Thursday Kitchen: Bringing back the dinner gong

I had a small serving of dinner around 5:30pm this evening. I looked at the clock afterward: 5:58pm. Something about that hour and number of minutes instantly brought me back to my Mom's living room, when the carpet was still that ugly 70s green... I guess I'd be about 5 or 6 years old. I can remember seeing the hour after dinner and thinking that I had three hours before bedtime to do what I wanted to do... be it reading my book, or playing my records, or watching Brain Games on the once wholesome HBO channel.

My mother served dinner rather promptly when I was small. I'm pretty sure 5 or 5:30 was her regular goal and she regularly succeeded. I found that comforting after weekends with my biological father during which there was no telling when you would eat or what it would be. I still have nightmares about my step-grandfather, during a time when my father's family lived with his in-laws. He would cook this gd-awful chili. I'm willing to believe that had he not dropped cigarette ashes into the mix from the dirty white stick always dangling from his lips that the chili still would have been disgusting.

Still, I can't remember the last time I had dinner at 5:30pm. I'm sure Mom had us eat that early because lunchtime during elementary school and middle school was at some ridiculous hour like 11am or 11:30am. Nowadays, we're not thinking so much about the time between meals. College sort of ruins you for a while, I suppose. You eat when you have time or after you've studied so much that if you don't stop, you'll fall over and your eyes will pop out of your head. Perhaps that doesn't level back out to a regular schedule until you have someone else to take care of... a family of your own.

I've gotten quite used to trying to eat around 7 or 8. That's a routine, too, were it not for the occasional 9 or 10pm meal after a long day or when I haven't planned out what I'm making in time for a 7pm meal. For grown people who stay up until midnight most nights, this is a reasonable arrangement. Then again, my French friends ate around 7pm... I suppose that just wound down the day so that the children knew it was time for bed right after they finished eating. That way, between the protests, the putting away of dishes, and getting on PJs and brushing teeth, they were in bed by 9pm.

There's just so much comfort in a mealtime. We associate each meal with a time of day as it is... breakfast is before 11am, lunch is between 12 and 2, and dinner is between 5 and 7. I remember a storyteller at the festival here in Williamsburg explaining the "proper" names for meals. She informed us that in her day it was breakfast, dinner, and supper. In other parts of the world, we're missing an entire mealtime, such as the English high tea between 2:30 and 4:30. For those who work during the day, we look forward to a certain time on the clock. It's for food that corporate America permits you to slow down and recharge your batteries. In parts of Spain and Italy, people work from 7 or 8am until noon. Then they have lunch and a nap (Can you imagine? Someone in the world realizes that naptime is wasted on kindergarteners...). The whole town shuts down for people to go home, eat, and have a "siesta". Things open back up between 4 and 8pm before people go out into the night and eat their dinners from 9-11pm.

When it's a routine thing, like in my mother's home growing up, mealtimes were the moments to which one could look anxiously forward. They were assigned moments during which we could take a rest, catch up with the family or friends in the cafeteria, and replenish ourselves after a long night's rest, a morning's worth of work, and a long, hard day.

There's the concept of comfort food, too. Foods that make people feel cozy, warm, and happy. These are often foods from our childhood... foods our mothers would prepare to make us feel better when we had a cold, or a bad day at school, etc. In my case, I liked hot noodle soup for illnesses and nachos on the evenings Mom let me stay up late and watch movies with her and Daddy. These were special moments designed to make me feel content and to remind me that I am loved.

Thinking back to the storytellers again, I remember one in particular that reminds me of when I met one of my closest friends. Jay O'Callahan relays a story during WWII in Nova Scotia when the women were left behind to pick up the work that the brothers and fathers had once performed. Naturally, there were some very sad deaths in the story. However, in this society, it was a regular custom for the people in the town to come to the home of the family of the deceased. Everyone brought food for the greivers so they needn't occupy themselves with the task of preparing meals on such a dark day. It's a simple expression of love and humanity to share food, share a meal, with people who could use a hand.

Nowadays, I've tried to organize my friends to make a few meals for our gals who have had kids recently. This is a joyous occasion for a new family and it simply takes a few normal chores off their list as they revel in the new member of the family... what makes this new person smile or sleep, how and when he or she wishes to nurse, or introducing the new person to friends and family. Meanwhile, there can be a few cooked meals in the fridge or soups in the freezer so that all the family needs to do is warm it up and then go about their new lives. It's an act of compassion and love and excitement for the new boy or girl in our world.

As we get older, mealtimes are the great excuses for getting together no matter how busy we get. We all have to eat, so, once in a while, we get together. Everyone contributes or the person with the most time invites some pals over for homemade pizza in summer or a great big bowl of winter soup as the holidays approach. It's how we catch up with the busy student, the uncle visiting on business, the friend who has one night to leave his/her brood with the in-laws to spend a bit of time with you. And if it can't be a meal, sometimes we're willing to stop at the end of the day, when the brain just can't compute any longer, and have coffee and dessert with the family or your close friends you hardly see anymore.

I'm glad it's August... because more of these excuses are just around the corner. My family's family reunion is coming up in September, then the High Holy Days will be upon us, then my birthday, Thanksgiving, Hanukkah, Christmas, New Years'... so many meals to look forward to... because that's when I'll have another chance, a specific time when the gong will ring, to sit down and be with you.