http://www.katescottage.net/images/artichoke.jpgI'm kind of a snob. My mother was American and sort of eclectic. My father's mother has certain contradictions - she's very cultured, yet also a product of her time, an educated Dublin Protestant, a school teacher's daughter. I think my father was essentially upwardly mobile. He lost his Dublin accent on going to Trinity and bought a big white house in the country.
My values are mixed, they're academic but pretty new-aged, I suppose. I can be intolerant, though that's more to do with my character than the values of my upbringing though my father is more intolerant than me... my husband is of a very different class than I am, my values can be utterly bemusing to his mother and I suspect to him quite often. Some of the things that I notice amuse me - I played 'Simon Says', his mother played 'O'Grady Says', for me Michael Finnegan's Whiskers grew out and grew in again (wordplay) but for my MIL, the wind came along and blew them in again (funny but not clever). I caught a tiger by the tail, not a nigger (god forbid!). there's a big list of differences like that.
But there are so many things that are part of my make-up that I'm so grateful for my parents for introducing me to (though it's painful that I can't always continue them). I love fresh homegrown vegetables, picking peas and raspberries out of the garden. Artichokes dipped and wine sauce, the delicious prize of the heart. Avodacoes filled with oil and vinegar. My mother's American cooking, fried chicken, spare ribs in sweet and sour sauce, her baking from when I was small. Her homemade ice-cream.Dinner parties. No-one I know has dinner parties. Or at least, hey don't ask me!
My father grew interested in wine and I've tasted some fantastic ones. Kir on a sunny day. Really good, old wine at Christmas time.
Big, festive meals, despite the panic it took to prepare them - ham glazed with pineapple and maraschino cherries, and scalloped potatoes on Christmas Eve. I like the ay my Christmas tree looks, my Italian designer friend said 'Ohm you have a 1950's Christmas tree!' I think it must be like something out of a coca cola ad, but oh well!
Reading. My father read me wonderful stories every night. Tolkein, CS Lewis, Kipling. And my sister had great books too - a thousand Enid Blytons, Harriet the Spy.
All my family loved music too, from opera to classical music to Springsteen and Jimmy Buffet!
I'm glad I can discuss things theoretically, that I want to. That my brain can make those jumps. I'm glad I love words, tha my daughter asks what things mean so intelligently, it reminds me of me. Such a good way to find out about the world.
I like to go to bed with a hot water bottle, not an electric blanket. I'm glad I grew up in cold houses, with real fires. Something you could toast a marshmallow on. I'm glad I got a chance to spend time with horses, and sheep. To make a dam in a stream.
I'm glad I didn't have to be the first in my family to breastfeed, or wear my babies in a sling, or puree fresh food. I love to go to the zoo still.
There are so many other things I can't think of now, but that I notice all the time we all have them, the things you think 'why would anyone do it any other way?' - though at the the same time I add other people's ways to my own all the time, or I'm entertained, amused, or interested by other people's traditions and fixed ideas. Or embarrassed - I'll never forget my friend's mother snapping 'Joanna! Use your napkin!' at me at dinner. Yep, I'm a scruff bag and I still don't use my cutlery properly. If I have my way, I prefer to do without a knife. My brother in law eats like Emily Post,I'll have to get him to teach my children knife and fork control!
So what's your One Best Way?
5 comments:
As an american living in Ireland I understand a lot of what Jo says, esp. about food - American desserts are just better! No kids yet, but when it happens it will be interesting to see the culture clashes as I adjust to a kid growing up with Irish games, stories and traditions. Sometimes it's hard when what seems logical and traditional to me is illogical and odd to others!
Wow I'm quite shocked that you are such a snob!! I never would have thought it! I grew up with O'Grady says, and the original Finnegans whiskers was written to be the wind came up and blew them in again. I don't see one version to be more intelligent than the other and I'm surprised you do.
Everyone I know has dinner parties, we entertain each other, and its great fun. In fact one of my best friends, a real dub, from the inner city, is one of the most gracious hosts I know and her dinner parties are like Gosford Park in their extravagance.
I feel from reading this that like most snobs, you haven't taken the time to look past the end of your own nose!!
I think you're missing the point a little here.
All I said about dinner parties is that most of the people I know don't have them or at least don't invite me to them. I didn't say anything about who those people were. In fact, the last person who's invited me to gorgeous dinner parties at her house is from Drimnagh, if you want to go naming parts of Dublin.
All I'm talking about is what I grew up with, and what I value from it. And the differences I notice in what others grew up with.
I'm not saying the fucking Finnegan rhyme is more intelligent, just one includes wordplay and the other doesn't. O'Grady Says is obviously just the Irish version, and all it says is that the one I grew up with isn't Irish. I didn't know about the other til I heard my MIL saying it to my kids, and I find it interesting.
This is a post about my likes, and things I'm glad are there, and also a certain recognition of the cultural world I was educated into by my family.
There are plenty of things I missed out on from that as well, same as anyone else. I'm sorry I never got to have a rasher sandwhich. But this is meant to be about what I'm grateful for.
Right. Well that put me in my place didn't it. Expletives and everything.
Good for you.
No, no, good for you with your clever quip about me not seeing past my own elevated nose. I bow to your superior place-putting.
And my response wasn't meant to place you anywhere, just to try and explain that the motivation behind this post was.
You're not wrong, I am a bit snobby. I believe I opened with that. I tend to insist there's a One Best Way to do the things that matter to me, but I'm not so obtuse not to realise that most people feel like that about their one best ways too.
Post a Comment