Membership in the Clean Your Plate Club #SOLSC24 Day 4/31

Posted on by Glenda Funk

“You didn’t like that at all, did you?” the server asked as he removed the empty plate from our table at the City Creek Cheesecake Factory in Salt Lake City.

“Have you ever heard of the Clean Your Plate Club?” I posed this question to our server.

“No.”

“The Clean Your Plate Club” is a nonexistent organization my generation was conscripted into as children by our parents who insisted we clean our plates before leaving the table.

“My mom has told me the same thing, but I never had to do that.”

“I didn’t make my children join either,” I said.

Membership in the Clean Your Plate Club almost always comes with a lifetime membership. It ain’t easy to get out. I’ve tried, but leaving food on my plate triggers my father’s voice echoing in my ear: “There are starving children in Africa,” he’d say, and “Clean your plate.”

One time my sister and I did not eat all our lunch at school and returned home with leftover bologna sandwiches and mayonnaise cake. For that indiscretion we were whipped with the ping-pong paddle, the instrument of biblical discipline my father preferred. We quickly learned our lesson. Instead of taking our uneaten lunches home, we fed them to dogs we met along our walk to and from school.

My brother Steve and I have swapped stories about how we sneaked meatloaf to our dog at dinner time and stuffed morsels under the rim of our plates to make them look cleaned. We practiced visual slights of hand.

At home the Clean Your Plate Club poses no problem, but eating in restaurants is different, especially when traveling. Such was the situation in Salt Lake. We were there for my husband’s checkup with his neurologist. Taking leftovers home wasn’t feasible.

That’s why I ordered from the Skinnylicous menu at Cheesecake Factory. Fewer calories. Smaller portions.

I know how to clean the clock of the Clean Your Plate Club.

Published by Glenda Funk

I am a retired ELA and speech communication teacher w/ 38 years classroom experience, a NBCT, a Folger TSI alum, an aspiring poet, a dog and cat human, and a frequent traveler. Previously, I blogged at www.evolvingenglishteacher.blogspot.com. Find my senior English curriculum at www.betterlesson.com.

25 thoughts on “Membership in the Clean Your Plate Club #SOLSC24 Day 4/31”

  1. Hahaha! I am a gold star member of the club, Glenda. As a child, I would be sent to bed if I didn’t clean my plate. I was a terribly picky eater, when slight of hand or stuffing food in my cheeks or napkin or shoving it back in the serving dish after everyone else left the table didn’t work, I would be relegated to going to my bedroom. (At least I didn’t have to eat that gross food they were having!) Anyway, I grew out of my pickiness and out of not cleaning my plate. Those meals in your photo look delicious by the way. Great idea to choose a smaller portion when you can’t take home a doggy bag for lunch tomorrow.

    Liked by 1 person

  3. I am a member of this club. Not so easy to quit. I was never good at hiding food, so I just ate and earned stars to my good girl label. I didn’t force my kids to finish their plates but cleaned them myself or asked my husband to do it. The plate had to be clean though.

    Liked by 1 person

  4. That meal up top would certainly put me in the club. I’ve tried to put my kids in the club with promises of dessert at times, but something about the whole thing feels a little wrong. It is mostly the need to have a Moment at the Table club with a 5 and 10 year old wanting to move on with their frenetic lives

    Liked by 1 person

  5. I’m waving my dog-eared membership club card over here in the corner. I got in trouble one time for popping off to my grandfather about the starving children in Africa. I told him he could take them my scraps, and I was dead serious but they thought I was being sassy. So yes, a spanking for me. I think it’s why I overeat today because I eventually drank the KoolAid. I do understand how tough it must have been for them, living through the times they did and seeing kids not eat. I wonder if a member of the CYP club invented Tupperware. Great post, and it takes me back to that round oak table in our kitchen, shoveling peas and sneaking scraps to my childhood Schnoodle, Bridgett. And a great plan to order off the lite menu – I’m going to remember that! Sometimes we split an entree but usually the other half is hungrier than that.

