Kathleen McCall:
Occasional�� Muse�

2001-08-18 - 8:07 p.m.

Frozen Foods

I just read this brilliant piece a friend wrote that featured pot pies. I'm not brilliant, but I know something about pot pies.

I was raised in the early sixties, in the New Age of Food in Aluminum. The revolution which was supposed to set our housewives free, and did, I suppose. We had the new TV dinners. My father was a pilot and gone a good deal of the time, and when he was gone, we ate nothing but TV dinners. We loved 'em. Sucked 'em right down. I ate the same TV dinner 200 nights a year: Beans 'n Franks. Mother would do the grocery shopping - "What kind of TV dinners do you want? Really? Beans 'n Franks AGAIN? " Yup. They were yummy. You got chocolate cake in one corner and those weird gummy apple slices in the other, and I loved those too. My sister was more adventurous, but I was very happy with my Beans 'n Franks.

For a while, they offered a "Four-Course" dinner. It was fried chicken, and it came with Vegetable Alumisoup. Anyone remember that one? The soup always ran over into the whipped instant potatoes. We loved that one. But I always went back to my first Beans 'n Franks love. My sister and I absorbed so much aluminum that when we die, we're going to be recycled.

We weren't underprivileged. We were lucky. We didn't miss Dad at dinner, because when he came home, we had to eat pot roast or lamb chops or my nemesis, Swiss Steak. When he wasn't there, we got those wonderful aluminum trays.

Sometimes, though, Mother didn't buy the TV dinners. Sometimes she bought pot pies. There is nothing, and I do mean nothing, more disgusting than the crust on one of those things. Woh. The taste comes back so clearly - kind of bitter and burny. The crust was so bad, it almost made the gelatinous yellow goop inside seem palatable. Big wrinkly peas. Fork-marked crust. Yellow goop. They were turkey, or they were chicken, and who cared - they were all nasty. And they didn't come with chocolate cake OR gummy apples. I hated pot pie days.

My kids want those TV Dinners, only now, of course, they're called something else, and they come with stickers and sprinkles and stuff. I break down and buy them about twice a year. They don't come in aluminum since the advent of the microwave, but they're mostly the same. The kids eat half of what's on the tray, and they're still starving. They eat the chocolate cake, but they won't touch those gummy apples. I have to eat those. And they don't taste nearly as good as they did in aluminum.

I recently bought pot pies. I never thought I would, but I did. And the funny thing is - I bought them for my mother. My mother was a good cook (it wasn't her fault that Swiss Steak has always gagged me.) She doesn't want to cook any more. She doesn't want me to cook for her. She won't take Meals on Wheels. She just wants frozen entrees, two for every day, and her vodka. She doesn't care what they are. Pot pies are just fine with her. Once a week, I muck out the half-eaten pot pies and the other used containers from the disgusting water in her sink, haul the stinky bag out to the trash, and replenish the freezer and the liquor cabinet. I buy fresh fruits and vegetables and dairy, but I haul those out to the trash untouched. At least the pot pies I know she'll eat.

I always tell myself that she chooses her lifestyle, and that I don't have to feel bad about it. Mostly I don't. But the pot pies make me sad, because they are so disgusting. They're so...so...LOW. "Gimme one of those pot pies, Shirl, and we got any more cold Coors?" I am feeding my mother pot pies; that reeks. It's only what she wants, but damn, it feels like revenge somehow.

When I get old, which I hope to do, and if my children have to take care of me, which is NOT in the plan, I wonder what they'll feed me and then feel bad about? Will they still make Beans 'n Franks TV dinners? Will I grow old, and wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled, and eat my TV Dinners cold? Should I tell them about the pot pie clause now? That if I ask for them, they must put me out of my misery immediately? We won't need the advice of two physicians, unless said physicians are old enough to remember the Age of Aluminum Food. "Swanson's Turkey? Yes, I'm sorry, your mother is truly beyond saving."

If I ever quit cooking, I want to go out on take-out Chinese. Surrounded by empty paper cartons, chopsticks in hand. Not a pot pie in sight.

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