Comfort food
Vegan About Town was asking for submissions regarding comfort food, which I am hastily contemplating having had much need for comfort food lately.
I’ve often been asked what my favourite food is and I have very usually replied with something along the lines of my mum’s laksa or my mum’s spring rolls or something to that effect. My mum’s cooking. It wasn’t until recently when I was sitting down talking to a work colleague that I actually realised some of my favourite comfort foods aren’t necessarily my mum’s cooking at all, but my mum’s cooking brings an association of love and comfort. I’ve actually come to realise my favourite comfort foods are anything that can be shared, and that it’s the company more than anything which makes comfort food comforting.
Coming from an Asian background, meals have always been family orientated. To this day, Dad finds it very difficult to eat a meal just by himself and doesn’t often do it. If Mum is out, Dad will go hungry rather than eat food mum has prepared and left for him if it means he has to eat by himself. So I‘ve grown up with the association that food and food preparation are an involving thing, and that food is prepared to share. Even though I have moved out of home for over ten years, I still find I am in my element preparing food to share, and have never really been able to adjust to the mindset that I should prepare food for two.
I say mum’s laksa and mum’s spring rolls because I have fond memories of these two items. Mum and I both love noodles, doesn’t matter what type or how it’s done, if it’s a noodle dish, you can bet we will choose it. I have spent many hours sitting with mum over a bowl of laksa or a bowl of pho chatting to her about anything and everything. The comfort here isn’t so much the food, it’s the association that I am spending quality time with my mum, and I am spending that time engaged in a conversation with her that is significant and meaningful. Dad will sometimes join in on these conversations, but a lot of the time it’s just mum and I chatting away. Spring rolls on the other hand, they were a staple in our growing up. I remember long hours sitting with mum, rolling the spring rolls, again chatting as we work. Spring rolls have been a part of everything we do - celebrations, birthdays, engagements… anything that involved a crowd of people, mum would sit down and start making spring rolls. They became very popular amongst our friends, to the point where jokes were made about how it wasn’t a proper ‘family’ do for us if mum’s spring rolls did not feature. Spring rolls are all about the happy times for us!
I had a conversation with a work colleague recently who commented about my love of cooking. It was a conversation which opened my eyes up a bit about how I work, in that he was saying he doesn’t like to do food with groups of people, he prefers to be a solitary eater. I expressed shock and disbelief and compared how much I love food because it is such a sharing experience. It was an interesting reflection. We agreed some of it may have been culturally influenced in that food has always been a communal thing for me whereas it has not been the case for him. I grew up in a reasonably large family, made larger by the fact we adopted family members left, right and centre. It was always about the sharing of food which bought everyone together. The women spent hours preparing heaps of food. The children played. The men gathered and drank a few beers or alcoholic beverages. But the moment the food started to appear, everyone gathered together.
We used to set up large trestle tables outside when the weather was warm enough to allow everyone to stay outside. These would be laden with food. As a child I was not immune to this as we were often helping out with the food prep. I remember lots of times of being over at my cousins’ place, and us four girls helping out in various ways - shelling peanuts, crushing herbs and spices in the mortar, paddling the sticky rice, mincing the green papayas for salad. I have a lot of happy memories from this. Celebrations at the temple were about the sharing of meals. Actually it wasn’t just about the celebrations. Anytime we went to the temple, it was about sharing a meal. It’s the way the temple is set up. We have service, prayer and then the most important part is the offering of food to the monks, and then collectively sharing the meal with them to have that spirit of community. I didn’t realise how much that had influenced me as I was growing up.
I’ve been pretty down lately and have been in need of much comfort food. My first preference is for a noodle dish of course. But I realised the other day as I was out to dinner with a gorgeously wonderful friend, that it wasn’t necessarily the fact that it was noodles that were my comfort food. I mean sure, there is a huge amount of comfort in a noodle dish. In fact I am going for comfort noodles with my sister to catch up with her and noodles are always the first thing I suggest when someone asks me what I want. But the conversation I had with this friend made me realise, it’s the sharing of a meal which is of most significance to me. It’s the conversations we have over the meal. It’s about connection, and comfort, security, the ability to express all that needs to be said. And the easiest way to do this is over a meal, because a lot more can be said when you are preoccupied with your food and a lot more can be heard if you listen carefully enough between the mouthfuls.
The comfort food isn’t the comfort, it’s the conversations which are. But I’m glad on the same token that I have had this kind of upbringing, where food is critical to the sharing, that the association of food is that it needs to be shared to bring comfort. I hope I never lose sight of the fact that comfort food can truly be anything, as long as it is a shared meal.
