The Food You Miss Is Rarely Just Food
The food came third in the sentence and first in the kitchen.
Picture a couple named Helen and Walt. They love their new town. The light is good, the neighbors are kind and the market is full. Then one Sunday Helen stands in the kitchen and says she would trade the whole market for a plain bagel from the shop on her old corner.
Walt laughs. Helen does not, quite.
What people describe
I have read a good number of accounts about this. The foods change. The feeling does not.
In Mexico, one long thread of retirees listing what they miss turned into a kind of game. Ten missed foods, and one giant burrito from a restaurant back home. The tone was wry. People were poking fun at themselves, but you could tell the list was real.
In Costa Rica, one person wrote of missing friends and family first, and then, almost as an afterthought, Italian food. I think the order matters. The food came third in the sentence and first in the kitchen.
In Ecuador, a person described food that felt smothered in sauce and bland, and then connected it to a dip in mood. The writer also described how close their family was. The meal was lonely because the table was.
In Uruguay, someone who had been there a couple of years wanted a curry. Not a special curry. Just a curry, the way a certain place made it, with the right heat.
| Place | What was missed | What it seemed to stand for |
|---|---|---|
| Mexico | A list of foods from home, said with a smile | Small comforts, and the habit of being known at a counter |
| Costa Rica | Italian food, after friends and family | A shared table |
| Ecuador | Flavor, and a family around it | Closeness |
| Uruguay | A particular curry | A taste of an earlier life |
What I make of it
I think the food is a handle. It is a small thing you can name when the large thing has no name. "I miss my sister" is heavy. "I miss her lasagna" is something you can say at dinner.
That is not a reason to dismiss it. If the handle is what lets you say the feeling, the handle matters.
Helen and Walt tried a few things. They found a baker who made something close to the bagel. It was not the same.
"It's good," Helen said. "It's just not the one."
"Maybe it was never the bagel," Walt said.
"No," she said. "But I still want the bagel."
I like that she did not argue. Wanting the bagel and wanting the old corner can sit together.
You could…
- Write down the five foods you would miss, then next to each one, who you ate it with.
- Stay a month somewhere and see which items on your list you stop thinking about.
- Learn to cook one dish from home before you leave, and one from the place before you decide.
- Plan a visit home with a food in mind, and notice what it does to the wanting.
What do you miss, and who does it remind you of?
Tell us in the comments