I want to start with a disclaimer to let you know that I am not normally pro canned meat.  Okay, maybe tuna or salmon, but there’s just something wrong with something like a whole chicken stuffed in a can.  I don’t even want to know how they do that.  But there is one canned meat that is my guilty pleasure, the one I would eat for breakfast, lunch and dinner and that would be canned corned beef hash.  And not served where you ruin it by plopping an egg on top.  Just plain old salty, bad for you, corned beef hash.

I grew up loving this stuff well, because my dad loved it.  Not sure if he grew up on it or if it was a holdover from his military days. He also liked chipped beef on toast – the kind you cooked in a packet in a pot of boiling water and poured over white bread toast – yummy!  But that’s another story for another day.  Hash at my house was served with boxed macaroni and cheese and peas, and, as was dad’s custom, he layered it; hash on the bottom, mac and cheese in the middle and peas spooned over the top.  He did that with a lot of stuff.  Mashed potatoes with veggies on top and then the gravy.  I’m thinking this excuses what and how I like to eat things.  It’s obviously my dad’s fault.

So, in the great Frohlich tradition, I introduced this canned delicacy to my boys.  Two of them still like it and the healthy one reminds me every time I eat it that I shouldn’t.  Doesn’t see to stop him from eating the leftovers later, but whatever.  Doug very kindly would eat it every once in a while, but it certainly wasn’t his favorite.  However, since he tends to have rehearsals on Tuesday evenings and sometimes Thursdays as well, I can dine on this delight once in a while on my own, reminding myself however, that it probably isn’t very good for me.  But neither is the boxed mac and cheese.  Maybe the peas cancel out the unhealthy stuff in other two?

Hash even made it into my youngest son’s wedding.  During the ceremony, when he and his wife-to-be were sharing things they had learned about each other, Lauren shared that Tyler loved hash.  I know, very strange, but somehow, very touching to me as you might imagine.

So, how, you ask, can I write an entire blog entry about hash?  Well, seems that same youngest son, has discovered in the first few days of meeting him, that his foster son also likes it.  In fact, he sent me a picture with the child holding two cans of it at the store yesterday!  They were only going to buy one can, but he said they should get two.

This may all seem very silly to some of you, but the truth is some of my best memories of my childhood occurred over dinner.  My dad was home from work and so for a while we were safe.  Dad would remind me to put down whatever the latest book was before coming to the table, my brother would make me laugh about something goofy, and we would tell stories about what happened that day at school.  And dad would do crazy things with his food. Maybe I wanted him to notice that I was just like him, or maybe I was just a tad crazy too when it came to food.  I know that today, I still stack or mix my food up because I like it.

There are a lot of traditions you can pass down to your children and grandchildren and maybe hash won’t or perhaps, shouldn’t be one of them!  Family celebrations and holidays are full of those great traditions and memories, both great and small, for us and the kids. Those things that my boys now share with their spouses because they hold such a wonderful place in their hearts and memories. But for me, the memories attached to eating with and like my dad are priceless.  Here’s hoping my kids create great memories with their kids over simple things. Like corned beef hash.