For every family that ever gets together to hangout, play games, ask about your current life situations, celebrate some holiday or event, or for any other reason, food is always the important factor. It doesn’t matter if Great Aunt Doris can’t make it all the way from Georgia. It matters how many family members are going to be there to prepare enough food. For Abbey, family gatherings were always a great time. She never so much enjoyed Thanksgiving questions about “boyfriends” or her “future after college” compared to stuffing her face with gourmet family recipes. Food is always the highlight of the get together. It probably applies to most grandmothers, but Abbey’s grandma was always overdoing herself on food. Every birthday in the family, she would bake a cake from scratch and decorate it herself. Just like Laura Shapiro wrote in “Something from the Oven” on how women from the 50’s preferred to cook things from individual ingredients rather than from pre-prepared foods, Abbey’s grandma did just that. At family gatherings, there are always multiple dishes of casseroles, potatoes, salads, meats, and veggies made from grandma’s recipes, always with a hint of love. Not to mention the plethora of appetizer foods and desserts. There are usually enough leftovers after Christmas Eve dinner to feed her whole family twice again. It’s no secret that food is to some degree worshipped from family to family across cultures.
As a child, Abbey wasn’t very adventurous in the food category. She was one of the picky ones as most younger children are. Her grandma’s Finnish nisu bread was a favorite, and except for a love of hotdogs and chicken nuggets, you could have called her a vegetarian. There was one time when her mom brought her to a fast food restaurant. It wasn’t the first time she had been to one but it was the first time she had insisted on ordering a cheeseburger. Not just any cheeseburger though. Abbey wanted a cheeseburger with no meat, literally just a bun and cheese. Of course, her mom found it hysterical, but that was the way she ate as a kid.
Dinner time was always family time growing up. Abbey would sit with her brother and parents, talk about anything and everything, and enjoy a hot dinner together. There would be the occasional reminder to chew with your mouth closed, a politeness required in their family. Before leaving the table, Abbey and her brother would have to finish their glasses of milk. Those bones had to grow big and strong somehow. Occasionally Abbey’s mom liked to introduce a new food to the family. One evening it was Brussels sprouts. After seeing the disgusted looks on the faces of her kids and husband, Abbey’s mom made up an excuse to not try the sprouts. It’s fair to say that after that incident she never made them try anything new since she herself hadn’t been willing to try it.
In July of 2015 Abbey spent a month in Belgium with a friend she had met the year before. During her time, she experienced many different foods, her favorite being the fries (and the beer) from the friterie, a popular Belgian fried food place. It surprised her that she liked the fries the most since she had fries in America as well. Belgian fries were just so much better. Per her foreign friends they were cooked “twice”. Even more delicious than the fries were the variety of sauces used to dip the fries in. Instead of ketchup or ranch, they use Andalouse, Samouri, and Mayo, sauces that Abbey would have never tried on her own. Experiencing all the different foods in Belgium was when she started looking at food in a new way and was no longer so hesitant about trying new foods. Abbey was more than excited to bring home sauces and candies for her family and friends to try. Different was no longer scary or intimidating.
Moving away from home for her first year of college was another turning point in eating for Abbey. Specifically, the vast knowledge thrown at her in the different classes she has taken. After watching documentaries like “Food Inc.” and “Forks Over Knives”, she understands why so much of the food industry is the way it is. She has also come to terms with her own eating habits, and has very high hopes for changing them in the next year or so. Eating more fruits and vegetables from the local farmer’s market, and eating less processed foods are two of her biggest goals. She’s aware of the environmental effects of eating too much meat and plans to limit her overall meat consumption while trying to eat less factory farmed meat as well. Overall she has adopted a more personal and emotional attachment to what she eats, and is learning to genuinely care about what she puts onto her plate and into her body.
From that innocent girl who didn’t want a meat patty on her cheeseburger, to the adult who now understands why, Abbey has truly changed in the way she eats and thinks about eating. Maybe that one moment in the fast food drive through with her mom was the first time she began to think about what she was eating, as little and unconscious as it was. It did get her here today, wanting and beginning to change to improve her overall health, and the health of the environment everyone must live in. Abbey looks forward to cooking more of her own meals, introducing new foods into her diet, and living a flavorful and healthy life, not just for her, but for everyone.
Moving away from home for her first year of college was another turning point in eating for Abbey. Specifically, the vast knowledge thrown at her in the different classes she has taken. After watching documentaries like “Food Inc.” and “Forks Over Knives”, she understands why so much of the food industry is the way it is. She has also come to terms with her own eating habits, and has very high hopes for changing them in the next year or so. Eating more fruits and vegetables from the local farmer’s market, and eating less processed foods are two of her biggest goals. She’s aware of the environmental effects of eating too much meat and plans to limit her overall meat consumption while trying to eat less factory farmed meat as well. Overall she has adopted a more personal and emotional attachment to what she eats, and is learning to genuinely care about what she puts onto her plate and into her body.
From that innocent girl who didn’t want a meat patty on her cheeseburger, to the adult who now understands why, Abbey has truly changed in the way she eats and thinks about eating. Maybe that one moment in the fast food drive through with her mom was the first time she began to think about what she was eating, as little and unconscious as it was. It did get her here today, wanting and beginning to change to improve her overall health, and the health of the environment everyone must live in. Abbey looks forward to cooking more of her own meals, introducing new foods into her diet, and living a flavorful and healthy life, not just for her, but for everyone.