. . . . There are still no Oscar Mayer
“Selects” beef hotdogs. And no
braunschweiger, “Not even for ready
money,” as my mom liked to say,
quoting Oscar Wilde. “It’s not even
available to order,” I learn from the lifer
in the meat department. That’s
the standard response these days.
There’s plenty of Goya products,
due to the boycott, but the canned soup
has been decimated. “At least we know
there’s plenty of soup, just no cans,”
says Steve, as heard recently on
the radio news. It’s unappetizing,
I think, to eat canned soup in
the heat of summer, the slightly gummy
gelatinous warmth of too-soft vegetables
in salty broth. A few tiny cubes
of chewy chicken.
What did mass-produced canned
food taste like to the women of 1900?
That’s the year my mother’s mother,
Leola Isabel Warnock Freeman,
was born. I am ashamed to admit
that until I Googled and found a photo
of her tombstone on “Find A Grave”
dot com, I had no idea of
the day or month of her birth.
March 21. It says it right there on
the flat slate grave marker,
beneath her name and death date,
August 21, 1989, seven months
before her youngest child,
my mother, would die at home
of breast cancer. To the right
of my grandmother’s name
hangs a decorative rosary in relief.
As I zoom-in to get a closer look
an ad pops up. A Kim Kardashian
look-alike times three, wearing a mask
with a clear window to allow
her glossy nude lip to be admired
in full pout mode. $5.99.