Choc-lit Salad

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Fun with old ears has started another chapter. Younger generations know I don’t hear well, particularly in a social setting where there is background noise. Grandsons David and Nathaniel learned to appreciate the mistakes. I told them what I heard and let them tell me what they actually said. Now it is neighbor Logan’s turn.

Yesterday Logan (8) was proud of having packed his own lunch for school. He said he had a peanut butter sandwich, a bag of chips, and a container of Jell-o. While the steam valves were blowing on his overactive body-engine, he jumped the ditch so many times the dessert came tumbling out on the ground. I asked if he had packed his lunch this day. He hadn’t, his dad explained, because he stayed in bed too long and had no time. It started a discussion of school lunches. He described one of his favorite dishes, and I heard him mumble, “Choc-lit salad.”

“I heard you say chocolate salad, but surely that’s not right,” I said. I was aware that some Mexican recipes call for cocoa in savory dishes, but not in an American school lunch!  I was closer than I thought.

His correction was, “TACO salad!”

If the bus hadn’t come, I would have described the fruit salad that Danish friend Kai wrote about. One of his favorites includes such things as cutup grapes, bananas, oranges, pears, and apples. Mix the fruit with sweetened whipped cream and then cut up small (not TOO small) pieces of dark chocolate to stir in. I would gladly misread the recipe and add ten times the proper amount of chocolate. Anyone want to join me?

Published by Anne Mehrling

I'm a retiree who loves to write about life in the mountains of North Carolina.

Published

45 thoughts on “Choc-lit Salad”

          1. No vengeance. I was a nice kid. I know, hard to believe. I was shy especially with the boys. It only happened once or twice and they stole all the good stuff in the girls’ lunches. We told the nuns. They got theirs. (cue scary music here)

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  2. A few years ago a neighbor boy about Logan’s age came to our front door asking for his mother to borrow our Illa Extreme. I had no idea what he meant, so I asked him what is mom was doing. She was making chocolate chip cookies and had run out of Vanilla Extract… which this kid had remembered as Illa Extreme. To this day my husband and I sometimes call Vanilla Extract by its other name.

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    1. Logan continued talking about his treatment of taco salad. He asked them to hold the meat, so he had only lettuce, chips, and salsa. He could share with your grands, and they’d all get extra of what they like.

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      1. At this point we just laugh. We had a holiday our kids couldn’t make it to my folks due to sick kids. I called my dad to tell him….he told my mom that they were sick of coming! Not quite the same. We did get that straightened out.

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  13. Lunches and breakfasts are provided at my great grand kids school in SLC, but they aren’t anything like the ones I remember. I always loved my school lunches. I remember the cooks in the cafeteria getting there in the early am to prepare our home cooked meal. The huge cans of product they’d use stacked on huge carts in back for them to do that. I seldom got “cafeteria food’ until I figured out I could clean tables to earn a free one. (I was a big eater and their servings were generous) My mom would pack burritos in my lunch before burritos were in vogue and the other kids would trade me mine for their bologna sandwiches on white bread!!! My dad only got wheat bread, which when I went to the south where he’s from was impossible to find. Go figure. I loved the smell that remained in the lunch boxes too. I don’t know why, but I did. Every now and then I’ll go out and buy gummy white bread and bologna and cheese, just for the memory. lol

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    1. My school cafeteria was just like yours — home-cooked meals. Back then I’d never heard of a burrito. How I wish I could have tasted your mother’s! I laughed that you traded lunches. My dad, a big strapping boy, hated the dainty pineapple sandwiches his mom packed for him. He swapped them for hearty country ham sandwiches and knew he had the better deal. I grew up on limp white bread, too.

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      1. Pineapple sandwiches? I’ve never heard of those. Mom’s burrito’s were good, but in those days I was embarrassed to have them, but at least I had swappin’ stuff.
        Remember how white bread used to stick to the roof of your mouth, especially with a PB&J? lol Ahhhh memories.

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        1. That pineapple thing was a LONG time ago, like maybe 1924. My grandmother prepared dainty food. I have no idea what was on the sandwich other than pineapple, but it did not suit a strapping boy. The boys from out in the county had hearty home-cured ham on theirs.

          PB&J sandwiches were limp and soggy to begin with, and to have that stuck in your mouth was not the most pleasant thing. I’m going to leave that in my memory and not recreate it now. I’m glad you wrote about it, though.

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