I
started to explain that they do not, but I stopped short. Mom spent most of her
adult life in the Eastern European block where fruit flies were rampant and
uncontrollable. Insecticides such as DDT, although banned in this country, were
used on most crops and vegetables low to the ground, but it was difficult to
spray powder on fruit trees in order to kill the pests that loved fruits as
much as we did. Crop dusting by aerial spraying was not something the communist
regime did. There was plenty manual labor around. The population needed employment
in spite of the meager wages. Workers dusted or sprayed the chemicals
themselves without masks or any protection for that matter.
I
do not remember ever eating a fruit that did not have worms in it. Fruit flies
deposited their eggs that grew into tiny, white worms that wiggled out of
cherries, apples, pears, prunes, peaches, apricots as we took bites out of
them. We could try to extricate the worms by cutting the fruit into sections
without parasites in them, or could just eat it whole and unwashed, not
worrying or thinking about the worms. They constituted, after all, extra
protein, and we were starved for protein all the time. We were not vegetarians
by choice. Meat was so hard to find except at Christmas time when country folks
slaughtered pigs and the government supplied stores in town with extra meat in
order to pacify the starving urban proletariat.
There
were a few orchards slated for communist elite consumption or export and those
were tended to carefully. The fruit was whole and untouched by parasitic fruit
flies.
During
Christmas holidays, small shipments of oranges and bananas came from Greece,
Israel, and people fought over them in long lines at the state grocery store. Such
rare delicacies were rationed to a few pieces per family. We were so excited to
get the exotic fruits and free of worms!
There
were no 10 pound bags of oranges similar to those we buy at Sam’s Club and no
neat rows of perfect oranges or bunches of bananas like those that we find in American
grocery stores every day. We take the abundance for granted because we have never
experienced shortages of anything. We trust that whatever we need, will always
be there, someone will grow them and ship them to our markets. But will they?
Mom
finished her inspection of the “imperfect” banana. She threw it out with a huff,
convinced that it had worms. Mom is blessed to have plenty of other foods or
fruits to satisfy her hunger. By the grace of God and a stroke of good luck, she
lives in the land of plenty. She does not have to worry about her next meal. She
has the luxury of throwing away good food that she mislabels wormy, tainted, or
rotten. After all, there is so much food in this country and so cheap. Will we
always be so lucky and have this luxury forever?
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