It is Hospital Food Week at TheSnackHound.Com. This week we will celebrate the sodium, and generally dish about various virtues and horror stories about institutional cuisine. The past few days, I have really been thinking about sushi. I watched “No Reservations” last night, and Anthony Bourdain was being treated to the creations of Chef Masaharu Morimoto. Coincidenatally, I talked about the very chef recently, albeit from a more fashion oriented perspective.
What caused the shift in gears? Well, my husband is in the hospital. I am just here for a split second to grab some fresh clothes and head back. We are hoping that he comes home tomorrow, but as they were wheeling in a tray, my whole life of hospital food flashbacked to me.
My earliest memory of hospital food was food I didn’t actually eat. When I was a toddler, I had a second of two seperate eye surgeries. The deal was that I could go home if I had an appetite. Much to my parent’s display, I wasn’t offered crackers, a peanut butter sandwich, or other common fare for the two year old set. I had to eat what was served, and that was Texas Goulash.
What exactly is Texas Goulash?
To sum it all up, it is a popular camping food. You take about 2 lbs of ground beed and skillet it up. Then you mix in a can of tomatoes, corn, a chopped onion, and beef broth. Processed cheese food like Velveeta is often melted over the top. Some variations also include hot dog pieces or macaroni along with everything above, though I guess Detroit. really wasn’t close enough to the Rio Grande for that. I do think that since this meal is a “everything but the kitchen sink” style of concoction, suited for the crock pot or a pan on the fire, that you can be a little loose with it.
I have news for the hospital dietician: How many two year olds like the smell of a strong onion, and like ground beef slathered in tomatoes? From what I remember, two year olds are pretty darn picky. They might accept food covered in tomato sauce (so they can dip something in it), but put too many ingredients in there, and you have something that a two year old would reject. It just confuses them. Something in their brain can compute mac and tomato sauce. They can compute corn. But put it all together and they yell, “NO!”
Maybe the exception was when Bobby Flay was 2 years old. He probably liked corn sprinkled into his strained peas or baby carrots or in his apple juice because he seems to think every dish needs corn in it either as a garnish or a main ingredient.
As you probably could have guessed, I didn’t get to go home that night. My eye was fine, but my sense of culinary adventurous rejected this beef “leftovers” and the hospital decided to stifle my discerning tastes.
Were you ever surprised by hospital food? I should say PLEASANTLY surprised…as we have all been surprised in the other way.
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