Back in the day, I used to think I was a really good cook. But not just good-I was convinced I was innovative. Quality banana milkshakes were complemented by a side of salted French fries, which were hollowed out to be used as an inventive straw, much as a native American fashions spearheads out of the leftover dinner bones-at least, that’s the positive spin my second grade teacher put on it at lunchtime Show & Tell. But my mixing of genres didn’t end there. My favorite food memory is from when I decided matzo ball soup could be a whole meal. I rolled some chicken fried rice and crushed almonds into the matzo meal before dropping the balls into the boiling water. The results? To be honest, rather mixed.
With the perspective of time I can see these endeavors for what they were-pretty gross to the untrained eye-but still, the desire for just a couple French fries with my milkshake has stayed with me. With friends graduating or even worse, getting real jobs, the impulse to disregard these concoctions as childish can be tempting. But in the face of growing up, the food that makes us smile is the food to hold onto. Like keeping songs in your playlist in the face of a breakup even though they remind you of your ex, some things you just need to keep with you.
A friend of mine, Alanna McPartland (COL `09), gets that warm feeling from the baked yams with marshmallows that her mom makes at Thanksgiving. Remember scooping out as much marshmallow as possible without getting caught when you were a kid? Marshmallow yams stick as much to the molars as they do to the memory. “We make it every year for Thanksgiving and it’s not Thanksgiving without it. It’s warm and sweet-so … it’s home … you know what I mean?” McPartland said, describing how these sweet yams are really more than just a dish to eat-they’re storied.
For Kirby Jarrell (COL `09), her mother’s recipe for gyoza, Japanese dumplings, is a reminder of family and culture that doesn’t get to come out everyday. “My mom never cooked, other than frozen meals, except some random nights she’d feel, I don’t know, especially Japanese and she’d make gyoza from scratch,” Jarrell said. “It’s funny because I’ve never made them, but when I was thinking of a thank you gift for my boss, instead of baking cookies, I immediately thought of gyoza because it’s me, it’s my heart food-something that’s individually mine.”
“Heart food” is a mixture of childhood and taking over our parents’ role in a fast-approaching future adulthood. When asked if she would make marshmallow yams for her kids, McPartland replied, “Abso-freakin’-lutely! My kids will love it.”
Cooking up some of the strangely personal foods that remind us of home can be the best break from studying you can take. Whether it’s an accessorized milkshake, diabetes-inducing yams or Asian delicacies, the food that’s “personally and experientially yours,” as Jarrell puts it, are the meals that we not only remember, but also those that we will carry on. The personal history of a meal, like the fabled protein-spray used on Leo’s lettuce, adds that extra bit of substance to your sustenance, and provides childlike happiness in the way only a second spoonful of marshmallows can bring to an eight-year-old. Let your inner eight-year-old come out and enjoy the treats of family a few weeks early, while we still can. Now if only staying up late were still a privilege …
This is Michael’s last column: Seacrest out. He lives on at mhk9@georgetown.edu.
