Boiled Spinach - inspired by Jamaica Kincaid's "On Seeing England for the First Time"

The first time I was confronted by it was at my mother’s dinner table when I was seven years old. This monstrous, horrible scoop of dung on my plate where there was supposed to be food. My mother was very conscious of making sure that her children got the nutrients and vitamins that they needed through feeding them good foods of every color and every texture. Thus, this dark green glop of stringy, fibrous cellulose seemed out of kilter with the goal my mother was trying to reach. This was my first encounter with boiled spinach.
I immediately spoke out: “Don’t make me eat it, Mom. I’ll throw up!” Used to this type of outburst from one or the other of her children whenever she introduced some new “adult” food to the table, my mother just smiled, and told me to eat up. I repeated my declaration, but seeing that my mother was not going to change her mind, I turned my stare on the plate in front of me, and ate it all. I was not going to be kept at the table till bedtime with that dung-heap in front of me. It was gone in minutes. My mother was proud and excused me from the table to hit the toys.
Just as I entered the carpeted family room, my stomach rejected its contents, and soon the carpet in front of me was wet and green. Cringing, I said, “Mama, I told you so!” I’d been right, for once – now it was my turn to be proud. ...