Food as a time machine
Or why eating hobo pies makes me feel like a sixth-grader
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A thought worth mentioning but not long enough for its own newsletter
I took my wife and girls to see Les Miserables on Tuesday. I think it was the sixth time I’ve seen it. Or heard it, at least, as there was a guy 6-foot-5 and as wide as a Suburban sitting in front of me so I didn’t see very much of it.
I didn’t have to see to be absorbed by the rich storytelling and powerful singing. I “watched” for long stretches with my eyes closed, which made it all the more memorable.
On the way home I declared it my favorite piece of art. My wife and girls gasped. It’s true. If I could only watch/see/listen/experience one piece of art, it would be Les Miz. Argue with me.
MMMM … pizza … and camping … and pizza while camping
A version of this essay originally appeared at MissouriLife.com.
One bite, and I traveled back to 6th grade. The sweet tang of the sauce, the quick spice of the pepperoni, the dull hug of the cheese all transported me to the 1980s. But this was no ordinary pizza. This was a hobo pie pizza. And I was not sitting on an ordinary table at an ordinary pizza joint. I was instead on a lawn chair next to a roaring fire at Babler State Park near St. Louis.
A “hobo pie” is made in a cast-iron sandwich maker; you put two pieces of bread into it, stuff that bread with whatever you want, and cook it on hot coals. You can make pizza pies, apple pies, cherry pies, and any other combination of ingredients that sounds good, and based on the hobo pie another dad created last fall – peanut butter, fruit, cream cheese – it doesn’t even have to sound good.
The perfect hobo pie takes an alchemist’s precise mix of art and science. You have to get the proper ratio of filling to bread, plus cook it to golden brown without checking it obsessively or burning your fingers on the clip that binds the two halves together. If you manage all that, your final task is to plop it onto a paper plate without making a sloppy mess, or worse, dropping it on the ground, after which the only proper response is to eat it anyway.
When my girls were young, I bought hobo pie makers and could not wait to make them together. I buttered the bread, spread out the sauce, sprinkled the cheese, arranged the pepperoni and cooked it to perfection. I presented it to them like a precious heirloom. They took one bite and … ran off to do who knows what.
I mean, I got to eat that crispy, gooey, tangy sandwich of delight, so I don’t want to complain too much. But they could have at least tried to humor their old man. Subsequent attempts to indoctrinate them were no more successful. I eventually stopped bringing hobo pie makers on camping trips. Worse, they told me they don’t even remember those failed attempts.
Don’t remember hobo pies?!? That was all I ate for two weeks every year as a boy. I bled tomato sauce on camping trips.
On our recent trip, using hobo pie makers brought by another dad, my girls and their friends could not get enough. One of them was a foreign exchange student from France, and my heart danced with joy when she said “yes, please” when I asked if she wanted another. I was so happy they finally liked hobo pies that I pretended not to notice when their version of these culinary delights consisted of an entire jar of Nutella and bag of marshmallows.
I can only eat a pizza hobo pie at night; it’s a law of the universe, or at least the only time they taste right. That’s why, for lunch, I made myself a ham-and-cheese-and-mayo hobo pie. I never had that combination as a boy. But I knew, after one bite, that I was preparing myself for another time traveling trip. The next time I eat that combination, I’ll be taken right back to that campsite at Babler.