Just Taste the Parsley

This is one of those stories intended to inspire you to see the world in a new way.   ... It probably won't work.

When I was a lil kid being raised in a small, Judeo-Christian community as a Roman Catholic, the Lenten season held a special bonus.  Amidst the fasting and giving up fun things like chocolate or TV (with the hopes of being handsomely rewarded by our parents come Easter morning), there was a beacon of awesome hope - the ritual Seder Meal.  There is a lot of deep symbolism in the reenactment of the Passover dinner.  As a child, however, much of the religious meaning was lost to me.  What I found fascinating was the sense of community.

It went down like this - the best baker in the town made matzo; a delightful Irish-born woman brought the most amazing cooked lamb; a guy who was renowned for his gardening prowess brought fresh parsley; and everyone else contributed with pot-luck dinner items and other symbolic necessities.  Fifty to one hundred of us would gather in the tiny, cold, dimly-lit basement of our parish center, huddled together with small glasses of wine (grape juice for we little ones) and meager portions on our plates.  We held scripts in our hands, and our parish priest led a mini-play.  There was this indescribable spirit of adventure in the room - for us kids, we were basically eating foreign food (Unleavened bread and weird leafy greens? People actually eat those things?!).  After the entire ceremony was done and we had lingered in meditative silence, we would bust out the real food and go to town devouring the rest of that delicious lamb.  Good times.

I remember one specific event, though.  It was the very first Seder we had ever planned; I was about six.  The other kids were looking over the bits on our plate - horseradish, parsley, matzo, romaine, egg...

"Hey? What's this green stuff?!" I asked an adult while prodding at my sprig of parsley.

She explained, "Parsley.  It's an herb.  It is bitter tasting.  We dip it in salt water to remind us...blah, blah, blah... but when it comes time, if you kids don't want to eat that part, you don't have to.  I don't blame you either - parsley tastes awful."

In essence, an adult just told me, a child, 'this food is yucky - I don't like it; you won't either.  Here's a "get-out-of-trying-something-new" card.'

But, defiant as I was, I tried the damn parsley anyway.  And as a kid, I did think it tasted awful.  But I ate the whole sprig.  Mostly because someone told me I wouldn't like it.

It changed my life.  As an adult, I love herbs.  All herbs.  They have my utmost respect for everything they do, and everything they stand for.  One particular herb that I hold dear is the parsley.  It still tastes the same as when I tried it that first time as a kid - but I appreciate it more.  And every time I taste it, it takes me back to those memories of the Seder Meal, of all of us neighbors working together and getting along.  We weren't jealous of each other, or scolding each others' children.  It was a glorious festival being held in the middle of what felt like an ongoing 40-day-funeral.

All memories that may have been lost to the abyss of time if I hadn't decided to just taste the parsley.