This interesting story was dubmitted by Elizabeth and is online at:
http://www.freeminds.org/humor/anecdotes/the-roast-beef-bistro.html
Randy
The Roast Beef Bistro
My mother’s hospitality was always heartfelt, but sometimes her extreme devotion to duty put our reputation as regular—albeit oddly religious—folks at risk.
Deep inside I’ve always felt irregular and been slightly proud of that, but during the winter of my thirteenth year I desperately wanted to be normal, whatever that was, and panicked when Mom put our name on the “Saturday lunch” line of the hospitality sheet at the local Kingdom Hall. The last several months had been, for us, the seven years of skinny cows in Egypt—with nothing in reserve but a dwindling supply of home-canned tomatoes and soybeans.
The circuit overseer, a supervisory elder that spent a week with each congregation every four months, had arrived in town with a stylish new wife wearing a blue wool swing coat trimmed in two-inch buttons and a fox fur collar. I couldn’t imagine her stepping over our worn-down wooden door sill and sharing any kind of quality camaraderie, let alone imbibing anything we’d ingested of late.
Yet I knew that Mom would, with or without “regular” food, meet the organization’s expectation that every mature Christian woman provide at least one meal for traveling representatives of the larger heavenly theocracy—in the manner of Martha and Phillip the Evangelizer’s four faithful daughters.
That Friday I longed for either a little less faithfulness or else one good platter of rump roast. The cupboards were bare except for a bottle of alfalfa tablets, some soy sauce, and a squeeze container of yellow mustard. We’d gotten by during a long drought of currency on oatmeal in the morning, free lunches at school during the week, tomato and soybean stew in the evenings—which I had grown to thoroughly detest—and a sparse supplement of organ meat and chicken backs Mom occasionally bought from the butcher at rock-bottom rates. She had hoped to have funds by Friday for something finer to serve on Saturday, but by late evening realized she’d have to make do with the best “roast beef” for sandwiches she could muster—salt-water simmered, trimmed, and sliced beef tongue slathered in yellow mustard. Hopefully they wouldn’t notice the texture and slightly off-beat taste of the euphemism. Hopefully Gaylen, my little brother, wouldn’t tell. The butcher’s beneficence that day—tongue at ten cents a pound—was evidently the only blessing we were bound to receive.
Mother put on her sternest expression and earnestly explained how important it was not to mention how rare this kind of roast beef was because most people were only used to the other kind and might be afraid of this one. It was important not to take the bread off our sandwiches for any reason, and not to giggle when we took a bite. Hadn’t she truly roasted this meat from a cow, which truly made it roast beef, and hadn’t Christ said that it was more important to share “one or two dishes with friends than a manger-fed bull and hatred along with it”? We promised absolute silence even as a painful premonition descended.
After field service that Saturday morning, Gaylen and I met the hungry couple at the Kingdom Hall and directed them, from an uneasy perch on their plush back seat, to our roast beef bistro. Mother met us cheerily at the back door on that bitterly cold, windswept day, hurried our guests from God in with hearty greetings, and glared at Gaylen with a thunderous warning in her eyes. Mrs. Overseer sniffed slightly and removed her blue wool coat with perceptible reluctance, taking in the worn linoleum, old easy chairs with clean towels drawn taut over their tattered covers, and tray tables listing to one side. Somehow we all settled into our seats without much more fuss, and the overseer said a short prayer of thanks “for the blessing of food we so little deserve.” Mom laid plates of pre-made sandwiches in front of each person and immediately and very earnestly asked how our visitors had met, when they had learned “the truth,” if they actually enjoyed visiting small towns, and wondered if they had ever considered the world-wide work. While her husband mumbled something about missionaries, I looked up and saw Mrs. Blue Wool Coat’s face frozen in mid-chew. Slowly, with tidy refinement and enormous effort, she swallowed the suspect bite and inquired, in carefully modulated tones, what kind of sandwiches my mother had prepared. Mom’s façade fell away with the red flush that infused her face and left her speechless. Then Gaylen gleefully answered, “It’s TONGUE!”
At that moment I was prouder of my mother than I’d ever been, and said how much I loved her cooking because it was never, NEVER ordinary, and that only educated palates could appreciate her artistic flair preparing unusual foods. Then I took another huge bite, hating that woman with a horrible intensity. She sat stiffly while her husband hurried through the rest of his sandwich, raving over how delicious it was, until they both escaped the botched “roast beef” luncheon into the bitter afternoon.
Almost before the door had closed, Mom collapsed, laughing and crying at the same time, and held Gaylen and me close. She kissed him and said of course she wasn’t mad, and as for me, I refrained from murdering either him or that snobbish snit masquerading as a paragon of Christian qualities. To this day I love beef tongue and hate fox fur collars. Wouldn’t you?
NOTE from Elizabeth:
I left the "organization" in late 1997 and was disfellowshipped in 1998 after a lifetime of unhappiness and inner conflict. I have since earned two college degrees, written extensively, and taught English, History and Drama for the past seven years. I would like to offer comfort, advice if wanted, and hope to any who need it.