As the days get shorter, the shadows longer, and the holidays approach, I've been thinking more about the ritual meals that bind communities together. Just because the act of gathering around a table seems simple doesn't mean it isn't a meaningful and compassionate gesture. We eat to connect with family, friends, ourselves and where we fit into the world . . . So I venture to ask a big question, what does home taste like?
To me, holidays taste like so much more than the food on my plate. They are imbued with the early-morning dog walks at the beach, cozying up on the couch I used to make into an elaborate fort, plucking lavender from the bush in my parents' garden, sifting through old photos and leaning on the shoulders of old friends as we nestle into another black and white movie. This time of year is about making plans for feasting, enjoying the Autumnal harvest and all the little details that amount to a special, ritual meal.
I value this Fall season, what I consider to be the best time of all, even more after going without it for a while. What do I mean, 'going without'? This time last year, my husband and I were in the thick of pursuing a life-long dream, living in India -- while our experience was full of intense joy, amazement, utter confusion and gratitude at all the remarkable generosity shown to us, Thanksgiving and Fall in general, hit me like a ton of bricks. It just wasn't the same, 90 degrees, 100 percent humidity, sweating through my tank tops, drinking Frooti (a popular mango juice box) and snacking on custard apples, known as "cherimoyas" in the US, as lovely as those things were.
And in the end, the day of reckoning, Thanksgiving Day, I flat out had a meltdown. It was so clear that it wasn't about the food I was missing, it was the home, the familial comfort and the ritual of coming together to honor each other and the Earth's bounty. My parents even sent us postcards where they smeared a little bit of each dish on an index card and it arrived, intact, with a description of each tasty morsel. It was awesome, but also heartbreaking. I missed them so much.
So we make the holidays all about the food: who's bringing what, preparing a signature pumpkin pie, green bean casserole with or without onions, etc. -- And it is about the food! But in my heart of hearts, it's about the taste of home and the time we make for each other -- it is this notion that is so wonderful about what's hiding underneath the a thin guise of candied pecans, stuffing and cranberry sauce.
These are images from my parents' place in California, although I don't live there anymore, it's the place where I taste 'home' the most.
Related: Weekend Meditation: Blessings
(Images: Leela Cyd Ross)
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For me, home tastes like a blend of Filipino and Canadian standards. A breakfast of garlic fried rice, fried tomato slices with patis, crispy bacon and scrambled eggs just sings to me. Great post!
Tortiere and vichyssoise. I never realized that most American families had ham or turkey again for Christmas. Hot honey milk with nutmeg, hearty soups and pot-roasts, fresh cinnamon rolls and apple pies. Oh, and spinach salads with swiss cheese.
Chicken noodle soup with homemade egg noodles.
Risotto, any flavor. Asparagus in the spring, butternut squash in the fall, panisce (tomato sauce, kidney beans, green peppers) in the winter. In fact, my family tends to sync up unintentionally via calls and email as someone mentions dinner and we collectively think, "That sounds good..."
Weirdly, Jasper Hill Farm's Bayley Hazen Blue cheese with port wine cherries and a tempranillo. I have never had this at my home, but one night I had this combination and it triggered very strong and specific memories of being a child and playing in the family room on a fall evening. It very literally felt like tasting a memory.
On the other hand, a dish that makes me feel like home is turkey tetrazzini. It's my favorite way to use up the leftover thanksgiving turkey and I look forward to it at least as much as I do the holiday dinner itself.
Home....rich coffee, grainy bread, fragrant cheese, and an over-the-top dessert to share.
What I have come to appreciate as the taste of home has evolved since I have lived on my own, my parents have very bland tastes (not to mention I have been a vegetarian-now vegan-for years, while they are meat and potato people).
So home for me smells like homemade soup with plenty of herbs, freshly baked bread, ira dofu tofu, fresh brown rice, green tea, roasted vegetables, whole wheat pancakes, apples crisp... oh man, I could keep going but anything fresh and homemade seems to make me feel all warm inside.
Paella! My parents each had their own version. I've combined the best of both. It's like a big cozy comforter to me!
Korean stew and ginseng tea.
Home tastes like strong black coffee and old fashioned community cookbook recipes.
my grandmother used to make spaghetti with burned (she was blind and cooking, but its delicious) butter. I grew up with both greek food and traditional mormon fare. I had pastitio next to funeral potatoes
Roast chicken, roasted veggies, mashed potatoes, and gravy. I make it every Sunday just like my Grandma and Mom did. Mmmmm....home!
Red Rose Lipton tea...
All those things my grandma canned in those big glass jars: green beans and beets and applesauce. And the most traditional and delicious meals of venison, potatoes, and carrots, all harvested recently and closely.
the smell of onions sauteeing to start a meal is instant hominess to me.
Liver and onions, rice and carrots. Although the liver and onions is the only thing that really smells, everytime I go home my mom makes that meal for me (it was my favorite growning up) and just a hint of a whiff of fried liver makes me think of home.
home is the smell of vietnamese coffee going drip drip drip all day long and fish soups/stews simmering away on the stove. mmmmmm :)
home tastes like mashed potatoes, made with milk and white pepper and beat until reeeally smooth, and homemade gravy.
For the drink, Lipton's tea, brewed at the last moment but served in a glass with ice, so I could taste the hot and cold at once.
I'd say herbal tea and "navarin d'agneau" (that's lamb stew, I think).
My favorite smell is Christmas, when traditional Bredele are baking in the oven all day long, when you smell cinamon, spices and orange everywhere, and you eat homemade foie gras... (I'd really be a vegan if fishes and foie gras were veggies... but I'm not).
I love that my parent's house has a different smell and comfort food for each season... (my house is under renovation and smells like dust and fresh paint, but I intend to change that !)
Coffee, and homemade tomato sauce.
Home is italian sausages, soft rolls from a bakery that went out of business a couple of years ago, cheese and coldcuts (mortadella, prosciutto, pancetta, etc.) with the ubiquitous cut crystal "relish tray" accompanying the meal.
Home smells like the starchy steam coming out of a boiling pot of pasta. When the pasta was cooking I knew dinner was almost ready, and I would hover around the stove until my mom announced "COME EAT!". She would let me "help" her dump the pasta into a colander in the sink and big billows of starchy steam would give us a pasta facial.
Home is waking up at 5 Am to put a turkey in the oven and making sure there are enough embellishments for the vegans. Home is the widows and orphans around the table that you create something for and have the honor to pretend you fill a void for others. Home is reading posts like this and comments like this with a tear in one's eye.
is that dog chasing a ufo? :) absolutely adore this post, almost had me at tears remembering my own culinary childhood.
My 'home' food is different depending on the season also, but for fall it would be this roasted vegetable mixture that my mom makes, meatballs cooked in wine and apple crisp.
Wow, now I'm hungry...
This is truly a beautiful post.
It is a great time of year to stop and be thankful for such wonderful homes to remember and return home to!
pumpkin pie and stuffing with cranberries. i think these foods are so closely tied with memories, that they tend to take on the emotions of close family, they really want to make you hug something.
Beef stew and chicken pot pie (all from scratch, of course). Lovely fall and winter standards in the cold of Michigan winter.