Back when I was a child, I’m sure I would have been considered a very picky eater. I’m mighty afraid if food didn’t look good to me then I just didn’t want to try it. My Mama usually cooked field peas or pintos, potatoes (fixed one way or another — fried, stewed, mashed with gravy, etc.) or corn, and if we had meat it was usually chicken, hamburger, pork chops and sometimes venison. Then we always had homemade biscuits or cornbread because bread was Mama’s specialty.

I don’t remember her fixing things like potato salad, tossed salad, congealed salad or any type of casserole. I’m sure I could have tried some of those things at church homecoming or a family reunion, but they never looked appealing to me back then with everything all mixed together like that. I don’t remember even eating meat loaf until after I was grown because I’m don’t remember Mama ever fixing it.

One day when I was about six years old, Mama decided she was going to make me try some green beans. I had never tried them before because I just didn’t like the way they looked. Mama said, “These are fresh out of the garden and you really need to eat more vegetables because they’re good for you. If you don’t start eating better, a big puff of wind is going to come along and blow you away.”

Sure enough, when we sat down to eat supper, Mama put a big helping of green beans onto my plate beside the mashed potatoes and cornbread. I ate my potatoes and cornbread, but I just sat there staring at those green beans. Finally, I put a small bite in my mouth. Yuck! They tasted terrible and immediately came right back up. One thing’s for sure, with a mess like that to clean up, Mama didn’t insist I try anymore.

In the fall of that year, I was out riding my bicycle and seemingly out of the blue, the wind really got up. As I started across our yard, the wind blew me and my bicycle completely around. I laid my bike down, ran into the house and told Mama: “You were right. A puff of wind did try to blow me away.” Of course, she picked right up on that as the perfect opportunity to tell me I needed to start eating better and trying different vegetables.

I was around 14 years old, however, before I ever learned to actually like green beans. On the day that our family moved from the Derby area of Richmond County to the Mountain Creek community, we were all tired and hungry. Mama didn’t have time to cook us a meal, so she took out a jar of green beans and a jar of tomatoes we had canned back in the summer and opened them up. We didn’t hardly let them heat up before we started eating. I thought that was the best food I had ever tasted because I was starving. I have eaten green beans ever since that day, but I do prefer them cooked for a couple hours along with some ham or some type of seasoning.

Over the years I have learned to eat lots of things that I wouldn’t even try as a child. Lots of vegetables, too, such as squash, okra and all kinds of salads — including potato salad, tossed salad and lots of different kinds of congealed salads. I even like some kinds of casserole, too. I’ve heard it said that your tastes change as you grow older. I don’t know if age really has anything to do with it. I just know that I enjoy a lot bigger variety of foods than I did in the past. If I just didn’t enjoy desserts so much, I’d certainly be a lot better off and a whole lot slimmer.

My experience with green beans did make me a little gun shy about getting our daughter to try different foods when she was growing up. I wanted her to try different foods, but I didn’t want her to get sick trying to eat anything either. With her eating, if the meat wasn’t in the shape of a hamburger or potatoes weren’t French fried, it was hard to get her to try it. I’m just thankful though that over the years she has also learned to eat lots of other things. She always encourages her own kids to eat healthy and does a better job of that than I ever did with her.

I’m just thankful that I can now honestly say that I truly enjoy eating my vegetables because they are good for me!

Azalea Bolton is a resident of Richmond County, member of the Story Spinners of Laurinburg, and member of the Richmond and Anson County historical societies.

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Azalea R. Bolton

Storyteller