My chicken-fried steak diet

JOSEPH N. BELL

The current studies that have elevated obesity to a leading cause of

illness and death in this country have set me to wondering how, given

my early upbringing, I managed to avoid this danger. I’m not exactly

svelte, but my doctor doesn’t fuss at me about my weight, which is a

good thing because I’m much too old to kick many of the eating habits

I learned so long ago, a truth my wife -- coming from a very

different place -- has finally more or less accepted.

I was born and raised in northern Indiana, where my eating habits,

so excessive by today’s health standards, were perfectly normal. In

my formative years, we routinely had bacon and eggs for breakfast,

with occasional pancakes during the week and always on weekends.

Lunch was packed at home and heavy on thick sandwiches wrapped around

Wonder white bread. Dinner in our household was always a sit-down

meal complete with dessert. On weekends, dinner was served at noon,

and the evening meal was made up of leftovers.

In this regimen, the staples included an omnipresent homemade pie

(also available for snacks), potatoes at virtually every meal, thick

and succulent gravy, generous layers of butter and real cream for

coffee and desserts. Much of the food was pan-fried, especially beef

steaks, chicken rolled in flour and thin-sliced potatoes. Bacon

grease was saved carefully for this purpose and was especially good

on popcorn. Turkey was eaten twice a year only, and the most frequent

side dishes were corn-on-the-cob, all types of beans and tomatoes.

Except for citrus, we picked most of our fruit off trees.

My wife grew up a generation later in Southern California in a

household highly conscious of healthy nutrition. I was appalled to

learn that she never had ready access to potato chips until after we

were married. The snack foods and fast foods endemic to our society

were looked on with deep suspicion. Virtually nothing was fried,

dairy products were limited to low or non-fat, and meats heavily

favored chicken, turkey and fish.

This chasm in eating habits required considerable adjustment.

Since I couldn’t totally ignore the health problems of obesity, I had

to go along with meals of skinless and tasteless chicken, and Sherry

occasionally explored the wonders of pan-fried potatoes and breaded

pork sandwiches. I also had to learn to eat a much broader variety of

vegetables, and she had to learn that a dab of gravy would not lead

to an early grave. All of this required a creative balancing act that

frequently required me to experience a sausage biscuit at McDonald’s,

a hot dog almost anywhere or a visit to one of the chicken-fried

steak restaurants I’ve discovered. Unhappily, Southern Californians

have never gotten the hang of preparing this delicacy, but even fixed

badly, it is always emotionally satisfying.

That’s how it was until the kid left for college and Sherry quit a

salaried job to work at home. Then we could no longer tap dance

around our culinary differences. She was convinced I was hastening my

demise by even my compromised eating habits, and I was convinced she

was missing out on the multiple joys of eating by self-imposed

restrictions that I considered mostly unnecessary.

That also was when the matter of exercise entered the picture.

Exercise was never an issue as long as I was playing tennis and

one-on-one basketball regularly. But when an arthritic hip denied me

both of those activities, exercise became a problem. Because I had

never considered any physical activity that wasn’t competitive in

some manner worthwhile, I resisted the discipline required for

walking as purely a means of exercise.

So we found ourselves marching to increasingly different tunes.

Sherry has a whole regimen of nutrition pills she pops daily. She not

only eats enormous quantities of broccoli but takes vitamins that

compress fruit and vegetables into pills in case the real thing isn’t

enough. She also takes lengthy walks and puts herself through a whole

series of exercises daily with an iron discipline. And I take my

occasional walks, sometimes eat doughnuts for breakfast and get a

chicken-fried steak fix whenever I feel I need it.

She marvels that what I consider a moderate lifestyle hasn’t

reduced me to a pile of infirm blubber, at best, or done me in, at

worst, long ago. That I can still go out and shoot hoops or throw a

football with reasonable accuracy she ascribes solely to my

Midwestern genes -- while also allowing the merits of a properly

upbeat attitude and a gin Martini, straight up with an olive, before

dinner. And I’m just as convinced that she’s working so hard at

health that she’s missing many of the good things life offers.

In this impasse, she threw up her hands the other day and

suggested a joint resolution. We would regard this debate as a

research project on the merits of a healthful lifestyle versus a

reliance on good genes and quit fussing at each other’s disparate

habits. We will continue doing what we do without guilt and carefully

tabulate both health problems and longevity. Since I’m spotting her

quite a few years, the final returns may not be in for awhile. But if

I’m still throwing a football around at 90 without mending my ways,

she has agreed to concede that genes trump pills and to never again

badmouth gravy. And I’m going to turn over all our data to the New

England Journal of Medicine.

Meanwhile, we’ve learned to compromise a bit. Moderation has

become more appealing. She admits eagerness to return to the Nook in

Columbia City, Ind., where she once had a deep-fried breaded pork

tenderloin sandwich for lunch and dinner. And I walk with her every

so often. I did just last night. But I took along a Snickers bar to

make it more fun.

* JOSEPH N. BELL is a resident of Santa Ana Heights. His column

appears Thursdays.