If I know you and you drop by at mealtime, you’ll get an invitation to sit and eat with us. I really do mean it, but you might want to give it some thought before you jump in.
Or ask my nephew because he got to see my work first hand.
I had the best of intentions. And you know how those can go.
My nephew was a tall, strapping young man with a healthy appetite. I had prepared the meal for our family plus my nephew but decided we might be a tad bit short of food. I’d hate for him to pass out from lack of food before the next meal.
So I scoured the pantry for a can of something to add to the meal at the last minute.
I spied the can of grass jelly.
I had acquired this can from an oriental specialty market in Denver as part of a class project the year before. We had been assigned to purchase new cultural items and peruse unique foods.
We got to see live squid squirming in a glass aquarium at the back of the store. A large aquarium held goldfish (well, they looked like goldfish) that could be netted and bagged for the next meal.
We saw cans of exotic peppers and bags of noodles with unpronounceable names.
And cans of grass jelly.
My can ended up in the pantry. I mean, could you throw away a can of grass jelly when you never knew when you’d need it? Or what it was, for that matter.
Yeah, well, I hung onto it anyway.
Not knowing what I’d find inside, I pried off the lid. If it squirmed, I was dumping it. But inside was dark gelatinous material which reminded me of cranberry sauce in the can.
So I tipped the can and let the cylinder of jelly slide onto the plate. I sliced it like cranberry sauce and served it with the rest of the meal. This was not how to serve grass jelly but what did I know?
The plate with slices of grass jelly went around the table a couple of times, like I was trying to serve grass clippings rather than grass jelly.
“Be daring! Try it,” I said. This was before I tried it, but I always encourage bold action. Especially if I was safe.
My nephew twisted his mouth to one side.
“What is grass jelly?” he said.
“I don’t know. But it is food,” I assured him. Some kind of jelly seemed safe.
He nibbled the chunk on his fork. “Food?” He stopped eating. Teenage boys can label a styrofoam cup as food, so his question seemed odd. “This tastes like it was made out of motor oil.”
Everyone dumped their helping of grass jelly back on the serving plate. And that was the end of the grass jelly experiment.
Except my nephew won’t come to a meal at my house without checking my pantry.
