store shelf for about a year and a half, and boil them for two to three hours until you weren't sure if they were really peas, or maybe a plate of left-over mashed potatoes she had forgotten to throw out three weeks ago. I always thought it was because she didn't know how to cook them properly. I mean, in our house we just took the bag of Green Giant peas out of the freezer, and put some into boiling water for exactly the time listed on the side of the package.** Was she not reading the directions?
   Today I read something that suggests her peas were coming out exactly the way she intended all those years ago. Apparently, she was just being English. Which is somewhat odd, because I always thought she was Scottish. Should I cancel the kilt I have on order?


* To be fair, I'm not sure if this is an authentic memory of my grandmother, or one I have appropriated from my mother after listening to her talk about her mother-in-law.

** Today, I'm more likely to eat peas raw, standing in the garden having just picked and shucked them. But that's about my other Grandparents...

Tags: family, memory, English, Scottish, mushy peas