“The doctors can say what they want. I’m a hundred and eight years old, and I’ve seen more than most people ever will. ”
That’s what I’d tell anyone who thinks I’m here to give them a lecture. I’m not a doctor.
I’m not a scientist. I’m just an old woman who has lived through things you only read about in history books. I’ve seen war. I’ve stood in lines for bread with empty stomachs and even emptier pockets.
I’ve watched people turn nothing into a meal and make it taste like a feast. Now I watch people fear a simple egg while trusting a powder from a commercial. It makes me want to laugh, but it also breaks my heart a little. I’m not here to tell you to throw away your medicine.
That would be foolish, and I didn’t live this long by being a fool. But I am here to tell you what I know. What life taught me. People weren’t built from boxes.
We weren’t built from candy bars or brightly colored yogurt cups that have more words on the label than actual food. We weren’t built from pills that promise everything, just so you’ll buy another package. We were built from the earth. From water.
From milk. From eggs. From cabbage stored in a root cellar. From bread that we sliced carefully so we wouldn’t waste a single crumb.
I have seven things I ate my whole life. They aren’t fashionable. They aren’t expensive. You don’t need to know a foreign language to read their labels.
They’re simple. And maybe that’s exactly why they’re good for us. The first thing is coffee. Yes, coffee.
I can hear someone already saying, “Zofia, coffee is bad for you. It raises your blood pressure. It irritates your stomach. ” You know what irritates me more?
A person who wakes up in the morning, turns on the television, and lets strangers tell them what to be afraid of. I drank coffee my whole life. Sometimes black. Sometimes grain coffee, because real coffee wasn’t available.
Sometimes it was so weak, the cup had more character than the drink itself. But there was always a cup in the morning. And it was never just about the coffee. It was about the moment.
Sitting down. Warming your hands. Looking out the window. Not starting the day with screaming or panic.
Just don’t make coffee into a dessert. Don’t add half a glass of sugar. Don’t pour in sweet syrups. Don’t use cream that sits on the shelf for six months and still pretends to be fresh.
Coffee should taste like coffee. Bitter. Life is bitter too, sometimes. And yet, we still drink it.
The second thing is fruit from the bushes. Blueberries, raspberries, black currants, chokeberries. We never used fancy words for them back then. We just said, “Go pick some, because winter won’t feed itself.
”
When I was a girl, my hands were stained blue from blueberries. My mother would look at my dress and shake her head. But then she’d make juice. Sour, dark, real juice.
In the winter, that juice tasted like summer in a spoon. Today everything has to be sweet, like a promise before an election. But I’ll tell you something. Sour is necessary too.
Not everything good needs to stick to your teeth. The color in fruit isn’t decoration. It’s a sign that something is there. I don’t know all the clever scientific names for it.
But I know how I feel after a handful of berries versus after a third cookie. And that’s enough for me. The third thing is fish. Not the salmon from commercials.
When I was young, the only salmon we saw was maybe in a picture of an ocean. We had herring. We had mackerel. We had sardines from a can.
Fish on Friday. Fish on Christmas Eve. Fish when the wallet was thin but the family still needed dinner. My Janek used to say, “Zofia, sardines are a poor man’s meal.
” And I’d tell him, yes, a poor man’s meal, but a smart one. Because after a good fish dinner, your head doesn’t get heavy. You don’t need to lie down like you just ate a bowl of greasy sauce. I’m not saying eat fish every day.
But having a can of herring, mackerel, or sardines in the house isn’t shameful. It’s common sense. Shame is buying fish sticks where you need a magnifying glass to find the actual fish, then pretending it’s the same thing. The fourth thing is eggs.
Oh, how people have gotten scared of eggs. First they’re good, then they’re bad. First the yolk is guilty, then the white is holy. Meanwhile, the chicken just kept laying eggs like she always did.
She never read the newspapers. For us, eggs were a lifesaver. Hungry child? Soft-boiled egg.