This entry was originally posted at http://linstar.dreamwidth.org/168973.html
I’ve often been asked what my favourite food is and I have very usually replied with something along the lines of my mum’s laksa or my mum’s spring rolls or something to that effect. My mum’s cooking. It wasn’t until recently when I was sitting down talking to a work colleague that I actually realised some of my favourite comfort foods aren’t necessarily my mum’s cooking at all, but my mum’s cooking brings an association of love and comfort. I’ve actually come to realise my favourite comfort foods are anything that can be shared, and that it’s the company more than anything which makes comfort food comforting.
Coming from an Asian background, meals have always been family orientated. To this day, Dad finds it very difficult to eat a meal just by himself and doesn’t often do it. If Mum is out, Dad will go hungry rather than eat food mum has prepared and left for him if it means he has to eat by himself. So I‘ve grown up with the association that food and food preparation are an involving thing, and that food is prepared to share. Even though I have moved out of home for over ten years, I still find I am in my element preparing food to share, and have never really been able to adjust to the mindset that I should prepare food for two.
I say mum’s laksa and mum’s spring rolls because I have fond memories of these two items. Mum and I both love noodles, doesn’t matter what type or how it’s done, if it’s a noodle dish, you can bet we will choose it. I have spent many hours sitting with mum over a bowl of laksa or a bowl of pho chatting to her about anything and everything. The comfort here isn’t so much the food, it’s the association that I am spending quality time with my mum, and I am spending that time engaged in a conversation with her that is significant and meaningful. Dad will sometimes join in on these conversations, but a lot of the time it’s just mum and I chatting away. Spring rolls on the other hand, they were a staple in our growing up. I remember long hours sitting with mum, rolling the spring rolls, again chatting as we work. Spring rolls have been a part of everything we do - celebrations, birthdays, engagements… anything that involved a crowd of people, mum would sit down and start making spring rolls. They became very popular amongst our friends, to the point where jokes were made about how it wasn’t a proper ‘family’ do for us if mum’s spring rolls did not feature. Spring rolls are all about the happy times for us!
I had a conversation with a work colleague recently who commented about my love of cooking. It was a conversation which opened my eyes up a bit about how I work, in that he was saying he doesn’t like to do food with groups of people, he prefers to be a solitary eater. I expressed shock and disbelief and compared how much I love food because it is such a sharing experience. It was an interesting reflection. We agreed some of it may have been culturally influenced in that food has always been a communal thing for me whereas it has not been the case for him. I grew up in a reasonably large family, made larger by the fact we adopted family members left, right and centre. It was always about the sharing of food which bought everyone together. The women spent hours preparing heaps of food. The children played. The men gathered and drank a few beers or alcoholic beverages. But the moment the food started to appear, everyone gathered together.
We used to set up large trestle tables outside when the weather was warm enough to allow everyone to stay outside. These would be laden with food. As a child I was not immune to this as we were often helping out with the food prep. I remember lots of times of being over at my cousins’ place, and us four girls helping out in various ways - shelling peanuts, crushing herbs and spices in the mortar, paddling the sticky rice, mincing the green papayas for salad. I have a lot of happy memories from this. Celebrations at the temple were about the sharing of meals. Actually it wasn’t just about the celebrations. Anytime we went to the temple, it was about sharing a meal. It’s the way the temple is set up. We have service, prayer and then the most important part is the offering of food to the monks, and then collectively sharing the meal with them to have that spirit of community. I didn’t realise how much that had influenced me as I was growing up.
I’ve been pretty down lately and have been in need of much comfort food. My first preference is for a noodle dish of course. But I realised the other day as I was out to dinner with a gorgeously wonderful friend, that it wasn’t necessarily the fact that it was noodles that were my comfort food. I mean sure, there is a huge amount of comfort in a noodle dish. In fact I am going for comfort noodles with my sister to catch up with her and noodles are always the first thing I suggest when someone asks me what I want. But the conversation I had with this friend made me realise, it’s the sharing of a meal which is of most significance to me. It’s the conversations we have over the meal. It’s about connection, and comfort, security, the ability to express all that needs to be said. And the easiest way to do this is over a meal, because a lot more can be said when you are preoccupied with your food and a lot more can be heard if you listen carefully enough between the mouthfuls.
The comfort food isn’t the comfort, it’s the conversations which are. But I’m glad on the same token that I have had this kind of upbringing, where food is critical to the sharing, that the association of food is that it needs to be shared to bring comfort. I hope I never lose sight of the fact that comfort food can truly be anything, as long as it is a shared meal.
This entry was originally posted at http://linstar.dreamwidth.org/168973.html