I remember exactly how old I was when lunch item crossed my plate. I was six years old, in my first year of kindergarten, probably terrified of what the world had in store for me. It was a time of joy and care free living, no bills, and no issues yet, no time for grown up ideals, just being a kid, what could be better? Let me tell you. At this point in the Longstreth house there were three children, an oldest Tami, a second Jo and the greatest son ever, me. But trouble was on the horizon. You see, as luck would have it, after having 5 ½ years of joyous living due to the fact that your perfect only son was brought into your life, Marie was pregnant. We were going to have another sibling. Why, I would ask, perfection has already crossed your door, I would need no other sibling in my life. I already have two sisters who cannot see how great I will become. This child will not have any chance; he or she will only have to be second best at everything after I leave my mark. But I could not stop this. This is going to happen and I am going to like it, says Hank and Marie. We’ll see about that!
My mom is pregnant. Many of you have siblings, younger or older, or children. So when I tell you that most pregnant women have cravings comes to little or no surprise. More times than not this would most generally be a combination of food that would not normally go together. My hopes at this time is that maybe my mom would crave ice cream, see GICED posted 5/29, or even Ho Ho’s, a future post. Here is the problem in my kitchen; how will I determine if what Marie makes and eats is a craving or is something she has seriously made for family consumption? By even having this blog you can see my dilemma. I haven’t read any research; could it be possible that as embryos our palates are created by the feeding behavior of our mothers during gestation? Or could our tastes be programmed by the eating habits of our expectant mothers feeding rituals applied during pregnancy onto siblings outside the womb? This adolescent period in our lives is a great developmental period. In this case, I think it is the latter, because I get cravings as do most people. Some of my yearnings can be solved with ice cream or something spicy or chocolate, even salty and crunchy. I have one craving that cannot be solved by anything aforementioned. It was a craving my mom had during the incubation of our fourth sibling, LOL, that’s funny! Sorry Margo, but you weren’t born yet and incubation is funny! I digress, back to the unsolved craving. There are many combinations concerning one ingredient, peanut butter: PB & J, PB & banana, PB & marshmallow. All of which were conceived, no pun intended, by expecting mothers. Why else would you ever even try such combinations? I think my mom got this from her mom, believe it or not; Peanut butter and Pickle. Not sweet pickle but dill pickles. Mom and I would have these sandwiches together and later in life she would pack these in my lunch for school. My friends would make fun of me for eating this combination but I would never forget the satisfaction each sandwich would bring. Not even to this day; this amalgamation of ingredients will always bring back my then, six year old memories of fulfilling my pregnant mothers’ cravings.
Here is the recipe: two slices of soft sandwich bread, apply a thick layer of peanut butter to each slice. This is important; because you do not want pickle juice soaked bread on one side. If you can find them, dill pickle chips (hamburger slices), they used to call them, add a row of 3 across the top, middle and bottom of the peanut butter bread, 9 total, no more no less. Top the pickled side of bread with the other, the craving solver can now be enjoyed. Try this for your next craving and see if it works. Maybe it will or maybe it won’t, but don’t knock it until you try it.
