Something Personal (food is personal)

Something Personal (food is personal)

Something Personal
Food is personal when it is eaten with friends or family. Friends will always cause a commotion, like my friends did at a Chinese buffet. Family will make the meal memorable, like my father has for me on multiple occasions. M. F. K. Fisher also holds an important moment in her memory that involves food. Food can hold meaning when it is associated with any type of emotion.

Food can become personal when it is associated with something hysterical that occurs within a group of friends. For example, one of my most memorable meals was a couple years ago with a group of friends. The group consisted of five boys and one other girl besides me. We went to a local Memphis Chinese buffet called Dragon China. As you can imagine, all fifteen year old boys are very rowdy and love to play jokes. One of the boys, Jacob, got up to go get more food. The prankster of the group, Dillon, decided to pour duck sauce, soy sauce and sugar into Jacob’s coke. Jacob came back and took a bite of whatever he got. He realized that what he got was extremely spicy so he grabbed his coke and started to chug it. Jacob’s eyes got huge as he finally registered that his drink tasted odd. At that point the entire table was laughing hysterically. Jacob looked around the group, spit his mouthful of drink back into his glass, and dumped the rest of the contents on Dillon’s head. This experience has caused me to laugh anytime I crave Chinese food. As I said before, friends may cause quite a commotion. This meal I will never forget because of the absolute humility it caused for the two boys.

Family can always be counted on to make a meal memorable. As a child one of my first memories of a meal was with my dad. Mum left for a zoo conference in West Virginia for a week. Now this was the first time she’d ever left me alone with daddy. The first meal he tried to cook was one that mum always makes, tater tot casserole. The casserole consists of specially seasoned ground beef,...