Comfort foods are called comfort foods because they carry a certain amount of emotional underpinning to them. While making them, you remember the ambience of meals past; the scent triggers memories of the dish and those with whom you enjoyed it. They’re usually hot, as heat provides a certain amount of comfort by itself, but they don’t have to be. Ice cream on a hot day holds the prize for being the food that can snap you back to an 8 year old sitting on the sidewalk in the sweltering summertime.
Funny how food can evoke so many feelings all at once.
My mom came to visit last week. She said she’d be here for dinner. Considering the brisk Kentucky fall weather was in full swing, I ditched our plans to go out and decided to make chili for dinner. Her recipe. I thought for sure she’d love this; living alone doesn’t provide many opportunities to have chili so I was sure she hadn’t had it in a while. Chili is my ultimate comfort food. It’s warmth on a cold day invites feelings of security for me, like being wrapped up in a fluffy blanket or being held in the arms of the one you love. The smell of it cooking on the stove takes me back to the days of coming home from school after a long day and spending time with my mom. My mom. Growing up I would spend time with my grandmother just about as often as I was with my parents. We were a close-knit family in my early childhood. My mom worked a lot to support so many kids (there were six of us all together), so she didn’t get the opportunity to be home with us a lot and I missed her. I would cherish the times that we had together, and once I walked in the door from school and smelled that pot of chili on the stove I can honestly say that it felt like home. That pot of chili on the stove was symbolic of my mother’s love. She was overworked, tired, stressed, but still found time to serve a home-cooked meal. I always thought she had the same associations only with her mother instead.
Moving away from my family poses a few advantages, but it also presents its own unique challenges. In many ways it’s been good for me to have moved so far away. I’ve changed a lot. I’ve learned to question things and not just blindly follow what I’ve been taught. To seek answers for myself. To be independent. Not to rely on people to catch me when I fall. But in other ways, it’s been incredibly difficult. I’ve raised my children without the help of my mother. I’m a mother, mothering without the benefit of the wisdom of generations. There are good parts of that as well, but being a mom is one of the hardest jobs in the world and sometimes I just really long for the type of support my mother had from my grandmother. It’s not her fault that I don’t have this. She loves me and she loves her grandchildren. The feeling is mutual. We’re not by any means estranged; we communicate via telephone regularly, though less regularly as of late. But we’re both reasonably busy people and money limits the frequencies of our visits. I have no doubt that I am meant to be here, just as they are meant to be there but it doesn’t make it easier sometimes.
Sometimes I just want some chili. I need to evoke the memories and feelings of warmth, comfort, and love that it provides. I have some great memories tied up in a pot of chili. Nights sitting around our kitchen table with my mom, talking about anything and everything and nothing important but of the utmost importance all at the same time.
So my mom, and I went for a quick walk downtown to look at a few things when my son announced that he was hungry. I said, “Well, let’s hurry up and get back home so we can have some chili. Then she told me, “Oh, that’s okay. I don’t really like chili. It’s all right though; we’ll just pick something up on the way home.” I asked her, if she didn’t like it, then why did she make it so much growing up? She said because it was cheap and easy to prepare and us kids loved it so she made it for us. She said she never really liked it; in fact, she didn’t just not like it but she hated it. She said it was awful and she wouldn’t make it for herself ever.
My mom doesn’t like chili. So we went out for Chinese.
No comments:
Post a Comment