I now realize that all of my life I have been a “foodie”,
although that word wasn’t even in use when I was growing up in the 1950’s and
60’s. For many of us, food is closely linked to positive memories, and therefore
evokes within us emotional responses. This was certainly true in my case, as
most of my fondest memories centered around, or else somehow involved FOOD!
Perhaps it was just the unconditional love that I was almost always given by
two sets of loving grandparents as well as my own parents, aunts, uncles, etc.
As one example, when I was three years old and spending my
summers at the Jersey shore, my Granny Goose loved to set me up outside on
sunny days with my own tea party. My Pop Pop, a carpenter/contractor had
created a little table for me out of scraps of leftover wood. I had my own tiny
tea set and willingly “shared” the little red packets of raisins with my
“babies”, the dolls and stuffies I was so fond of taking care of.
During the winter my other set of grandparents lived in a
big old house with my family, including my cousin, who had been orphaned. Since
we were the same ages, we became like sisters. This grandmother (the one I
dedicated my cookbook to, “Lady Virginia”)
loved to eat and to cook for others. She was also a night owl who enjoyed
staying up until the late show went off the air around 2 am. One night when we
were four years old, she surprised Cousin Lynne and me by waking us in the wee
hours and asking us: “Would like some warm cherry pie with vanilla ice cream?” Did we ever! Leaping out of bed and entering
her inner sanctum, that cheery yellow kitchen she was almost always in, we
three enjoyed clandestine moments of sheer happiness together, laughing and
chattering amid bites of sweet bliss, while my Grandpa snored away. Grandma was
an example of someone who liked to cook and create in the kitchen, and just HAD
to share her latest creation with someone, even if it was four am!
By contrast, my Granny Goose at the Jersey
shore had a lot of common sense, and served healthful food that kept me healthy
and happy. She bought whole-grain bread right off the bread truck and lots of
fresh fruits and veggies in season from the farm stand. My favorite was blueberries,
which I could never seem to eat enough of!
Although we indulged in such delights as ice cream, dessert at her house
was often “a poor man’s dessert”, consisting of a slice of whole-grain bread
and butter. It would never have occurred to her to bake a pie at 2 am and then
wake me to eat it in the middle of the night!
My uncles nurtured
my early interest in cooking and baking by gifting me with an E-Z Bake oven
when I was eight. All too soon, however, I outgrew this in favor of creating
dishes using my mom’s real stove and oven.
I was an avid reader and later realized that almost all my
favorite scenes from books somehow revolved around FOOD as a theme. I vividly
remember Heidi telling us about The Grandfather up in the little hut in the Swiss
Alps where they lived. He would take fresh apples, freshly-made goat cheese and
a stick, and roast them over the hut’s little fireplace. These they would
spread on freshly-baked bread from the Village mill.
In THE SECRET GARDEN, little Miss Mary feasted on Colin’s
mother’s biscuits and potatoes from their humble cottage garden, and it became
part of the reason for her return to health, along with time out of doors in
the fresh moor air with her cousin and friend, tending their secret garden
together and exercising.
Movies’ greatest moments also seem to involve food in one
way or another. The most often remembered scene from “Lady & the Tramp” is
the sharing by Tramp of his treasured Italian restaurant back-door spaghetti
& meat balls with his new love, Lady.
“It’s a Wonderful Life” shares with us the simple ritual
house blessing involving salt, bread and wine.
“Moonstruck” is fraught with food themes, from a restaurant
public after-dinner proposal to a morning breakfast table proposal at the end
of the film.
After Michael, the battling angel, returns to heaven in
“Michael”, his traveling companions adopt his habit of putting a kazillion
sugar cubes into their tea and coffee.
One of the most meaningful moments for me in “Brother Sun,
Sister Moon”, is when Claire comes out into the cold rain with a loaf of
homemade bread to offer to Francesco and his followers.
I could go on, but I’m pretty sure you all have your fave
food-themed moments if you stop to think about it.
Just because I’m a vegan does not mean that I can’t
appreciate film’s greatest food moments as well as pages from a beloved book.
Some of the food is vegan but even if it is not, that doesn’t stop me from
appreciating this ritual that most of us are fortunate enough to share with
others three times a day. The sharing of food in the United States even has its own
special holiday, Thanksgiving. Among the vegan community, we also celebrate
this important Day of Thanks by creating a “gentle Thanksgiving”, in which no
animals are sacrificed. See you next month when I promise to share a recipe.
