(Originally
published 8/8/15)
Forty
years ago on August 5, 1975, three youths from the Bronx embarked on a camping
misadventure in the woods of Harriman State Park. A mere fifty miles from New
York City, the location was worlds apart from the hustle and bustle of the
urban milieu they inhabited. Recently, I was reminded of something momentous that
occurred during that rendezvous with nature: The twelve-year-old me sampled a
peculiar delicacy—something, really, as American as apple pie—for the very
first time. It was Chef Boyardee cheese raviolis.
Sixteen-year-old
John—the eldest among us—made this culinary selection on a pre-camping trip shopping
spree. For my fifteen-year-old brother and me, who had never consumed anything
in a can sporting a Chef Boyardee label, it was a curious choice. There was no
reason why we—who grew with our paternal grandmother on the premises—would have ever
entertained the notion of eating raviolis from a can. For she was master of too
many dishes to count, and unequaled when it came to pasta “gravy.” But there we
were at lunchtime communing with nature. Appropriately
famished after hiking a fair distance with our cumbersome camping accouterments,
it was decision time.
Chef
Boyardee cheese raviolis would bat lead-off
—not freshly killed venison or wild duck—and serve as a well-earned repast
for having reached our destination without fanfare. Renowned for my fussy
eating habits, the oddsmakers had the likelihood of me even sampling the
raviolis as very slim, and the possibility of me liking them even slimmer than
that. Well, wonders will never cease! Poured into a pot and warmed over our
initial campfire, I not only ate the raviolis but couldn’t get enough of them.
They were shockingly delicious. After that August afternoon in the wilds of
Upstate New York—and despite it being sacrilege to one side of the family—I requested Chef Boyardee meals on occasion.
This Chef
Boyardee moment opened my eyes to fare far afield. I learned, too, what
that familiar “hot lunch” smell in grammar school portended. When the cafeteria served
up pasta, it smelled exactly like simmering Chef Boyardee, even if it was only
a close cousin. I had long considered myself fortunate that I could both walk
to grammar school and eat my lunch at home. But after tasting Chef Boyardee
ravioli, I wasn’t quite so certain anymore. In high school—without the “go home
for lunch” luxury—I was compelled to dine in the cafeteria and enjoy the pasta
there—shells—every Thursday if memory serves. That sauce, too, was straight out
of the Chef Boyardee recipe book.
I don’t
eat Chef Boyardee anymore. The magic flavor and scintillating aroma that
tantalized my adolescent taste buds forty years ago doesn’t cut it in the here
and now. Nevertheless, to commemorate this fortieth anniversary, I purchased a
can of Chef Boyardee beef ravioli—on sale for a dollar at a local dollar
store—and wolfed it down for a recent supper. It was edible, I suppose,
because I finished the serving. Yet, there was something unsettling about the experience.
My tastes had changed—no doubt—but so did the Chef Boyardee recipe. The wafting bouquet
of the raviolis on my stovetop brought me back in time—not to the leafy woodlands
of Harriman State Park but again to my grammar school’s pungent “hot lunch” odor. I was back to where I started.
