Tuna sandwiches and I had a love-hate affair when I was younger. I thought they tasted good, but then I would look in a can only to be repulsed by the resemblance to cat food. I also found it strange that I did not like regular (non-canned) fish, but could eat canned tuna. It seemed too close to Spam-- which is just repulsive. I also was unable to eat other canned fish-- like canned salmon. To this day my mother buys it and makes what she calls “salmon patties”. These truly are cat food and I am sure my current cats would engulf those patties.
I also remember being terrified of the possibility at the lunch table in junior high school to be the kid with a tuna sandwich. Kids can be cruel and there is nothing worse than the smell of tuna; too easy of a target to make fun of. The only thing I can think of that is worse is being the kid with the pickle in the lunch bag (I was also sometimes that kid). It is one thing to pull a fresh tuna sandwich (or pickle) from a nicely refrigerated space and eat it immediately, but I think parents fail to realize a child’s lunch sits in their dank locker or backpack until lunch. How many bugs crawl through there? How often is the sack smashed into place? How much food has rotted in their by previous occupants? If you have children just try not to think about this. I don’t but now shutter thinking back to my own home-brought lunches (which always far surpassed the grease-laden-grade-D-garbage they sell at almost every school across the country, even if it did sometimes smell).
Once, I think I was in high school, I attempted to make my own tuna and eat it out of the bowl one night. I dumped the drained canned tuna in, added mayonnaise, celery and pepper and proceeded to eat it. I thought it tasted too fishy and needed more mayonnaise, so I kept adding mayonnaise: 1 Tbl, 2 Tbl, 3… Now I had a bowl of mayonnaise that hinted at tuna. It went into the garbage. I had thought I wanted tuna, but turns out my taste buds were not having it.
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