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Kristofer Merideth
Eric Leake
WRIT 1133
3/30/12

Around the World

                Food holds an extremely odd position in my family.  We are used to vary wide variety of cuisines. My father is from a small town in the Deep South where typical southern food is prevalent; my mother on the other hand grew up in a town in southern New Mexico where Mexican/New Mexican food is mainly consumed.  Naturally, growing up we had a fair amount of both, especially southern cuisine since that’s where we resided.   However, after third grade we decided to move.  First to DC and then to Krakow, Poland, Makati, The Philippines, and Wassenaar, The Netherlands.  All of these countries have contributed to how I view international food as well as the wonderful food of America.

                My family is known to eat nearly anything from almost any country, but our roots come from right here in the U.S.A.  My brother and I grew up in a small town called Caruthersville, Missouri directly on the Mississippi River, were my father grew up.  While living here we were confronted with southern food frequently; grits, deep-fried catfish, fried okra, biscuits and gravy and much more.   This is more of the inland-southern food, it does not have any seafood like gumbo, our fish come from the fresh water rivers and lakes.  We did not eat this food at home very often; we mainly had it out at restaurants, so it became somewhat of a treat. From a very young age, southern cooking was something that we identified with our home, there’s nothing like a true southern home cooked meal.  This is our foundation of food. 

                The consumption of Mexican food became another major facet of our food arsenal.  For some peculiar reason Mexican food is very famous in our area, despite being far away from the source and the only real Mexican population are the employees of the Mexican restaurants.  Besides being surrounded by people who love Mexican food, which we probably ate more so than southern food, we also became accustomed to it through our Mother; she came from a small town in Southern New Mexico.  Even though there were multiple Mexican restaurants around, we only went to the ones she deemed worthy of being called Mexican food. So by the time my brother and I were in elementary school, we both had a solid foundation of southern cooking and Mexican food, as well as the typical American fast food: pizza, McDonald’s, Taco Bell, etc.. These key foods became essential to us in the near future.

                My father decided to join the State Department while I was in the fourth grade.  I began the fourth grade in a brand new school, miles away from home, in Washington D.C., only to move again to finish it in Krakow, Poland.  This is where a new cuisine was placed at our doorstep.  Instantly we became avid customers of the local Polish tavern, Gaspoda Navoli, due to the amazing food prepared there.  Oddly enough the Poles were only good at preparing their own food, as well as other European cuisines, not any American food (meaning both continents, not simply the U.S.).  After being in a strange country where no one speaks your language, everyone acts as if communism was still in effect, and not to mention mild hostility towards your nationality simply because they don’t like your government, you begin to miss home.  As an expat one of the primary ways to feel at home while being oceans away, is to consume the food of your homeland and childhood.  This comes into effect no matter amazing the local cuisine is, be it Polish, Italian, Chinese or French.  The only problem being that any American food, from U.S. or South America, prepared by the Polish people tasted absolutely terrible.  So every now and then we would make the hour long journey on the poorly maintained communist-era roads to an American base in Germany where we stalked up on food and supplies.  Our house became a Mecca for our American expat friends; we had a ready supply of genuine American food.  This release from the reality that surrounded us was enormous, now I consider those years as some of the happiest in my life.  However, we were not able to get our good Mexican or Southern food from the base.  The food we were able to harvest kept us going until we made it back home for a visit, where we engorged ourselves with Southern and Mexican food.   In times of emotional downfalls, we as humans constantly turn to food to comfort us, this is exactly what happened.  We were in an unfamiliar place that was totally alien to us, naturally we turned to something to comfort us, something that reminded us of the most comfortable place in the world, home.

                The longing for the comfort of American food did not end until approximately eight months ago when we moved to the United States after ten years abroad.  After Poland we encountered The Philippines and The Netherlands, both places we longed for American food just as we did in Poland.  The only difference was that neither country had a very good cuisine themselves.  The Philippines’ cuisine was good as long as you stuck with the seafood, when it came to other foods you had no idea what you were eating. They mainly ate Western food anyway.  The Netherlands does not even have their own cuisine to the extent as other countries, but they are amazing at making cheese chocolate.  One thing we learned from years abroad is that only Americans cook American food the way it should be made.  We always longed for the Southern Thanksgiving meal with the whole family and the outings with friends at the local Mexican restaurant.  Now we can have that chance again.

                Growing up with Southern and Mexican foods as our stapled diet, our family turned to these as comfort foods while we were abroad in foreign lands in order to remind us of home.  Living overseas also made us accustomed to foreign foods as well, from Poland to The Philippines.  Being deprived of our food from home for so long, we savor every bite whenever we eat, knowing what it is like to not have this comfort item most people seem to take for granted.