La Comida

Once again, the topic of food is brought up in these quotes. I suppose I’m not mad about it – after all, I do enjoy food quite a bit.

“There is no sincerer love than the love of food.” – George Bernard Shaw

My roots are Southern and Mexican. Holiday’s were pretty unique, back when we were kids and would visit both sides of the family. Tamales at one house, green beans floating in bacon fat at another. I am rather picky about both my Southern food and my Mexican food. After all, my paternal grandparents were from Kentucky, and my maternal grandfather was full blooded Mexican. I have a very distinct memory of my grandfather sneaking us into the kitchen on Thanksgiving and warming tortillas on the stove and slathering them with butter. I’m hard pressed to remember anything tasting as good as that treat did at that particular moment in time.

With a background such as mine, it’s no wonder that I carry a little extra weight. Food is the language of love. I could never walk into a family members home without being offered food. I never left a family gathering without taking leftovers home. My Mamaw felt it was necessary to tell me when we would speak on the phone, ‘You should stop by. I’m making green beans.’ It got me every time. I loved my Mamaw. But no one made green beans like her. (I wrote about this too, in Green Beans and Bacon.) I would purposely not eat before going to visit dad as a young adult, because his kitchen held better food than mine. Often he would make something special when he knew I was coming to visit.

And indeed, as I’ve written before, there were many bonding moments over food preparation, and in the meals themselves.

The quote itself says there’s no more sincere love than the love of food. I am of the opinion that the love of food might more stem from the emotional aspect. My family – both sides – showed they cared for another human by feeding them. I’ve never been one to eat when I’m bothered or depressed. The last thing I want to do is eat when I’m upset. I would venture to guess that this comes from the good things I associate with eating. Family meals, lunch dates with friends. . . I have fond memories associated with food, and therefore I suppose that when I’m not okay mentally or emotionally I steer clear of food because I don’t associate food with the bad feelings I have. I do realize that an individual needs to eat to remain healthy so during these times I do force myself to eat, but there is no joy in it. I eat to accomplish the goal of feeding my body – nothing more, nothing less.

I’ve taken from my upbringing the desire to feed people because I care about them. I spoke about this in the last quote post about food – I make sure I cook for my kids, and eat with them around the table, to associate meal times with happy, family times. Now, they do spend a lot of time arguing at the table which does make me batty. They’ll grow out of that though. Hopefully they will look back and associate good things with food, too. Hopefully they have fond memories of meal times, like I do.

I picked the Spanish word for meal as the title on a whim. I was struggling with what to call this one. While I have many fond memories of meals with my dad’s family, watching my mom cook genuine Mexican food is something that will forever be ingrained in my memory. It seemed fitting to pay homage to that part of my heritage with the title.

That’s what I’ve got on this one, guys. I finished Friday’s quote post a little bit ago, and now I’ve got this one, meant for Saturday, complete as well. On to today’s quote post.