No meat in the house? Fried egg. Someone weak after being sick? Chicken broth with an egg stirred in.
Simple things. I’m not going to tell you to eat two a day or three a day or any specific number. I’m not in charge of your lab results. But I’ll tell you this.
Don’t be afraid of food just because someone turned it into a scarecrow. First, look at what you’re actually eating next to that egg. Most of the time, it wasn’t the egg causing problems. It was the mountain of mayonnaise.
The white bread. The hours of sitting still. The fifth thing is meat. Some people will frown at that now.
But I’m not talking about hot dogs from a package. I’m not talking about sausage that smells more like a factory than smoke. I’m talking about a real piece of meat. Broth made from bones.
Liver with fried onions. Beef, when we could get it. Meat eaten with respect, not like a king every day. When I was young, if we had meat, that was a special day.
Nothing was wasted. Bones went into soup. Leftovers became filling. Fat was rendered to pour over barley.
People had strength back then. Not because of magic powders, but because real food gave the body something real. And an old body doesn’t live on lettuce leaves alone. Don’t tell me old age should be hungry and polite.
Old age needs strength. And strength has to come from somewhere. With moderation, of course. Gluttony isn’t tradition.
Gluttony is a lack of sense. The sixth thing is fermented foods. Pickled cucumbers. Fermented cabbage.
Beetroot sourdough. Buttermilk. Kefir. Today people call it “fermented.
” We used to say, “Go down to the cellar. ”
The cellar was full of jars standing like soldiers. Cabbage for the winter. Pickles for dinner.
Beetroot sourdough for when someone looked pale and lifeless. This was food that was alive. Not dead. Not polished.
Not sitting identical on a shelf for six months. Alive, sour, real. But remember, pickled things have salt. If you have blood pressure problems, don’t try to be a hero and eat half a jar at once.
Wisdom isn’t about eating healthy food in a foolish way. Wisdom is knowing when to stop. The seventh thing is my little secret. Flaxseed.
It doesn’t look pretty. It doesn’t smell wonderful. It has nothing of a commercial about it. When you pour water on it, it turns strange.
Children would wrinkle their noses. But my grandmother used to say, “Not everything that helps has to taste like candy. ”
And she was right. Flaxseed was good for the stomach.
For calming the insides. We added it to cottage cheese. To oatmeal. Sometimes to a cup of warm water.
A small seed, but stubborn. Like old women. No one pays attention to it, but it does its job. So there you have it.
Coffee. Fruit from bushes. Fish. Eggs.
Real meat. Fermented foods. Flaxseed. Seven things.
Not from television. Not from a colorful box. Not from some thirty-year-old woman in a commercial telling me how I should age. These are things from home.
From poverty. From common sense. From the cellar, the pot, the forest, the field. But listen to me now, because this is more important than the whole list.
Food alone won’t save a person. Food is fuel, but the engine is inside you. You can eat the best things in the world. But if you carry anger inside you for thirty years, that anger will eat you faster than a bad meal ever could.
You can drink coffee black as night. You can eat fish and pickles. But if you have no reason to get up in the morning, your body will start to fade too. You need someone.
Or at least something. A garden bed. A cat. Neighbors to feed.
A rosary. A phone call with a grandchild. A window where you can look out and see that the world is still standing. I lost many people.
My Janek. My sister. A friend I drank tea with until her hands trembled so much she was afraid to hold a glass. I’ll tell you the truth.
In old age, the worst thing isn’t the wrinkles. It isn’t the bad knee. It isn’t getting up slower. The worst thing is the silence.
The silence when no one asks if you want another cup. So eat simply. But also live simply. Don’t put off a kind word for later.
Don’t hold a grudge against life, because life is shorter than you think. Even when it lasts a hundred and eight years. Now, that’s enough talking from me. Tell me, what was always on the table in your home?
A single old dish sometimes holds more truth than an entire commercial.