dear you,
i hope you’re doing well & that you have been able to nourish yourself with good food this summer. been wanting to write this for quite a while now and it’s finally here (albeit too long for email, so please open in your browser). i hope you enjoy it! <3
i bought a book last week called ‘bread therapy’ by pauline beaumont - it’s really cute & it’s split into chapters which have a recipe related to the theme present. the last chapter, ‘connecting with others’ had a focaccia recipe since focaccia is a bread for sharing & this little note was at the end of the recipe:
i think alot of cultures hold the idea that giving, sharing or making food can be a symbol or expression of love. i’m south asian so i am definitely part of a culture that stresses the importance of this idea. we constantly send food to each other, whether sweet or savoury & there’s the well known occurence of mothers cutting up and serving a plate of fruit as an apology.
when i think of the seasons and food, i think of big breakfasts in the garden with fresh juices, steaming coffee and lots of jam in spring. i think of nourishing and abundant picnics in summer. i think of colourful pastries and croissants to pair with warm coffee while walking in the park in autumn. i think of hot evening meals at home with laughter, warmth and love in winter.
food is important is conjunction to nostalgia. we often associate the aromas or tastes with specific points in our lives or people or feelings (both positive or negative).
“someone said that food is a switch for happy memories. when i think about the food you made for me, it reminds me of how happy i was when i ate it. i guess that’s why your food comes to mind in hard times”
monthly magazine home (2021)
i was reading ‘crying in h mart’ by michelle zauner recently which comes to mind at this point too.
zauner goes on in these few pages to note the way others interact with food and each other at the h mart.
in a conversation with michelle zauner, karen o emphasises how zauner is able to bring this out.
“you’ve brought such profound depth to the language of love in food. it was not lost on me, the love letter to your mother in your relationship with food. you exquisitely express how profound that connection is, as an expression of love that’s harder to express in other ways. it gave me a different perspective on people I know who are obsessed with food, because it keyed me into the depth and power of something that is passed down from generation to generation. especially in this pandemic; so many people have turned to cooking food and feeding themselves to heal themselves. is there no greater expression of love than feeding someone, do you think?”
karen o, ‘you have to see it to be it’: michelle zauner and karen o in conversation
there are many ways love is stored in food or the kitchen - cooking with family, sharing recipes, teaching each other, asking someone to taste what is missing, learning from mistakes, cutting up fruit for a loved one. the childhood mythology of how ‘it’s okay to share food when you’re family because you have the same spit’. like love is about eating each others leftovers and exchanging the parts you aren’t too fond of, it’s friends letting you drink from their water bottle, it’s about peeling an orange and sharing them out with everyone.
i read recently that ‘companion’ comes from ‘panis’ (the latin word for bread) and that originally, the word was used to describe someone with whom you shared a meal. sharing food, it seems is an act of love.
there is just so much love in the action of cooking for someone. to take the time out to prepare ingredients, to focus on making something solely for them, to use your hands to shape and pour.
food allows us to express love. love that is unconditional and altruistic, whether familial, platonic or romantic.
“food is an intimate language that everyone understands, everyone shares”
jennifer 8. lee, the fortune cookie chronicles
“every week my parents drive an hour and half away to visit me in los angeles. they stock my fridge, clean my house, do my laundry, cook meals for the week and fix anything broken. it’s important to them that i stay on track ever since i overcame a decade-long opiate addiction. i’ve spent the last two years relearning how to live, replacing all the shame I had with love and connection instead. i am so grateful to be alive, and for the love, support and hope they give me”
sandy kim (koreatown, los angeles)
“it seems to me that our three basic needs, for food and security and love, are so mixed and mingled and entwined that we cannot straightly think of one without the others. so it happens that when i write of hunger, i am really writing about love and the hunger for it, and warmth and the love of it and the hunger for it … and then the warmth and richness and fine reality of hunger satisfied … and it is all one”
mfk fisher
“love is present in my life in so many different ways, it’s hard to fully express with words. cooking is one of my favorite activities and i can spend hours in the kitchen, but even more so is the act of sharing it with those that i care for. the joy i see in their faces when i present them a home-cooked meal is one that never gets old”
jingyu lin (brooklyn)
the kitchen itself is a space allowing the expression of this love.
“there is something about the kitchen that invites intimacy. i suppose kitchens are a space for intimacy because i will touch with my hands the things that will go in your mouth; i will taste what you taste; i will work for you, or you will work for me. i will make this for you because i love you, because you need it, because you want it”
in the kitchen, essays on food and life
“the world begins at a kitchen table / no matter what, we must eat to live”
joy harjo, perhaps the world ends here
i often think (yearn, mostly) about the life i want to live & i find myself simply wanting to build a home with someone. doing the mundane side by side. making food for each other. gardening. reading. sitting by the water. eating together.
“you are making breakfast in every dream that i have of you. you are in the kitchen, your soft middle pressed up against the cold marble countertops like a vision too beautiful for the magazines, sprinkling dark chocolate chips over pancakes. i think for a brief second that i am dreaming inside of my dream, that i had to make you up twice, just to get it right. you, brushing your dark hair out of your face, smearing batter across your cheeks. you have come and made my dreams smaller, narrower. filled them with sugar and your body humming in the same room as mine. i dream, now, of a normal life with you. a life where breakfast lasts until the sun goes down, until i have finished gazing at you from across the table, flour dried to your forehead like a kiss”
caitlyn siehl, chocolate chip pancakes
“i am sitting at my kitchen table waiting for my lover to arrive with lettuce and tomatoes and rum and sherry wine and a big floury loaf of bread in the fading sunlight. coffee is percolating gently, and my mood is mellow”
tennessee williams, letter to donald windham
this was my focaccia by the way! i used some fresh heirloom and cherry tomatoes & it smelt and tasted so good! :-)
