Not Everyone Has a Share of Holiday Plenty

Luxury food magazines spill out of my mailbox at this time of year. Pricey gourmet food baskets overflow in store displays. Caterers fuss over elaborate food preparations for trendy holiday parties.

But for many--even in Orange County--it is a cruelly ironic picture: “Food, food everywhere, and not enough to eat.”

California is the Golden State, but not everyone shares the gold. Or the food.

My hungry family moved to California from the Dust Bowl in the Midwest in the late 1930s. They picked fruit in the orchards and worked the fields as stoop labor. Even though large quantities of food literally passed through their hands, sometimes they did not have enough to eat.

Even when they did, their diet lacked adequate nutritional value. Biscuits and gravy were staples; fried potatoes and sliced tomatoes were a treat. After World War II, things didn’t improve.

In summers, a crate of “roastin’ ears” (corn) helped stretch meals and gave us needed protein. Milk was thankfully only 5 cents a carton my whole way through school.

I didn’t think our food situation was unusual. Like most children, I thought everyone ate as we did. And besides, the grown-ups told stories of how little food they had during the Depression, when times were much worse.

My favorite story was when my mother and her sisters walked through the snow to a military base, where kind soldiers disobeyed orders and poured the table scraps into metal dinner pails.

My grandmother often cried and said that but for the kindness of those soldiers her family would have starved that winter.

Despite financial hardships, my family always managed to have traditional foods on the table at Christmas. The preparation for these special meals, however, required a day’s head start.

How fondly I remember the women gathered in someone’s kitchen to break up the corn bread for the dressing, peel the potatoes and soak the cranberries. Next the pie dough was rolled out for yummy pumpkin, pecan and sweet potato pies made from family recipes.

That left the stove free on Christmas Day for the turkey and vegetables, producing the mouth-watering aromas that filled the house. The silky, smooth giblet gravy was always the last item to grace the table.

At Christmas dinner, we all waited for my father to “give the signal” (pray a blessing) before we ate. The special holiday foods were a real treat for us, and we were thankful.

‘Make Out Your Meal’

However, during the rest of the year, my father would ask a blessing and then wave his hand over the table in a gracious gesture and invite all present to “make out your meal.” It was an invitation to eat whatever was on the table, and be thankful for it.

If you didn’t get enough to eat, you could usually have bread and homemade jam till you were full. For years that’s how I “made out my meal.”

When I became the first in my family to go to college, I had to ask about many of the foods that were served in the cafeteria because I had never seen them. If you think this happens only in Appalachia, think again.

To this day, when I pass the bell ringer at a Salvation Army kettle or receive a request from a rescue mission, I give. I keep granola bars and fast-food gift certificates in my purse for those who ask.

I don’t want to give cash, but I don’t want to deny anyone a meal either. Feeding the hungry should not be a holiday pastime, but serious business year-round.

I promised myself that when I grew up, I would work for social justice and institutional change. As the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. said: “I have the audacity to believe that people everywhere can have three meals a day for their bodies, education and culture for their minds, and dignity, equality and freedom for their spirits. I believe that what self-centered men have torn down, other-centered men can build up.”

Do I hear a witness?

On Faith is a forum for Orange County clergy and others to offer their views on religious topics of general interest. Submissions, which will be published at the discretion of The Times and are subject to editing, should be delivered to Orange County religion page editor William Lobdell.