“Do we have any tuna?” Scott asked me six weeks ago.
This is the question my husband asks me every few years when he is considering our food stores and wondering whether we will survive the Zombie apocalypse. He does not particularly like nor dislike tuna, but it is a good reliable standby for apocalyptic times, provided you have a can opener.
“There are three or four cans on the lazy susan in the kitchen,” I reply. I am tempted to add, “In the exact same place as when you asked a few years back the last time you were checking our storage.” But I refrain.
I listen from the family room as he rummages for the next several minutes. First in the kitchen, then the pantry.
“Are you sure?” he asks. "I don’t see any.”
Even with a compass and a map, he would still be lost foraging in our shelves. It is so fortunate that I am the designated food-gatherer in our clan.
I put him out of his misery. I walk to the lazy susan and pull out five cans.
“Hmm,” I say. The cans have long since expired. I guess it has been a few years since Scott checked our tuna stores. Tuna is something he likes to stock, not something he eats.
But every few years I buy tuna for Scott. I do not eat it either. In my home in the sixties, I had two sandwich options for lunch: peanut butter or tuna fish. And tuna salad was my mother’s go-to quick fix meal for her family of six. (Yes, this was before the existence of the household microwave.) I do not hate tuna. I just ate enough to last a lifetime. I do not feel compelled to eat it.
So a few weeks ago, to please Scott, I bought tuna at Costco. I showed him the shrink-wrapped set of eight cans of Kirkland Albacore before storing them. He was satisfied. He has his tuna. He is prepared.
Last Saturday morning, the day we have designated to batten down the hatches and shelter in place, Scott asks, “Where’s the tuna?”
I do not have the heart to make him forage. I set my computer down, get up off the couch in the family room, walk into the kitchen and pull out the shrink-wrapped set and put it on the kitchen counter.
Then I resettle myself on the couch.
“And if one were to make tuna salad for a sandwich, how would one go about it?” Scott asks.
This sort of question, the type that conveys a learned helplessness in the kitchen, is usually a telegraphed request for me to make him a sandwich. I look up from my computer.
“Did you just want me to make you a sandwich?”
“No, I want to make it,” he says. His tone is insistent.
I am surprised. Is he assuming I will go first in this latest apocalypse, I wonder, and that he needs to know how to make tuna fish salad sandwich. Or is he simply embracing social distancing from me.
“It all depends,” I say. “First, you start with the basics, the tuna and mayo. Then you can add whatever you like. A little chopped celery for crunch. A little chopped onion for a bit of bite.You can freshen it a bit with a little lemon juice. Or you can make it sour with pickles or sweet with some pieces of apple. Whatever you want. You could even make a tuna melt.”
“I think I’ll keep it simple,” he says.
He rattles in the refrigerator for the mayo. Then I hear a slight swoosh as the can opener pierces the can and then the grating as the cogs grind against the tin of the can. I do not look up from my computer. My mother (and grandmother) ear has been trained to monitor progress based on sound. I hear a second swoosh. And then a third.
“Wait a minute,” I say. “What are you doing?"
"That’s way too much tuna,” I warn. “A single can makes two or three sandwiches.”
“You can’t possibly eat that much,” I declare.
I have raised the ante by invoking the phrase used by three generations, echoing a no-nonsense waitress in Hawaii who used the phrase when she refused to serve my father a third pineapple and macadamia nut ice cream sundae.
He opens a fourth can and asks, “How much celery should I use?”
We have ordered the grandkids away in our exile. I know no one will join him for lunch. I know I do not want a tuna sandwich. I know he is making all that tuna salad for only himself. I am perplexed, why so much tuna.
I cannot really focus on my computer screen. I hear the mayonaise glop into a bowl, then wet smooshing as he stirs the mayonaise and four cans of tuna together.
“Don’t worry. I will eat it all,” he promises. Two pieces of toast pop up. I look over to see him spreading a thick layer of tuna on the toast. He takes a big, self-satisfied bite.
I look at that large, square plastic container of tuna salad. I am curious to see how long it will be until he cracks.
On Day 2 of our exile, he eats thick tuna sandwiches for lunch and dinner, and for snacks, he dollops tuna onto crackers with great gusto.
At dinner time on Day 3, he weakens.
“You said there was a way to make a tuna melt?” he asks.
This is not really a question, but a small plea. Not quite the concession I am looking for--that his eyes were bigger than his stomach.
“Would you like me to make you one?” I ask. I try to sound supportive, to scrub any sense of triumph from my voice. “So you really do need me in that zombie apocalypse, after all,” I want to say.
“Would you?” he meekly asks.
So I make him a tuna melt. Two thick pieces of multi-grain bread grilled to crispy, golden brown perfection. The bread crunches when I slice the sandwich crosswise, a fresh tomato slice escapes and melted cheese slowly oozes down mountains of tuna. I can almost feel its warmth just looking at the sandiwch. It is a damn fine tuna melt. I am almost tempted to take a bite.
On Day 4, I make Scott two more tuna melts, one for lunch and another for dinner. They do not look nearly as sumptuous. We have run out of tomatoes. I have deliberately overstuffed each sandwich, and when I flip each over in the pan, I am careless with the tuna that escapes. I all too eagerly scrape these tidbits of fried tuna into the trash. I want to be rid of the tuna. I am reminded of Dorothy Parker, who supposedly defined eternity as one ham and two people. Too much tuna surely must be a close second. I am glad we did not buy a ham for our exile.
“Well. . . ,” Scott says on Day 5. He is between Zoom calls on the big monitor he has set up in the dining room.
I do not make him ask. I know what he is thinking. It is lunchtime, after all.
“Did you want me to . . .?” I ask.
“Would you . . . ?” he asks sweetly.
Do I note a slightly penitent tone, I wonder.
“Maybe you’d like something else for lunch,” I suggest. “Our larder is stocked for an apocalypse, after all.”
“No,” he says. “I need to finish that tuna.”
“Do you?” I ask, knowing full well he will not let any of that tuna go to waste. His parsimonious ways are legendary.
“Then, I will make you a tuna melt,” I declare. “And we will celebrate the end of the tuna.”
Then I add, “But . . .”
He looks up. “But . . . “ he repeats.
“I want you say it,” I say.
“Say what?” he asks coyly.
“You know,” I say. “Admit it. It was too much tuna.”
He laughs. I laugh. Uproarious, full-bellied laughter. So much, we cannot contain it. Each time we settle into soberness, we catch each other’s eyes and laughter explodes, cascading out all over again. Perhaps an apolcalypse is not the end of the world, I think, as long as we have each other to laugh with.
Scott does not say it, he makes no concession. But his laughter satisfies me. I make the last tuna melt.
He does not devour it. He eats it slowly and deliberately without much relish. He is determined to finish his tuna.
He has been true to his word. He has eaten all four cans of tuna over our four and a half days of exile.
“Dear,” I say, as I watch him take his last bite.
“Yes, dear,” he replies.
“I was wondering . . . .”
“Yes,” he asks.
“What do you want for dinner? . . . Tuna, perhaps.”
