The holiday awkwardness at the table began on Easter Sunday when I was 8 years old. It was the first major holiday after my decision, in the wake of reading “Charlotte’s Web,” to shun pork products.
My grandmother, who took pride in making a handsome Easter ham, was personally insulted.
“You can make an exception for Easter,” she said in her dangerous voice.
The room was silent. The question hung heavily over the spread of ham, twice-baked potatoes, two kinds of salad, dinner rolls and green beans almondine. Everyone at the table looked at me.
“But, Nannoo, it could be Wilbur,” I finally said. Wilbur is the pig whose life hangs in the balance throughout “Charlotte’s Web.”
“But what are you going to EAT?” Nannoo demanded. As if, after Easter brunch, we were about to leave Camp 4 to head into the Death Zone on Mount Everest.
Forget about religion and politics. That, right there, is The Question — the one that divides mixed families, relatives who eat meat and relatives who don’t, at the holiday table. What Are You Going To Eat?
If The Question had a subtitle, it would be: Can’t you chew a little bacon for the sake of family harmony?
Do observant Jews and Muslims have to fend with this sort of thing from their pork-eating friends and relations? Why does religion trump personal philosophy?
For years, The Question appeared annually on holidays. It occasionally dropped in during dinners with relatives or friends.
Until I reached majority, the solution was to tolerate a slab of ham or ribbon of bacon on my plate. It sat there, blameless and conspicuous, until I managed to slip it to the dog or spirit it to the kitchen by volunteering to clear the plates.
Then I married a guy who considers meat to be at least two of the four important food groups. I relaxed my standards to include chicken, but held firm on the pork ban. If he wants a steak, he can find the grill.
Things got even more complicated after our daughters were born.
As they became adolescents, they began leaning vegetarian — except for the younger one’s taste for meaty Ethiopian food. And for a while, they both found bacon irresistible. Then the older one went through a vegan phase that gave me some insight into my late grandmother’s distress about her Easter ham.
“Are you sure there’s no meat in this?” she would say, suspiciously prodding a perfectly innocent pot of mushroom soup, or poking a veggie stir-fry — with brown rice, for Pete’s sake! — as if it might explode.
It wasn’t just a cook’s pride. It was that plus a combination of that maternal instinct to feed everyone well enough to tackle Everest’s summit, and the reluctance to make an entire extra main dish for one troublesome diner.
I still don’t eat pork, and The Question still drops by a holiday meal now and then. Now my operating strategy is: “Looks great! Maybe after I have an extra-large helping of that fantastic polenta/salad/stuffing!”
It helps to deftly change the subject to something irresistible: the antics of grandchildren, misbehaving celebrities, the self-involved fascination with Twitter and other social networking.
Also, after becoming a parent, I’ve learned that my late grandmother was right. Sometimes it is necessary to eat a little bacon.
When a Navajo family allowed me to join them for dinner in their home on the reservation, I ate the mutton they served me. When we lived with a family in Ecuador, I ate the meat, although I did not ask about its origins, because I preferred to remain ignorant in case it was cuy — known in the U.S. as guinea pig.
There are situations in which even Wilbur becomes irrelevant for a few hours.
Sorry, Charlotte.
Claire Martin: 303-954-1477 or cmartin@denverpost.com
