Superstitious food

I hear my dear departed mother’s voice every time I take a banana from the bunch by breaking it off and not cutting it off with a knife. She would maintain that bad luck would haunt me if I did; an old wives' tale or a superstition that I have not bothered to test because if Mom said it…it must be true, so why take the chance?

I know there are other food superstitions and you have to wonder what the heck has happened to someone to begin an irrational belief and then feel the need to share. Luckily, I am not that superstitious and will share some wacky food superstitions… cross my fingers and knock on wood.

If you want bad luck, there are so many options but one of the good old standards is to NOT throw salt over your shoulder if you spill some. There are so many old wives' beliefs about salt it will give your head a shaker, probably because it was/is so valuable to people. To spill salt is bad luck in the first place but I am sure that in the olden days this superstition would not have been started if they only had vacuum cleaners.

If you are serving a slice of cake to someone and it falls over it is considered a sign of impending bad luck. The first thing I wondered was if you could get the good luck back by “righting” the cake slice. Another thing I wondered was if the bad luck cake slice curse applied to waitresses and if the bad luck affected their tips…or if it was worse.

I have a childhood friend/brother whose family immigrated to Canada from Lebanon. Not only have they worked hard to make a better life, they have also kept many food superstitions from the Mediterranean.

A mother-to-be can determine the sex of her unborn child with a simple watermelon seed test, simply by holding a fresh watermelon seed between her thumb and forefinger and squeezing until the seed pops out of her grasp. If the seed pops straight up, it will be a boy, or to the side, the child will be a girl. Why bother with all that modern ultrasound and stuff when a pinched watermelon seed will tell you your future child’s sex…if you want to know!

Here is a food superstition rooted in good science — the Irish maintain that if you want your cabbages to flourish, plant them on Saint Patrick’s Day. But, in the interest of more interesting things to do on Saint Patrick’s Day, you can plant them the day after. Remember that you will also be dealing with the day after Saint Patrick’s Day.  What better way to celebrate that day than with some nice, quiet gardening? Besides, it will be close enough to the first day of spring for cabbage to get a full growing season.

For some reason, it is bad luck to pick blackberries after October 11.  I know that there are some other berry pickers at that time of year who can be nothing but bad luck. Around here, it is usually black bears but the occasional grizzly will claim a patch of blackberries, so it is better to avoid the black bear-ies at that time of year…or any time.

My favorite food superstition is that if you love someone and want their love in return give them an orange. My bride and I will give the same orange to each other and then after a short game of “no, you take it” we will share it.

Talk about good luck!