Canned carrots, canned green beans, canned asparagus. Canned everything.
In the 1940s, my mother, Lena, took a course in health and nutrition at New York University, where she was taught that canned food was safe, nutritious, sanitary and sterilized. Fresh fruits and vegetables, she was told, were unclean and full of germs, and they often harbored insects. So, with the rare exceptions of lettuce, cucumbers, tomatoes and peeled, power-washed apples, Mom never allowed my sister Jolene and me to come in contact with a single unsanitary fresh vegetable or fruit.
No dinner was complete without canned peas. We even drank canned grapefruit and pineapple juices, with their mountains of pulp. We never escaped the slight taste of tin, especially from the juices.
Believing that all vegetables were mushy and salty,…
