On food and time-travel
I've always envied how much everyone else seems to love chocolate. The high-pitched cheers at children's birthday parties, the unregretful stomach aches on Halloween, the gooey smiles around a campfire of s'mores — these were never mine, and I've regularly felt alone because of it.
Like most children, I grew up eating chocolate often; sometimes as a daily ritual. But that was mostly for social reasons. My family is obsessed with the stuff and my parents always kept piles of chocolate chips in the cupboard. I remember it being common for my father to crack open a bag after dinner for us to share around the table. I tried to enjoy it like everyone else.
A few times, my brother petitioned that I shouldn't be allowed to eat any at all — because I simply didn't love it, and that I was “wasting” precious chocolate that they (or should I say, he) would have enjoyed far more than I.
Likewise, I have fallen out of love with peanut butter. I did like it at one point, but years and years of mundane sandwiches (my mother insisted that I make my own school lunches) overwhelmed what little care I had for it. I really only ever loved the jelly it was paired with, anyway.
My paradox
Despite all this, my favorite candy is a milk chocolate peanut butter cup. I can't get enough. I've eaten boxes of them (yes they come in boxes if you know where to look). I will pick a peanut butter cup over homemade treats 9 times out of 10. In this one package I find the obsession everyone has for chocolate, and the excitement others have for peanut butter.
Why? Well, I'm not entirely certain. After years of studying culinary I might explain it away as simply the acidity and sweetness of the chocolate cutting through the fatty mouth-covering base provided by the peanut butter. The fact that both ingredients melt at body temperature make them combine as a single cohesive entity. What I don't like about chocolate is countered by the peanut butter, and what I feel is missing from the peanut butter is gifted by the chocolate.
But that explanation feels a little too simplistic to be the answer. Well, maybe it is part of the answer. But it certainly feels like there is a huge part missing. I believe I have a guess to what it is, but it requires a bit of context to understand.
My grandfather, the candy-man
Ralph is an 80-plus year old diabetic who is dangerously in love with candy. Much to his family and doctor's chagrin, his collection of treats is constantly stocked. Eating candy brings a joy that is hard to match for Ralph, and it's become a huge part of his identity.
All of Ralph's grandkids, of which I am one, know that there are plenty of sweets awaiting them each visit. I have countless memories of chocolates, ice cream, licorice, cookies, lollipops, cupcakes, and of course the peanut butter cups — which are his favorite candy.
It's impossible for me to eat a peanut butter cup without thinking about him. One of my earliest memories with Grandpa is sharing a sleeve of them together. Every time I take a bite I'm suddenly transported to that thought. I'm now 5 or 6 again, and I'm watching him open the package. I don't remember what is being said, but I know that he is excited — and so am I. He's handing me one and I take a bite. We both break into uncontainable smiles, and I feel a sense of connection with him. A connection that I still feel today when I eat what is now my favorite treat.
I don't love peanut butter cups simply because they taste good. It's actually because I love feeling connected to Grandpa. It's our relationship that I can't get enough of — that's the solution to my paradox.
Food is connection
I hope everyone has foods that connect them to loved ones. My mother told me many times that when she was a little girl, she would watch her grandfather's large weathered hands carefully slice through a salami sausage. She often told me that story when we, too, were eating salami together. I wasn't even there — yet in my mind I'm transported there with her. We are both watching him peel back the paper casing as he prepares dinner. I still think of this memory when I eat salami, even if I am alone.
How could I possibly have a “memory” of my mother's grandfather? I was decades away from being alive when that event happened to her — yet, every time I take a bite, I think of his strong hands carefully carving out slices of salami to share.
Maybe I am just a romantic. Perhaps my imagination is so powerfully vivid that even food drives these “memories” to existence. I've always been prone to deep thinking, afterall.
But I don't feel like I am alone. Can you think of a time this has happened to you too? You've shared so many meals in your lifetime, probably with people you love in your life. Have you ever connected to someone who wasn't physically present?
Objectively, this doesn't seem possible. But in my life I've seen love do impossible things. I think human connection is powerful enough to transcend many barriers, including a logical timeline.
I think food is a great catalyst for connection. In a way, it helps us travel through time. Back to our childhoods, and around the world. Sometimes in multiple places at once as we wander the landscape of our memory — connecting us to where we have been, and who we have loved.
A gift shared with love
One summer evening after a long day of walking, my wife and I sat down in a humble, but lovely, Italian bistro near downtown Edinburgh. We, along with my wife's brother and his wife, were seated in the middle of the room. There couldn't have been more than 10 tables. I vividly recall looking around at all the pictures on the wall and learning about the owner of the restaurant.
The owner was an immigrant, full of love for his culture, food, and the people in his life. There were frames everywhere; photos of his ancestors and paintings of Italian hillsides. Deep smells filled the room — offering a friendly welcome to those who stood in the doorway, waiting to be seated.
Lost among the many options on the menu, was a single listing that caught my attention. Four simple words: “Gnocchi di mia mamma”, or “My mother's gnocchi”. I looked around the rest of the menu and noticed that nothing else mentioned a person. It was just that one dish from his mother.
I've rarely heard of an Italian mother who has been known to write down her recipes (at least accurately). I concluded that if this man was cooking his mother's recipe, then he must have spent a lot of time with her in the kitchen making it.
By the time I got my food, my mind had drifted. I began to imagine this man as a little boy in the kitchen. Perhaps he was cutting onions while his mother browned the beef for dinner. His eyes teared up a bit from the fumes and he and his mother both laughed as he cut through foggy vision — joking that a young boy with a sharp knife and blind eyes is a dangerous combination. Only this scene wasn't of the bistro owner anymore. It was actually from my memory, and the boy was me. I, too, have an Italian mother. I thought of the countless hours I spent in the kitchen with her, teaching me not only how to cook, but how to listen, how to have patience, how to understand so many things. A lifetime of preparing food while she prepared me to be a man one day.
Each bite of the gnocchi took me into the presence of my mother's love. And even though I was on the other side of the world from her, I could feel it deeply. I thought about the menu again, “Gnocchi di mia mamma.” The owner of the restaurant was an old man now. His mother had likely passed. So this menu item must have been in honor of her. She's still cooking with him though; I could taste it.
I have never cried looking at a menu before, but I did that day. Those four ordinary words probably meant a lot to the owner. And they now mean a lot to me as well.
What does timetravel look like? A grown man inexplicably crying in a restaurant. What does timetravel taste like? Warm gnocchi from the seasoned hands of an old italian chef.
But what does timetravel feel like? Abiding love. It feels like a bond stronger than the bounds of physical constraint. Love manifested through both time and space.
This is why I cook.