Like most old people, I found myself in a doctor’s office recently and listening to the other old men talk about nothing in particular as they waited for the nurse to call the next patient back to the examination room.
Oddly enough the topic came around to ice cream. Each one had his favorite. One guy said he wouldn’t go to bed at night without his bowl of chocolate ice cream. Then they proceeded to discuss which brand they liked best. I almost joined in when no one mentioned my favorite, Blue Belle. But Blue Belle had been off the market for several months because the company had to scrub down the creamery. Customers had come down with some dreadful stomach ailment. I decided it put me at too much of a disadvantage to extol the virtues of an ice cream that gave people the three-day bellyache.
However, the discussion did remind me I had not had frozen custard in years. On the way home from the doctor’s office I decided to stop at a little shop that advertised my favorite frozen treat from childhood. Back in the fifties, the only time anyone sold custard was in the summer. As I enjoyed the dessert and memories, I focused on the irony of the day’s conversation.
When I wasn’t old yet, I had to endure sitting in my mother-in-law’s house as she and her relatives rhapsodized about the taste celebration that was sliced Vidalia onions. Vidalia onions, like frozen custard in my childhood, were only sold during a certain season and only from the fertile fields of Georgia. When those gastronomic delights appeared in the grocery store, my mother-in-law and her relatives rushed to buy several bags before the Georgian bulbs were swooped up by fellow devotees.
By the time I finished my custard I realized how unfair I had been in sneering at my mother-in-law’s adoration of bitter vegetables. For what is the difference between ice cream and Vidalia onions? Ice cream tastes better, but I digress. Each generation, bless them, knows what it likes, and no one listening in should pass judgment.