Heavenly tastes: When food has a higher calling
Most of the time it’s best if we abide by the idiom our mothers’ taught us when she’d say, “Don’t let your eyes be bigger than your stomach.” But then, along the way, we’d be missing out on a lot of good-tasting foods, whether they’re healthy or not.
I’ve always been one to tinker with a recipe to see if I can better it or not, with results like: hmm-maybe, but most times, nah!
As a teenager dabbling in the kitchen, I’d doctor up one of daddy’s baked sweet potatoes with chocolate syrup drizzled over it to give my after-school snack a little pizazz.
Other times, when fixing some pancakes, I added a few drops of food coloring and ended up with ghastly green pancakes that my younger brother, Tom Simmons, refused to eat. Even on up into our adult years, if bringing a dish to a family gathering, he’d say with a chortle, “Watch out now, Jean probably brought some of her green pancakes.” He never let me live it down, but then this quote by Thomas Keller always makes me feel better: “A recipe has no soul. YOU as the cook must bring soul to the recipe.”
So, on through my years, different foods and ideas have always piqued my interest, especially new products on display when grocery shopping. Somehow or other they always end up in my shopping cart to be “tasted and tested.”
Some recent “newbies” that went through the trials are mentioned here with their “finds or faults” and you can be the judge as to whether they’d appeal to your taste buds, healthy or otherwise.
On one shopping trip, just inside the grocers’ door was a bin jam-full of colorful packaged pickles, like a “Pickle-in-a-Pouch.” Wow, these were right down my alley, always the lover of sour or dill pickles. These were sure to make the lips pucker, so I couldn’t resist and placed four different varieties of Van Holten’s pickles in my cart. Actually, I bought two of each kind advertised at $1 each, one for myself and one for my grandson, Forrest, to try out. They ALL passed the test!
Some good points on Van Holten’s pickles are: they’re made in Waterloo, Wisconsin, USA; they support Boys and Girls Club of America; and they weigh in at zero calories. The only bad side is they might be taboo for you if you’re watching your sodium because 1/9 serving of the large, briny pickle carries 360 mg. of sodium, equaling 3,240 mg. if you eat the whole pickle, not counting the brine if you drink it!
Another shopping trip introduced me to JJ’s Bakery fruit pies. In another $1-each display were these single boxed varieties of “mouth-watering”, “not-on-my-diet,” “hold-in-one-hand” scrumptious pies in flavors of apple, apple-caramel, cherry, peach, pumpkin, blackberry, lemon, Boston cream and chocolate. And of course I must try all the flavors available, to be fair.
These little pies are USA-produced in Erie, Pennsylvania, averaging 400 calories per serving, 45% saturated fat, 60 grams of carbohydrates and close to 500 mg. of sodium. A very tasty treat, but maybe not for weight-conscious folks.
Of course, when watching TV or reading a book it’s a “must” to have something handy to munch on, so just to stay on the frugal side of my diet, it’s always good to have a bag of Simple Truth Crispy Rice Bites on hand. Checking in at 130 calories per serving, these puffed and crisp tiny rice squares with healthy dried fruit and nuts are perfectly bite-sized, deliciously sweet and fruity, and the perfect snack with only 18g carbs, 30mg sodium, 0 cholesterol and 3g of protein! Another USA product made in Cincinnati, Ohio.
Another favorite that can’t be passed up is fresh fruit that’s at its peak of ripeness. It’s extra good when a friend presents you with “free” fruit (free or $1 each always works for me) and when she comments that she also bought one for herself and with the first bite thought she had, “died and gone to heaven,” hence the title for this article, “Heavenly Tastes.”
This special, free fruit was a Sugar Kiss Melon, another USA product grown by Savor Fresh Farms in Yuma, Arizona. These melons are harvested between June and October with 45 calories per serving, 0mg fat, 10 mg sodium, 11g carbs and 1g protein, proving to fit on anyone’s diet.
Sugar Kiss is the sweetest member of the “Kiss” family of melons that packs a flavor punch. The soft meat melts in your mouth, dissolving like sugar on the tongue. It’s an incredible eating experience that will leave you reaching for more. Savor Fresh Farms are supporters of the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation.
Maybe we should consider these oddities in foods that catch our eye and tickle our taste buds as food for our soul. Although they may not be the preferable, nourishing food our body needs, they might be just what the “doctor” ordered for a little inner peace and tranquility.
A quote by Dorothy Day reads: “Food for the body is not enough. There MUST be food for the soul.”