    Liked by 1 person

  7. There wasn’t pressure about being a member of the Clean Your Plate Club when I grew up, but I think that’s because my own mother felt it so strongly in her childhood household. In my house, with my children, we called it being a “Clean Plate Ranger, ” but it really just denoted being enthusiastic about the meal. Still, the idea of “waste not, want not”, has deep and tenuous roots! I’m not sure if I read the tone correctly in your piece, but it sounded like meals and not finishing them had a darker side in your childhood home. I’m sorry for that.

    Liked by 1 person

  8. I, like your daughter, never had to join the Clean Plate Club, but I heard lots of stories about it from my parents when I was younger. I’m someone who fluctuates between joining the club some days and rejecting membership on others.

    Liked by 1 person

  11. I’m grateful that growing up we ate a lot of dinners family style and you mostly chose what went on your plate. The problem came when one of our parents would insist on putting something on your plate you didn’t want!

    Liked by 1 person

  12. This piece brought back some memories for me–mostly unpleasant! I was also a very unwilling member of that club. How I remember trying to develop new visual sleights of hand to try to hide the offending food I did not want to eat! I try not to waste food now, but it also gives me a little rebellious pleasure now when I choose not to finish everything on my plate.

    Liked by 1 person

  13. “Membership in the Clean Your Plate Club almost always comes with a lifetime membership. It ain’t easy to get out.” Hahaha! (Also, not funny). It is so true!

    Liked by 1 person

  15. Isn’t this funny? (that’s facetious it is NOT funny) these kind of stories evoke so many memories. All I can say is I loved eating dinner over at friend’s houses where the parents passed you some abhorrent dish and actually asked, “Would you care for some?” and I, breathing a sigh of relief, kept passing that bowl of steaming sweet breads, or fried chicken livers and said promptly, “No, thank-you!” I was not a member of your club BUT in a sense we had a similar structure that you did have to eat everything that was served. Whether it was breaded Jeruselem Artrichokes or said chicken livers you had to be ready to cough in your napkin. Thank-you (I think?) for this trip down memory lane, Glenda.

    Liked by 1 person

  16. “It ain’t easy to get out. I’ve tried, but leaving food on my plate triggers my father’s voice echoing in my ear: “There are starving children in Africa,” he’d say, and “Clean your plate.”

    This resonates so much with me, I too feel my father’s eyes doing “TSK TSK” when I see bits of food on the plate, now I understand that was such a valuable lesson learnt.
    Yes, proudly member of CPC!

    I like the way your writing flows. like a free river.
    Thank you

    Liked by 1 person

  17. Glenda, I can totally relate to your club. As a kid, I really struggled with food especially things I did not think I would like. I love the way you shared your methods for making food look like it had been eaten. By the way, that photo looks yumcious!

    Liked by 1 person

  18. Yup – proud member of the club, with the hips to serve as evidence! I have worked *very* hard not to do this with my children, even though my second is quite picky & sometimes it drives me around a bend. I also kind of love that your server didn’t even really know that much about it. May this generation of kids know that they get to judge their own satiety.

    Liked by 2 people

  19. Is this a blog post or an intervention! I see many people, like you and me, grew up with parents insistent we eat everything on the plate. I have not done this with my children, but find myself battling in my head when they leave too much food behind! Food waste makes me CRAZY, but also I am 52 and still trying to develop a healthy relationship with food. I’ve compromised by teaching them to take small portions, then take more if they are still hungry and I feel good about that. Maybe someday they’ll come across this post and can comment on whether or not I did a good job. 🙂

    Liked by 1 person

  23. Just brilliantly crafted and so very reflective. Yes, I am a VIP member for life. To this day, I carry Tupperware around with me bc I feel so guilty not cleaning the plate at restaurants. Your “slight of hand” line also brought me back to childhood and hiding uneaten food with a napkin, surreptitiously depositing it in the trash.

    Like

Leave a comment