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Love bade me welcome, yet my soul drew back, Guilty of dust and sin.<\/em> George Herbert<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Sundays Jan & I spend the night at Jan\u2019s mom\u2019s house in Tujunga. Occasionally I cook, but mostly we go out to dinner. A bit of a treat for all of us.<\/p>\n While she\u2019s lived in the LA area for well beyond seventy years, like most of us, her preferences were formed long before coming to SoCal. Mom\u2019s tastes in food were formed growing up white working class in Detroit and then through High School in Kenosha, Wisconsin.<\/p>\n Jan & I come from a different generation and were raised in California in the midst of a culinary explosion. Our tastebuds have been honed by variety. Not to mention fresh ingredients\u2026<\/p>\n So finding places that work for all of us is a bit of an adventure. Add in that we don\u2019t range terribly far from mom\u2019s home, and, well\u2026 We mostly eat a variety of Middle Eastern aligned, largely served up in Armenian kitchens, Mexican, mostly at a modest family restaurant near by, and then the odd somewhere else, occasionally ranging back to Eagle Rock, where mom raised her family, to eat where she first experienced Lasagna, and against which she\u2019s never found an equal for her.<\/p>\n This week we went out on a limb and opted for Chinese. Turns out I\u2019m a bit of a problem for the family in this regard, as I appear to have views about what constitutes acceptable Chinese cooking. Not especially well informed, but that\u2019s not stopped me from having views.<\/p>\n We ended up at a nice place in Montrose, well within our normal geographical range. They offer up what feels like hipsters who have grandma\u2019s recipes. And I suspect the full bar is part of their deal.<\/p>\n As we were trying to find dishes we all would be okay with mom said \u201cI like chow mien and Chop Suey.\u201d Immediately I said, \u201cWe don\u2019t eat Chop Suey.\u201d And there it was. Too late to retrieve.<\/p>\n A bit of unpleasantness on the table. (Not even going to speaking on Jan\u2019s behalf\u2026)<\/p>\n She chose chow mein. Which interestingly, was the least successful of what was otherwise pretty good. Definitely a go back to<\/a> restaurant.<\/p>\n Later settled into our room at mom\u2019s, I went online to read up on what Chop Suey really is. It has quite the back story. And, absolute uncertainty as to its origins. Which, well, is something I tend to like.<\/p>\n Wikipedia<\/a> offers quite a review of origin stories. Maybe it\u2019s origins are in Chinese American kitchens at the turn of the eighteenth into the nineteenth centuries. But, variations are offered across the diaspora, including but probably not limited to the Philippines, Canada, Germany, India, and Polynesia. Lots of Chop Sueys out there\u2026<\/p>\n There is a Chinese dish made with entrails that could be a distant ancestor. There\u2019s a great mythic story where it was made in honor of a visiting Chinese dignitary, Li Hongzhang<\/a>, in order to offer a dish that would work for both Chinese and American tastes. Wikipedia, however, informs us he traveled with three chefs just to make sure he didn\u2019t have to deal with such things. But, it made good advertising copy for local Chinese restaurants.<\/p>\n Among the more plausible origins, again according to Wikipedia, \u201canthropologist E. N. Anderson, a scholar of Chinese food, traces the dish to tsap seui<\/i> (\u6742\u788e, \u201cmiscellaneous leftovers\u201d), common in Taishan<\/a> (Toisan), a county in Guangdong<\/a> province, the home of many early Chinese immigrants to the United States.\u201d They offer a second source confirming this.<\/p>\n Maybe.<\/p>\n But, well, who knows?<\/p>\n Uncertainty.<\/p>\n Chop Suey to me is a mess of vegetables and some meat stir fried, then tossed with a viscus sauce and poured over rice. I have vaguely unpleasant memories from childhood of that sauce that makes my tongue feel bad.<\/p>\n But. Beyond my reactive snobbishness, I violated a principal rule for my life. I don\u2019t judge people\u2019s food. And if its what they want, I try to eat it. And if it\u2019s at all possible to say something nice. And its almost always possible to say something nice.<\/p>\n Maybe for me the source of this for me is as a holdover from my natal Christian upbringing, and specifically \u201ctable fellowship.\u201d<\/p>\n The Christian story is filled with examples of Jesus eating with any old person. Often they\u2019re unsavory characters. Even bankers. He seemed to have no standards.<\/p>\n The central commemorative act of the Christian churches is a reenactment of a meal.<\/p>\n It\u2019s endlessly fascinating for me that a turning in the divisions of the emergent Jesus movement was table fellowship.<\/p>\n Who gets to eat together.<\/p>\n Who gets to eat together?<\/p>\n As is always the case in such things, it\u2019s more complicated. In some ways. In other ways, well, bread is god, rice is god.<\/p>\n And.<\/p>\n Me, while I do not believe the religion about Jesus that Paul and others began, I do believe in table fellowship. Along, I don\u2019t mind adding, a whole boatload of things that we\u2019ve saved that Jesus appears to have said.<\/p>\n You eat what you\u2019re served.<\/p>\n Never, never insult, mock, or otherwise demean someone else\u2019s tastes in food.<\/p>\n You praise it. And you praise the people who made it and the people who served it.<\/p>\n I failed. And, I regret it.<\/p>\n If we\u2019re eve going to make it as a species, I suspect it will be when we\u2019re willing to sit down with other people and eat together. Each of us concerned that the other gets enough, is enjoying themselves, and, is happy.<\/p>\n My plan is the next time we go to that restaurant for my choice will be chop suey. A bit late. But we do what we can.<\/p>\n Table Fellowship.<\/p>\n The path to inner and outer peace.<\/p>\n ***<\/p>\n And\u2026 As long as we mentioned Filipino Chop Suey, here you go\u2026<\/em><\/p>\n
\nBut quick-ey\u2019d Love, observing me grow slack From my first entrance in,<\/em>
\nDrew nearer to me, sweetly questioning<\/em>
\nIf I lack\u2019d anything.<\/em>
\n\u201cA guest,\u201d I answer\u2019d, \u201cworthy to be here\u201d;<\/em>
\nLove said, \u201cYou shall be he.\u201d<\/em>
\n\u201cI, the unkind, the ungrateful? ah my dear,<\/em>
\nI cannot look on thee.\u201d<\/em>
\nLove took my hand and smiling did reply,<\/em>
\n\u201cWho made the eyes but I?\u201d<\/em>
\n\u201cTruth, Lord, but I have marr\u2019d them; let my shame Go where it doth deserve.\u201d<\/em>
\n\u201cAnd know you not,\u201d says Love, \u201cwho bore the blame?\u201d \u201cMy dear, then I will serve.\u201d<\/em>
\n\u201cYou must sit down,\u201d says Love, \u201cand taste my meat.\u201d So I did sit and eat.<\/em><\/p>\n