Hold Me
Before We Cooked Together
Through speaking to my Grandmother, I learned a little bit more about our family history in terms of how the importance of food was passed along through generations. A significant difference that I discovered between the foods she discussed being pertinent to her upbringing was that they all seemed to have purpose. Everything she makes today, she makes because it brings her back to a certain memory or place. I think that a lot of modern cooks and especially American cooks struggle with that because food today has become so prevalent on social media. The food has less to do with sharing with family and creating tradition and more to do with image.
“Food memories involve very basic, nonverbal, areas of the brain that can bypass your conscious awareness. This is why you can have strong emotional reactions when you eat a food that arouses those deep unconscious memories. You can’t put those memories into words, but you know there is ‘something’ that the food triggers deep within your past. The memory goes beyond the food itself to the associations you have to that long-ago memory, whether with a place or a person.” Part of me is curious about how this science can affect cooking in general and if there is a way to incorporate it into my future or modern cooking in general.
This got me thinking into more of how I can cook using things that draw on memory and family. Part of learning all of my grandmother’s recipes carries the family through me even though I may never have met any of them. Since she is getting old, I am hopeful that the foods I make can bring my memories of her wherever I go. Like with the knishes that I made, I believe it is possible to take a food that maybe lacks the type of flair and flavor that you see in typical restaurant dishes, and replenish it with modern flavors and techniques. I’m hoping to continue doing that with all the other dishes. There seems to be a construct that restricts flavor profiles and dishes from being something else. We have all these dishes that are traditionally made a certain way, and then the dishes that people work with and innovate.
Something that I have always found about Jewish and Argentinian food, the two influences from which most of my Grandmother’s dishes draw, are very set in stone in the way they are prepared. Jewish food is mostly based on what people had at any time or place as they were often moving from place to place and lacked money. While Jewish food is very financially oriented, Argentinian food is based primarily on only what foods were readily available in the region. When you combine them, and add a few other cuisines that my Grandmother pulls from, you get a very interesting assortment of dishes. I think this unique background serves as an opportunity to explore different culinary routes, and use different pre existing sources to create food that can evoke familial memory while still incorporating creativity and presentation.
After We Cooked Together
This past week I spent my time at home and was able to see my family for the first time in over a year. Because of COVID I wasn’t able to go home and for the first time in my life, I felt actually separated from my family and my home. Although I was only able to spend 1 on 1 time with my grandmother for a very short and social distanced period, it was such an amazing and memorable experience. One of my favorite parts of the week was making the Thanksgiving meal for my whole family. My grandmother was able to sit and relax for the first time in her life and didn’t have any cooking responsibilities. Something that I noticed was that she was completely happy to just sit and watch. She had no ego about having to help or things being a certain way, even though she has cooked the meal for our family for almost 15 years. I could see her smiling through her mask the whole time.
What I was surprised by was how much I learned from watching back the footage of her cooking and then from watching back both footages side by side. What stood out to me the most about watching her was the speed at which she went. It wasn’t that she was slow because she is older, but that she just really enjoys the process of it all. The timing of her cooking is not as important as you might think it would need to be. She doesn’t stress about exactly how much or how long but rather how everything feels and smells. Halfway through cooking she even stopped to make us matè tea and a charcuterie board. She was calm and collected the whole time even though she knew she was being filmed. Before we started I had even asked her to make a dish that reminded her of her childhood and that she was comfortable with. She made a dish that she hadn’t made in 4 years, and when things didn’t turn out exactly right, she didn’t panic or change anything, she just kept cooking. That is one of the things I admire most about her way of cooking. It doesn’t have to be perfect or even the same every time, no matter how it comes out it will always bring back memories of her family and always taste great.
I also noticed how she spoke about her tia (aunt) and her mother cutting the dough in different shapes when they made it and how since her tia was older, she was right. At first I smiled and thought back to my relationship as a child with my older brother, but then I realized that food was much more prevalent in her childhood than it was in mine and that most of her memories that were like that were in regards to food. Each time we eat her food or talk about it she always brings up her tia, mother, sister or someone else from her family.
Since she is the last one of her family left alive besides the family she helped create, it all means a lot to her. She is inspiring because even though she has so much she could worry about and be upset about, she is always happy and grateful and makes sure her children and grandchildren are doing well. Since COVID hit she has not been able to leave her house much and had to retire from her three part time jobs. She has not stopped being positive and has even started taking online Russian classes, which will inevitably become her eighth fluent language.
When I watched the videos side by side, it all felt very unrefined. The timing was off in some places and on in others. The camera is vertical in some places and horizontal in others. I added music in the background to try to bring it all together and didn’t even get through the first two minutes without removing the music. After listening, watching, and editing, I understood that it was the sound of her voice that held everything together, and that was all that it needed. I came to like the fact that it didn’t look perfect, just like I learned from watching my grandmother.
I realized that it felt like I was in a rush and wanted to make sure everything was perfect. Part of that comes from working in a restaurant where everything needs to be on time. However, I think that it is important especially with dishes like these to take your time and enjoy it with the people around you. I have been writing this piece about time and memory and all I could think about while I was cooking was how everything was going to taste and look. I do think those things are important and are part of what makes modern cooking so beautiful and meaningful, however, I learned from this experience that I can make good, pretty food while still enjoying the process and the history. I think it is important for everyone to spend time cooking with their families if they can.
Work Cited:
Zaraysky, Susanna. “Travel – Why Food Memories Are so Powerful.” BBC, BBC, 29 Aug. 2019, www.bbc.com/travel/story/20190826-why-food-memories-are-so-powerful.
