Janelle's Food Autobiography Part 1: Food Talks to Me

Before we delve into my food autobiography, which will be given in segments, just wanted to mention that I am shamelessly using material I had already written in my Food and Literature senior seminar last semester. Nothing wrong with recycled materials.:)


Food was always a big deal to me. As young as three years old, I would hoist myself up on top of the dinner table, with tomato sauce smeared all over my face, and eat the scraps left over on other family members’ dinner plates, because I was not fed to my satisfaction. To this day my brothers still tease me about my food quirks as a child.

I was never a skinny child. From the moment I moved up from baby food, I delighted in the riches the kitchen brought. My dad would frequently bring home fresh loaves of Italian bread from a bakery. The sweet, buttery bread would immediately fall prey into my little hands before dinner was served. I ate lots of bread, lots of pasta, lots of salad and drank Pepsi religiously. That was my normal diet- and it filled me to my hearts content.

Whenever I was denied what I wanted to eat, there was havoc. This most frequently happened when my family would go out to eat or dine at someone else’s house. I quickly outgrew the kids’ menu, scrunching my nose at chicken fingers and grilled cheese sandwiches. I wanted shrimp scampi or linguine Alfredo. When I was made to order off the kids’ menu I would ask if I could order two meals. When my tastes were appeased, a giant crying monster would be released. My brothers would try to subdue my embarrassing behavior with the ‘mute button,’ but this would make these situations all the worse.

I am still frightfully embarrassed when I think about those times I ate at my friends' houses. Poor Mrs.Sturm. Little did she know that the eight year old girl she was serving was a gourmet. One time I was over, she served a very lovely, but different meal complete with angel hair spaghetti. I was quite accustomed to eating normal spaghetti at least three times a week. The angel hair offended me and I did hold back my preference for normal spaghetti. For dessert, she offered apple pie. I never liked apple pie, but took some because I thought I was supposed to, and I felt bad about my angel hair comments. I did not eat much of it. Mrs. Sturm leaned down and asked me “How come you’re not eating your apple pie?” I took a moment to think about what I’d say, and it did not sound as bad in my head- “I’m sorry Mrs. Sturm. I thought your apple pie would be better than the other apple pies I’ve had before.” It took my friend Samantha years to let me live that night down. It wasn’t until I was 12 that I was invited back over for dinner (and I only lived a few houses down). Things were going well, until I choked on a piece of chicken.

Ask my family and they would tell you that I talk to my food. This is not so, but being an expressively metaphorical girl in a very a literal family, they would not have known either way. The infamous event occurred in 1994 on the 4th of July. We were gathered around the typical all-American BBQ feast, all seven people in my family, seated at their usual spots around the table. We always caught Justin checking out his reflection in the sliding glass door he faced. Always needing someone in the family to make fun of at the table, we picked on the vanity of the oldest of my three brothers. We had just about finished the meal, and I was full. Whenever my dad makes corn on the cob, he forgets about it until the end of the meal. He brought it out, and offered some to me, and I declined. Everyone looked at me in surprise. Janelle never declines food she likes. I left the table and everyone continued eating. Part of my fixation of eating as a kid, was not on the food itself, but that it gave me something to do, and it brought my family together despite our disorderliness. So, as soon as I left the table, I found rather bored. I walked around the house in circles, before I finally came back and asked for some corn. When asked why I came back, I replied in my lisp: “The Food! It swas sayin’ ‘Eat me! Eat me!’"