BROWN BOMBERS!

This is a hilarious but not-so-fond childhood memory. Hopefully, you will enjoy reading about it more than I enjoyed living it.

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If you are unfamiliar with the simple homemade meal known regionally as “Beans and Cornbread,” you are probably not from the heartland. 

Sadly, for my mom and me, this particular culinary classic was my dad’s favorite food in the world.

Allow me to explain. This is an old-time recipe where you cook a big pot of either pinto beans or navy beans on the stove for hours, so it stinks up your entire home. Growing up, I found out that in our house, crockpots were considered too highfalutin.

Typically, you add ham hock to the beans. For the less enlightened readers, the ham hock (also known as a pork knuckle) is the joint connecting a pig’s foot to its leg, composed of skin, connective tissue, and muscle. (YUM!!!)

But because my family had no interest in longevity, my dad also liked for my mom to fry up a slab of bacon and slide it into the pot to make the dish even deadlier. (Suicide by sodium). As you can see, pork was popular with our people.

Additionally, because her husband had a sophisticated palate, my mother would dump in a ridiculous amount of yellow onions, which made him even happier. (You might as well go all out for abdominal armageddon!)

And even though my father served in the NAVY, he always insisted that my mom made every bean pot with PINTO beans. He was a frugal man who grew up during the Depression, and he believed that the bigger bean gave him more “bang for the buck”! (Figuratively and, unfortunately, literally.)

That is why pinto beans were known in our house, for good reason, as BROWN BOMBERS!

More about that later. 

When we sat down at the dinner table, my dad’s mouth would water at the sight of the enormous pot filled to the brim with beastly beans saturated with enough salt and animal fat to clog arteries and send blood pressure soaring. (I am certain that if he had chosen a life of crime and ended up on death row, this would be his choice for his last meal.)

After saying grace, during which he would gratefully thank the Almighty for the “bountiful feast” we were about to partake, my dad would grab a big wooden spoon and eagerly start scooping the delectable delight into an enormous bowl. In our house, ladles were considered too highfalutin.

Before we go any further, let me pause right here and explain that cornbread is an underappreciated component of this particular dining experience. It was inconceivable that you would ever have beans without it. (What would be the point?) So, keep that in mind as we continue this sickening saga. 

Cornbread can be eaten in one of two ways. My mom always baked it in a pan. She would cut it into sections so you could slice it in half and spread butter on it to eat it like a civilized human being… OR… You could adopt my dad’s method of crumbling huge handfuls of cornbread into the beans, thereby creating a scummy, scuzzy slop that would challenge the spasticity of anyone’s small intestines.

With the bowl finally prepared to his exacting standards, I would watch with reverent awe as my father started to chow down. With unbridled enthusiasm, he would gorge himself on grotesque quantities of the ghastly gastronomical gut busters. The beans disappeared in great gulps. Washed down with unsweetened iced tea. (No sugar during the Depression meant his family members in the present also had to sacrifice without nature’s sweetener.) When his bowl was empty (which happened with shocking speed), it was immediately refilled, and the entire process repeated itself.

This disgusting debacle would continue for quite some time.

However, even a connoisseur like my dad had his limits. He eventually became barfingly (is that a word?) Bloated (with a capital B). Scrumptiously satiated with salty satisfaction, he would push away from the table, rub his bulging belly with both hands, and begin to groan in misery. At that moment, my mom and I would look at each other, knowing that the proverbial fuse was lit.

Filled to the gills with his luscious legumes, my dad would suck in his breath and struggle to undo his belt buckle so the soon-to-be BOOMING beans had room to expand before exploding. Although feeling as swollen as a tick on a hound dog (just adding a touch of rural flavor), he would still summon the willpower to finish off the mushy mess of a meal with an intolerable, toxic treat.

My father, my role model, my hero, would then do something so odious that I feel queasy just thinking about it. He would pour a large glass of room-temperature milk and crumble cornbread in it.

Now, as I later found out, this is a somewhat common occurrence in the heartland. For some inexplicable reason, some people actually enjoy mixing cornbread with milk. However, if YOU are a person who indulges in an occasional glass, I will definitely decline any dinner invitations you send my way.

But as if that concoction was not revolting enough, my dad would up the ante and make it even more nauseating by taking chunks of RAW ONION and stirring them into the milky muck.

I am not kidding.

You cannot imagine what it’s like to watch someone you love and respect debase themselves by crunching and slurping down stomach-turning sludge by the spoonful. It would gag a maggot. 

Yes, I know I could’ve looked away, but it’s like when you slowly roll past a car accident. You don’t want to see it, but you can’t help but at least glance over at it. No matter how hard I tried, I could not resist watching the culinary catastrophe.

But, sadly, that is not the end of the story. 

Later that evening… (imagine ominous music building in the background), the BROWN BOMBERS would begin to live up to their name. My dad’s “insides” would start to make sinister sounds that I’ve never forgotten. Scary sounds that were the harbingers of horror. They were the opening salvos of a seismic scenario that would end in digestive disaster. It was the catastrophic cacaphony of a colon in crisis.

In other words, the man had a God-given gift for passing gas. 

It is not an exaggeration to say that the fearsome ferocity of flatulence that my father could produce combined to create an auditory assault that was astounding. There were boomers and bangers. Woofers and tweeters. Deep rumbling thumpers and high-pitched whistlers. Bombastic blasters and pinched off squeakers.

GOOD LORD!

I know they call beans “musical fruit,” but this was nothing but SOUR NOTES. And, unfortunately, for everyone involved, in our house, air freshener was considered too highfalutin.

As you might imagine, the brown bean bombardment continued throughout the evening and seemed to grow even worse after my dad retired for the night.

Although my bedroom was at the other end of the hall, eventually the sordid stench stealthily snaked its way down to me, burning my eyes and making me lightheaded. I remember lying in bed, with my vision blurring, gasping for fresh air.

Strangely enough, however, my father, despite his bellicose bowels, had no trouble sleeping soundly. 

I will admit that, although revolting, it was impressive the way my father could snore and fart at the same time. Of course, it was only a matter of time until he would unleash an enormous, earth-shaking explosion that blew the covers off the bed. 

Consequently, it was not unusual to find my mom asleep on the couch the morning after the brown bomber blowout. Fleeing their marital bed was simply an act of self-preservation. 

And speaking of the next morning, it was amazing how the aroma of the pinto beans lingered in our house 12 hours after they were consumed. To say the least, they had staying power… But they would soon be on the move!

Let me put this as delicately as I can. This particular dinner always guaranteed that my dad would need to use the plunger on the porcelain perch the next morning. (It was a small house with only one bathroom. It was crucial to keep it in good working order at all times.)

Predictably, I would wake up to the sorrowful sound of my dad frantically forcing the plumber’s friend into the clogged commode in an arduous attempt to dislodge God knows what. It is a defining moment of my youth.

Thank goodness in our house, toilet plungers were NOT considered too highfalutin.

So, as you can easily see, this food-fueled fiasco scarred me for life, but, of course, it was my dad who suffered the most. It seemed that each time he pigged out on his beloved brown bombers, he paid a painful price.

The wear and tear on his irritable innards would inflame a perpetual problem that, for a time, would make his life absolutely miserable. Sadly, I’m referring to his longtime nemesis: HEMORRHOIDS!

But that is a delightful story for another day, so I will resist the temptation to share it with you now. 

You’re welcome!