It's All Meat To Me

When I was in elementary school, I used to read those novels for young readers. In them, the main character would often be in third grade, not far from my own age at the time, and the plotline would follow his or her elementary school woes. He or she would usually face problems with baby teeth or bad math teachers or the awful things siblings did. These problems would often be exacerbated by the day’s dinner. The mother would uncover a casserole dish of meatloaf and the character would wrinkle his/her nose and respond with a hearty “yleck!” I had never eaten meatloaf. I assumed it was one of those gross things like Sloppy Joe's (one glance at one epitomizes elementary school cafeterias) and was nasty. My parents didn't make meatloaf. We had beef with noodles, pork with vegetables, chicken with soup – off the top of my head, nothing with vague names like “meatloaf.” This had roasted duck in it, this had ox tails. The word appeared in several stories, each time met with the same revulsion. Such repeated reactions gave me visions of lumps of something gray and suspicious looking. It even reached a point where I thought that meatloaf had nothing to do with meat and that the characters' disgust with the food was because it was called by a name it wasn’t. I had no idea what it really was. It turns out that meatloaf is just as it sounds: a loaf of meat. Thinking back, I don’t understand how these children I read about could have been disgusted by such a thing. It is delicious, savory protein with a succulent mix of seasonings just waiting to be digested. And sixteen years after my family moved to America, I finally know what meatloaf is. Jessica was properly introduced to the notorious meatloaf sometime in the past year or so. She enjoys meat and other protein-rich foods, such as peanut butter and tofu, but doesn’t like seeing whole roasted ducks hanging by their necks in shops.