Thursday, January 25
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Home Cooked Meals
My friend Tommy once told me if his mother passed away, the thing he'd miss most is her food. At the time I thought this was a thankless thing to say about someone who gave birth and raised you. After coming back from Japan and revisiting my mother's food, I've realized that maybe it wasn't, maybe food to our generation (and I say our generation, because it's something lost nowadays) meant more than just taste.
Granted, if the food doesn't taste good, no one is going to fondly remember their mother's cooking, but food only makes up so much. There's the preperation, the sit down dinner and the clean-up. Thinking about eating the food gets snugly wrapped inside quality family time, which as mentioned, is grinding to extinction. I bet even for the people who had home cooked meals, but did not make it a family event do not have as strong a feeling towards their mother's cooking.
I remember, from as long as I can remember, my mother piling more and more of her food (particularly greens) onto my plate, blowing hot soup from a smoking spoon, refilling my milk glass when I wasn't looking. This was motherly affection and the food was her expression of it.
Rich people shower you with gifts, nerds with attention, my mother with food. So I too will miss most my mother's food, but that is to say I will miss how much she cared for me.
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