My 2¢

…well, it should be titled food for memories. Yesterday I visited the town that my parents and siblings and most of my family had grown up in, including me until I was 5. I spent all of my summers there and I usually stop by there now just to eat as I drive past. Unfortunately none of my family lives there anymore and so yesterday was the first time I walked through it to so I could pick something up. This caused me to walk by my Grandfathers old house, the street where my cousin used to chill and the laundromat where I used to help my Grandmother; all of whom are deceased. As I was walking by all of these place I started to think of them and I noticed that for both of my Grandparents, my memories were full of food. An example of this would be corn bread. Every time I see or eat cornbread I think of my Grandfather. That is because most of my memories with him include us cooking cornbread in his kitchen from scratch after I would get home from pre-school and summer camp. I even remember the time I wanted to write down the recipe and I did so by ripping up a pizza box and writing it down on the inside of the cardboard. 

My Grandmother’s food memory is a little different. I never actually cooked with her or even remember the types of foods she cooked, but about 2 years ago I was in the kitchen with my mom helping her cook and I had a sudden deja vu. I was chopping cilantro and all I could think about was my Grandmother. It then hit me that my Grandmother used cilantro in so many of her dishes and I had actually forgotten about it because no one else in my family uses it as much as she did. It’s crazy how my mom’s rice that isn’t even my Grandmother’s recipe (or is I wouldn’t know) brings back such strong memories and emotion of my Grandmother.

My cousins food memory is probably the wierdest. He unfortunately passed this year and I wasn’t really close with him. He was about 7 years older than me and i usually hung out with my little cousins when I was at his house due to the age difference. It wasn’t until I was walked into a bodega yesterday that I realized that here are foods tied his memory as well, Celeste Pizza and Cup Noodle Soup. I don’t think I ever ate these with him, in fact I detest Cup Noodle Soup, but I do remember that his kitchen was always packed with it. I feel like the only foods I ever saw him eat were Celeste and Cup Noodle Soup. Unfortunately this is only one of the very few memories I have with him but it still brings back such strong emotion because even though I never hung out with just him, his memory reminds me of the all the days I would spend at his house over the summer having fun with all of my cousins and him teaching us how to play video games.

It’s crazy when you think about how many of our memories are tied to food (or maybe its just me). Just the smells of certain foods bring me back to my childhood with my deceased relatives. These are memories that will live on forever just through our senses and could never be forgotten; and ones that I’m more than happy to have.