Feb 07, 2019
A Search for the Secret Sauce I Hoped Would Connect Me to My Heritage
I sought a cherished symbol from my own childhood, not a standardized emblem of all Indonesian culture, which I can’t and shouldn’t pretend is all mine to take.
I sought a cherished symbol from my own childhood, not a standardized emblem of all Indonesian culture, which I can’t and shouldn’t pretend is all mine to take.
Though my mother’s no longer here to meet my son, he’ll taste his grandmother’s cooking though our family’s Sunday gravy, the one I make every week to keep her spirit alive.
Miraci is being the one thing blackness has always been forced to be even when unwilling—political.
“I wanted to be present in Paris. I forgot to be present with my family.”
Your stomach hurts because all you’ve eaten this week is frozen yogurt—but it is a hurt you can bear more than hunger.
This Eid will not be Eid until I’ve spent time crying and laughing, describing the aromas of foods that are not here.
Holding on to our cultural foods and customs was a labor of love, but labor nevertheless. American Night provided a little respite.
“FOE!” he had yelled, when really, phở is more graceful than that.
Herring in Ukraine to fried whiting on my street. Melville to Jewish legend. How easily we eat fish caught from depths we don’t understand.
“Finding joy in food that comes from a bag or a box feels like a sin in a society that demonizes it.”
“If food is like a language, then menudo is its own dialect in my family.”
I want to be the bridge between his memory and her love for cooking.
