NEUROTIC SALAMI

Please believe me when I tell you that kosher salami contributes to child abuse.

In the American-Jewish world of the 1950’s, sending ones child to nursery was a sign of dishonor. It inferred that daddy did not earn enough to allow mother to stay home and raise the toddlers, for she, too, was obliged to bring home a paycheck. The Wilson’s were not wealthy, but my parents scrimped to have my early years at home.

At nursery, youngsters were fed bland lunches and treats like jelly sandwiches, cookies and milk. At home, Jewish children were fed a nourishing fodder-trough of leftovers: brisket, meatloaf, casserole, sausage and beans . . . unintended early training for obesity, diabetes and heart disease.

My personal favorite at age four was salami with mustard on chewy rye. You must know that back then, no self-respecting American-Jewish household ate soft, neonatal salami. Rather, it was hung in the kitchen until it was wrinkled and chewy enough to loosen three molars.

Salami or not, from time to time, my mother would ignore me as lunch hour approached, talking on the phone to a childhood friend. I would whine for my lunch, which brought an ominous glare.

Once – and only once – after whining repeatedly, I reached up for the alluring salami and bit a huge chunk out of it. At this, my mother whacked me across the kitchen, bouncing me off the wall and forcing the purloined salami from my mouth. All the while, she kept up her conversation, never changing her tone of voice.

At the end of her conversation, she reminded me that she rarely hit me, but that this occasion – “playing with food,” she called it – deserved special treatment and clobbered me twice again.

51 years later, as we sat at my mother’s deathbed, we reminisced about incidents from childhood and laughed. She had remarkably clear memory for a woman who would die just days later. But guess what? She had nary a recollection of the punishment she meted out for her only child’s craving for a chunk of salami. Three whacks may have turned me neurotic, but at least my manners have gotten significantly better.