I associate food with people. Potato salad reminds me of GeeDaddy. Fried fruit pies and pork roast with rice and gravy make me think about MeeMaw Pauline; cherry pie with a lattice top makes me think about MeeMaw Esther. Lasagna makes me think of my mother and all of the people who have been well-fed at her house. Chicken and dumplings make me think about Aunt Chrissy and visits around her kitchen table; oven-baked barbecue chicken and angel biscuits make me think of Jane and yearly summer trips to Alabama. Banana pudding makes me think about Miss Connie and spinning on a rope swing in her backyard. When I make apple pie I think about my daddy and sometimes about the time when I was 14 and had the 'unfortunate incident' with an aluminum pie pan and an equally unfortunate hair coloring decision just prior to a picnic with the teens from our church. The list of associations goes on and on.
Food is personal to me. It is a way to show love for others, much more importantly than simply feeding their physical bodies. Food is one of my love languages.
If a review of my cumulative Facebook statuses is to be believed, I am obsessed with food. Growing it, fixing it, preserving it, eating it and sharing it with others. My kooky 7th grade English teacher, Mrs. Fischer, would say that I obviously starved to death in a previous life (she believed she had been a Spanish conquistador in a previous incarnation). If there is such a thing as genetic memory, maybe I'm remembering my ancestors going hungry during a time of famine. Improbable hypotheses aside, I simply love food.
Today, I'm off to a cookout with friends, potato salad, sweet tea and mint chocolate chip brownies in tow. Maybe when they have potato salad in the future, someone will think about me.
