cook by faith, not by sight

by Elizabeth 3 Comments

 

I have always loved to cook. When I was younger, I loved helping my parents prepare for family holiday meals, whether that meant sticking my finger in the bowl to “test” the red velvet cake icing for Christmas, or helping my dad season the burgers on the grill on the Fourth of July. At the time, I don’t think I really processed how important food was to my family. It was culture and community. Like Shange writes, it was a celebration. It was love.

When I got to college, the importance of cooking became clear to me because I was no longer able to enjoy food in the same way. Not only did I not have my family to eat with or the type of food I was used to, but I also did not have a personal kitchen. Not having home-cooked meals is something that I think the majority of college students miss, but I also didn’t feel like I had an easy replacement. There aren’t many places in New York that have food that is both Southern and Black, and I can’t exactly afford to eat out all the time.

my mom’s mac and cheese recipe.

Once I moved to Plimpton and had my own kitchen, I was finally able to start cooking again. I realized almost immediately that there were so many things that I couldn’t quite remember how to make, or had never made without my mom. I got mad at her for being vague and she told me, “I don’t know how to tell you to make your mac and cheese, you have to figure it out.” Reading if i can cook reminded me of all of this. The book connects stories, history to the recipes, which I think is so crucial to the way that many cultures connect with food and cooking, and more importantly, the way that we use these things to connect with each other across generations and distance.

Out solution has been Facetime. She too far away to put her hand over mine as I pour ingredients into a mixing bowl, but she can watch me through the camera and tease me about not “folding” my noodles the right way.

Comments ( 3 )

  1. Zachery
    Elizabeth, I can't express to you how deeply I felt this post. One of the greatest and perhaps most difficult challenges for me about college has also been the food. In my family, we tend to eat together–– especially for dinner but even for other meals that might coincide. My parents alternate in who cooks and their meals historically have been a reliable part of my day. After the newness of college food halls wore off (rather quickly) might I add, I definitely felt the role that home-cooked shared meals played in my new college life. Though this is not something I immediately identify as what is off, it is something that I realize every time I go home. When I get to sit down once again with my family to share meals and laughs when I help my grandma bake her notorious pies, that I notice these are moments that I truly need. My favorite element was the moment in which you asked your mother how to make mac and cheese and her response. TOO REAL! Far too often, when specific dishes come to mind through cravings my family either assumes that I know more than I do about the cooking instructions or are unable to explain it because when they make the dishes, it is almost done subconsciously. Maybe I'm going to have to follow your lead and resort to facetime.
  2. Kim Hall
    Elizabeth, what an terrific post-- your Mom is a seer! "“I don’t know how to tell you to make your mac and cheese, you have to figure it out" could have come straight from Vertamae Grosvenor or Ntozake!
  3. Johnson
    Hi Elizabeth, Thank you for sharing this! One of the best and yet most difficult parts about being an upper class student is the ability to have a kitchen and learn to consistently cook for yourself. My parents are Caribbean, and thus so many of my favorite meals call for ingredients that become "niche" or simply unavailable in Morningside Heights. My sophomore year was filled with treks to Harlem and Brooklyn to find the correct ingredients along with long Facetime Calls with my parents to make my recipes like my Jamaican family's "curried chicken" with "rice and peas" and my Dominican family's "cacao tea". The food never ended up tasting exactly like my parent's rendition, but it always ended up tasting really good— and sometimes even better because through the struggle I still managed to make it work. As Shange points to in her book, cooking is an embodied way to archive family traditions/lineage, and it's so beautiful to engage with this lineage building in college. One question, do you find that since coming to college that you have increased your vegetable consumption? If so, why?

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