Grape Jelly Tastes Like Poverty - Memory Based Foods I Can't Overcome

Here's the scenario: 6 kids, 9 years apart, youngest baby with a heart defect, single mom.  Were we poor?  Oh, you bet your bottom dollar we were.  But let me set one thing straight right away: we were happy.  My mom worked her tail off and did the best she could under her circumstances.  She was an awesome mom.

Growing up poor never leaves you, no matter how old, wise, wealthy, or fancy you get.  Not that I'm any of those things just yet.  But I still feel the residuals of being the kid who went to thrift stores or got hand-me-downs from neighbors for new school clothes.  I still hate the thought of that blue duct-taped bike with the banana seat that mom said was my "new" bike. It's hard for me to spend money on things even now - things that seem like "fluff", that I won't die without.  The biggest thing that stays with me is the food.

Uncle Dean had a big farm and would bring over 250 lbs. of potatoes in the fall.  Mom put them in the cellar, whose door was an 18" square by the stairs.  When Mom needed potatoes, whoever was closest to her had the horrid task of reaching their arm as far as they could into that little opening and grab a few tubers from the chilly darkness within.  Although we never saw nor heard any evidence of one, we were sure a giant rat would bite our fingers in that black hole.  Or maybe a black widow. 

All winter long, we ate baked potatoes, potatoe soup, french fries, 'taters and eggs, mashed potatoes...  I could go on like Bubba Gump.  Suffice it to say, we ate a lot of potatoes.  For a little while, my older brother worked at the local meat packing plant and would bring home the ends  of the ham or bacon that were too small for slicing.  We ate like kings on those nights!  Potatoe soup with HAM!  When I'm feeling really homesick, I make myself up a batch of potatoe soup with ham and peas.

Some childhood foods, however, are not comforting. Like grape jelly.  Mom was on W.I.C. - a government program that gives an alloted amount of food to poor women with young children.  There was not a lot of variation in the WIC program: 2 jars of grape jelly, 2 cans of frozen grape or apple juice, 2 cans of tuna, 2 boxes of approved cereal, and 2 gallons of milk per month. 

The cereal of choice was always the generic brand of Corn Chex (yuck).  The juice often got combined to make "grapple" juice (ick), and the sandwiches were always grape jelly.  How I longed for strawberry or (dare I even dream it?) raspberry!  One time I had some Pineapple Apricot jam at a friend's house, and how I longed for it after that.  "When I grow up," I thought, "I'm going to have every kind of jam in the world!"

Now I am grown up, and I do keep a variety of jams on hand.  From the ordinary strawberry and raspberry, to some more exotic flavors like lemon fennel and pomegranate rose.  Oh, and pineapple apricot is a regular as well. 

And yet my husband asked me, just yesterday, if I would get some grape jelly at the store.  He's noticed that I never buy it, but he doesn't know why.  So I put it on the list, and there it sits in my fridge.  I made PB&J's with it for my boys today and asked if they liked it.  "Yesh!" their full little mouths replied.  So, what could it hurt?  I made myself a peanut butter and grape jelly sandwich.  Maybe, after all these years, it wouldn't be so bad after all.  Maybe I would even like it.

Nope.  Grape jelly tastes like poverty.