The following text is taken from an investigative memoir about modern eating habits. In this extract, the writer recalls his early memories of his grandmother's attitude towards food and cooking. When I was young, I would often spend the weekend at my grandmother's house. On the way in, Friday night, she would lift me from the ground in one of her fire- smothering hugs. And on the way out, Sunday afternoon, I was again taken into the air. It wasn't until years later that I realized she was weighing me. 5 My grandmother survived the War barefoot, scavenging other people's inedibles: rotting potatoes, discarded scraps of meat, skins, and the bits that clung to bones and pits. And so she never cared if I colored outside the lines, as long as I cut coupons¹ along the dashes. And hotel buffets: while the rest of us erected towering idols of breakfast, she would make sandwich upon sandwich to swaddle in napkins and stash in her bag for lunch. It was my grandmother who taught me that 10 one tea bag makes as many cups of tea as you’re serving, and that every part of the apple is edible. Money wasn’t the point. (Many of those coupons I clipped were for foods she would never buy.) Health wasn’t the point. (She would beg me to drink Coke.) My grandmother never set a place for herself for family dinners. Even when 15 there was nothing more to be done no soup bowls to be topped off, no pots to be stirred or ovens checked – she stayed in the kitchen, like a vigilant guard (or prisoner) in a tower. As far as I could tell, the sustenance she got from the food she made didn't require her to eat it. 20 In the forests of Europe, she ate to stay alive until the next opportunity to eat to stay alive. In America, fifty years later, we ate what pleased us. Our cupboards were filled with food bought on whims, overpriced foodie food, food we didn’t need. And when the expiration date passed, we threw it away without smelling it. Eating was carefree. My grandmother made that life possible for us. But she was, herself, 25 unable to shake the desperation. Growing up, my brothers and I thought our grandmother was the greatest chef who ever lived. We would literally recite those words when the food came to the table, and again after the first bite, and once more at the end of the meal; “You are the greatest chef who ever lived.” And yet we were worldly enough kids to 30 know that the Greatest Chef Who Ever Lived would probably have more than one recipe (chicken with carrots), and that most Great Recipes involved more than two ingredients. She taught us that animals that are bigger than you are very good for you, animals that are smaller than you are good for you, fish (which aren’t animals) are fine for 35 you, then tuna (which aren’t fish), then vegetables, fruits, cakes, cookies, and sodas. No foods are bad for you. Fats are healthy – all fats, always, in any quantity. Sugars are very healthy. The fatter a child is, the healthier it is – especially if it’s a boy. Lunch is not one meal, but three, to be eaten at 11:00, 12:30, and 3:00. You are always starving. In fact, her chicken and carrots probably was the most delicious thing I’ve ever 40 eaten. But that had little to do with how it was prepared, or even how it tasted. Her food was delicious because we believed it was delicious. We believed in our grandmother’s cooking more fervently than we believed in God. Her culinary prowess was one of our family’s primal stories, like the cunning of the grandfather I 45 never met, or the single fight of my parents’ marriage. We clung to those stories and depended on them to define us. We were the family that chose its battles wisely, and used wit to get out of binds, and loved the food of our matriarch. ¹ coupons: discount vouchers