Awhile back, I mentioned on Facebook that I was getting ready to eat some Neapolitan ice cream. Somebody said, “What adult chooses that flavor of ice cream? Isn’t that a kid flavor?” Factually, there is one single reason why I am particularly fond of Neapolitan ice cream and mint chocolate chip ice cream. They both remind me of my grandma.
When I was little, I would spend a LOT of weekends with my grandma. We were simpatico, my grandma and me. Maybe because we both had the same first name. Unfortunately, my grandma died when I was just 7 years old, so I never really got to know her as I wish I could remember her now. We never had particularly deep conversations of course. What I am left with are memories of foods that we shared together. Ramen (called Oodles of Noodles at the time) is one of my big comfort foods because my grandma used to serve me a heaping bowl of the stuff for lunch. I’d sit on her couch, TV tray over my lap, and I’d slurp that stuff up. I remember this distinctly. We’d drink iced tea together, the special family recipe, while we played board games. My grandma would make sausage gravy and biscuits for breakfast and she’d make Texas Sheet Cake for dessert.
I still remember how all of these foods smelled and tasted. When I taste those foods or think about those smells, I am instantly transported back to my very young childhood days.
This is not just the case with my grandma. When I am not feeling well I always remember the poached egg on toast my mom used to make for me (she’d also cut up the toast into remarkably even, perfectly shaped squares that were somehow just the right size for my mouth). When I get home from work after a really long day in the middle of winter, I remember sitting down to my mom’s special chili or my dad’s spaghetti.
All of these foods are reminders of love. People who loved me who are no longer here. People who have loved me who are with me still. When I think of these foods, when I smell them or eat them, I am taken back to all of the special memories that occurred when that particular food was around. Mint chocolate chip ice cream is a trip to the mall with my grandma. Beef barley vegetable soup is a Saturday night when I was a kid, my mom, brother and me huddled in front of Jean-Luc Picard while my dad, the Star Trek outcast, ate elsewhere (but we still told him how delicious his soup was). Creamed Herring is brunch at my dad’s parents’ house on a Sunday morning.
These associations will I think always exist for me. The things you taste and smell seem so real, it seems hard to believe that the people you associate with those sensations won’t just pop through the door. It seems like the realness of the food should be able to eradicate any distance problems we might be experiencing. Just sit down and enjoy this favorite meal with me. Just one more time.
Image Credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/chriss/5547011621/ via Creative Commons
True dat; but how would your memories be affected if you lost your sense of smell and taste? The horror…..
@bdorman264 Sounds like something else to be grateful for!
Pumpkin Pie!
@AngelaDaffron Yep, that’s a great one! 🙂
How you touch my heart with your article. Coming from a family of ten I can remember the things my mother and grandmother cooked with love for us. I just had my baby brother for a visit. I made a tray of opened faced cheese toast for breakfast. He said: ” you have Mama’s touch. I t made me so proud-we sat there talking about a long dining table of wonerderful comfort food. Luv It.
@GrandmaOnDeck That is indeed a high compliment. My mom laughs at me because i tell her I can’t make poached egg on toast that tastes as good as hers always did. It’s just plopping an egg in boiling water and then plopping it on toast. But it’s really true – it never tastes as good as hers did. I tell her it’s the magical mom touch 🙂
Pan Fried Chicken and Mashed Taters were my Grandmother. My mother’s chile nor sausage gravy has ever been matched. My Dad loved to cook breakfast and of course knew his way around a BBQ! I have dropped my weight recently but am thinking about the Boston Cream Pie I had from my sweet loving mother who died thousands of act of love before her time. Maybe I will reconnect in some way with a good healthy chunk of pie and screw the diet!!!
@kevjkirkpatrick A little bite now and then is harmless enough, right?
Funny how chili and sausage gravy circulate as comfort foods. I wonder if there’s something to that. Both are hearty and warm, that’s for sure.
Thanks Kevin!
I completely understand this post, Margie. My grandparents raised me after I turned 13 years old. One of her love languages was feeding all of us well. I had a hearty breakfast each day, and a great dinner with some form of dessert every night. The meat was generally hunted, and the vegetables/fruit came out of our garden or fruit trees.
I have since passed along some of my favorite dishes that she cooked…to my own kids. In some cases, my wife adopted the recipes (sugar cookies, homemade rolls, chicken and dumplings). And when my grandmother finally passed away after a full and generous life, she left me some money in her estate. I used it to buy a Big Green Egg and further carry the tradition of cooking. I wanted to use that money for something that will make me think fondly of an incredible woman I loved dearly every time I “fire it up”.
@dbvickery Aw, that’s awesome, Brian. It’s amazing how powerful those food memories are – and now your kids will have some of those same associations. Very cool indeed!
@margieclayman I’m cooking chicken fried chicken and homemade milk gravy tonight…so there went the waistline. Kris will complement it with mashed potatoes!!