In my house, the hot stuff we ate in the morning (whether Oatmeal, Malt-O-Meal, or something else) was called "mush."
"Mush" seems like a perfectly normal and acceptable word to me, but I get made fun of everytime I use it with anyone outside of my family.
And when I say "family," that doesn't include Josh. He refuses to make me anything called "mush" and is trying to train me to call such sustinence by its brand name (talk about commercialism during the Christmas season).
His objection is that it sounds like something out of the 18th century. I don't think he really knows what food was eaten during the 18th century or what it was called.
Also, Josh once said that the only acceptable use of "mush" is in reference to a dog-sled team. I couldn't have disagreed more. I thought it was finally my turn to mock someone else's use of "mush."
When I did so to an office of editors, I found out how insufficient my 18th-century knowledge of the word was.
Go ahead and mock me. I'm used to it.
8 comments:
The whole brand name thing isn't so much an embrace of corporate capitalism as it is an attempt to determine which of the many hot cereals found on the shelves of today's contemporary supermarché you would like to consume. Where I come from, these are important distinctions to make. The weirdest thing about this post is that nowhere in it do you use the name "Cream of Wheat" which, nine times out of ten, is what you are usually asking me to make when you use the term which shall not be spoken. You just can't say it can you? Let's see, "Creeeaam." Come on, "Oooofff." You've almost got it, "Whhheeeat." Just kidding. That was just the mocking you openly asked for.
We used to call hot cereals "mud," stemming from a time when everyone was grumpy in the morning and refused to eat, and my dad said, "Fine...I'm making mud." And he pretended to go scoop some out of the flowerbed, and then he made some cereal out of cracked wheat and oatmeal. It really was awful--glutinous and tasteless--and the worst part (for my dad) was that we all thought it was great to eat mud, so we would ask for it all the time--it drove him crazy, since he's a really fabulous cook and usually is up at 5 am making crepes or apple-walnut bread or whole-wheat waffles for breakfast.
That's what we called in my family too! We must be related!
My mom says that her grandmother used to call cold cereal "cold mush." Which sounds kind of gross to me.
If you need some back-up for having a single, unifying word for all mushy foods, the Czech word "kaše" is pretty much a direct translation for mush. It refers to all kinds of mush (including cold mush and mushed potatoes).
My family also called soda/pop "zip." And we referred to pooh as "muck," which still makes it weird for me when some old people use that word for all kinds of dirt/mud. I dropped all those Turley-isms from my active vocabulary when I became old enough to realize that no one could understand me.
I now call all hot morning foods oatmeal, since in my head, I don't really differentiate between all the different kinds of mush.
I am sorry, but mush sounds really unappealing. We always called it hot cereal, or oatmeal.
Hilarious! I call oatmeal, oatmeal and all of the other cream of wheat stuff mush. I make oatmeal sooo much better than it was made when I was being raised. It had been cooking for about 1/2 an hour by the time I'd get myself upstairs to eat as a teen. A spoonful of white sugar and a dowsing with powdered milk. mmm....mmmm.
Anyway now I make it soooo much better than my dad did. I mean his is good. It was always very cooked down with raisins but mine isn't as cooked down and has broken walnuts, cut-up fresh apples, vanilla, cinnamon and brown sugar on it and Winder Dairy milk. We have more money than my parents ever had so my version is an expense they never would have gone to.
I'm with Josh on this. Hahaha, mush. It makes me laugh just to think of the word and how disgusting it sounds.
Mush... humm.... why not. I like it. Mush. Now when I hear the word I'll always think of you. = )
"Goodnight Moon" anyone? There is a bowl full of mush and an old lady whispering hush.
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