Cold at the top, burnt at the bottom
Sometimes I wonder what will remain of the lockdown. I'm not talking about the lasting economic damage or the grief over the deceased. No, what will we, as a family, remember when we think about the months of lockdown?
My thesis is that we have never been so close together for so long - and never will be again. Being together makes many things possible, but it also emphasises the weak points of a family.
One of our weak points: The food. «The worst thing about lockdown? That I have to eat with you every day,» our son moaned in the first week. It wasn't just a question of what to eat, but above all when.
My family is split in two. My wife and son are what is known in nutritional science as «snackers» - they fill their calorie requirements with snacks in between meals and only eat properly once, usually in the evening. My daughter and I are «stuffers», we need three proper meals a day. Actually four.
Stuffer and Snacker are two cross-different creatures, like cats and dogs, somehow related but with needs from different planets. It's actually a miracle that we get along with each other.
This is the complex diet plan for a snacker/stuffer family:
In the morning, I cook porridge for myself and my daughter with fruit, cinnamon, lots of butter and a banana (a reminiscence of my Scandinavian roots; if you don't cook your children gröt, i.e. porridge, in the morning, the Kesb will take it away). Lately, I've also been adding an egg or two so that we're not hungry again an hour later.
My son and my wife look on in bewilderment, stirring anaemically in their coffee cups, and at around 10.30 a.m. my daughter and I meet up again in the kitchen as if by magic for what others would call lunch: Yoghurt with muesli and bread with cheese.
I won't cook again until the housework is shared equally between women and men.
Mikael Krogerus' wife
Then, at around 11.30 am, my son and my wife suddenly appear in the kitchen. They haven't eaten anything since last night and are hungry. They usually make themselves a sandwich. With Ovaltine Crunchy Cream. My daughter and I shake our heads at the snackers.
By the time I start cooking lunch (always hot, another remnant of my Scandinavian heritage), my wife and son are of course still full from the Ovo Crunchy. At 1 p.m. we all sit down at the table - I insist - my daughter and I hungry as wolves, while the other two listlessly poke around in the overcooked risotto. Because I'm a wannabe gourmet, I'd love to celebrate cooking, but I don't have the leisure or the patience. «And the skill,» adds my son with a grin.
Sometimes I wonder what my wife and son do between the Ovo Crunchy and dinner. I think my wife eats jelly babies and crisps. Occasionally, she gets round to eating fruit. She sees herself in the tradition of the Jewish-German theorist Hannah Arendt, who supposedly only ever ate fried eggs because cooking prevented her from thinking.
When my wife cooks for lunch, she usually pontificates at the same time: «My female ancestors were in the kitchen! All this fixation on nutrition, whether hipster sourdough bread or vegan, is forcing women back into traditional roles! I won't cook again until the housework is shared equally between women and men in this world.» Then she serves up the pasta from the previous day: Cold on top, burnt on the bottom.
«She can do other things,» our daughter explains to her brother and me, as if we were tourists in someone else's family. We find each other in the evening. Now all four of us are hungry, and all four of us like to eat. These are brief, conciliatory moments in a highly dysfunctional family in terms of nutrition.
