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I hate canned green beans. Always have. Don't know why. Fresh green beans sauteed in garlic butter? I can eat those. But canned? No way, no how.
And this led to a memorable moment in my childhood. I was going to Central Elementary School in Olathe in the late 70s. We had a teacher named Mrs. Miles who, as lunch over-seer, made everyone eat everything on their plate. One day, Mrs Miles was lunch lady when green beans were served. I didn't eat them. But before we could go out to recess or whatever, we had to show her our plate. This was one of those 70s style lunch trays with the plastic that was about 3" thick and different ridged/divided sections on the tray. She saw I hadn't eaten my green beans, so the conversation was like this:
Her: You need to eat your green beans.
Me: I can't. They'll make me sick.
Her: That's in your head.
Me: No, they'll make me sick.
Her: eat them or no recess.
To this day, I have no idea how I choked them down but I did. And I went up to show her my tray. She sees my green bean section is now empty and she snidely comments, "See, they won't make you sick."
I walk back to where I was sitting and before I even sit down, I threw up my lunch all over the table. Just a massive pile of vomit with lots of recently ingested green beans still practically whole and glistening in green bean and stomach juices.
Everyone at the table yelled in abject horror and moved out of the way as fast as possible. Other teachers were called in to quell the disorder and chaos. I sat down at the table (away from the vomit) as my stomach was deciding if it wanted to have a second round. Mrs. Miles, looking rather whiter than usual, was yelling at everyone to calm down and sit down but nobody wanted to sit next to puke. The school janitor came in and cleaned it up and I remember thinking that I didn't want a job where I cleaned up puke. With the noxious green beans gone from my system, I soon felt better and went out to recess. But ever after that, when Mrs. Miles was on lunch duty, she would say, "Everyone has to clean their plates, but frozenchief does not need to eat his green beans."
So, no, I won't be making green bean casserole for Thanksgiving. Never have. Never will.
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