Eating Food, Eating Love
2014.05.28 05:44
Eating Food, Eating Love
========================= How we communicate through and with food
Wolran Kim
February 2014
“If you want to be friends with someone, eat together.” This shows how food influences relationships and communication in short. Communication becomes soft and easy while eating together. However, communication studies as a field has largely ignored the role of food. I think most pleasure comes from eating out of the three human desires of sleeping, having sex, and eating. Nowadays, modern people eat for enjoyment rather than for survival.
In spite of all these affirmative facts, I have lived with a persistent thought about the labor of cooking rather than the enjoyment of eating. In my experience, the most basic duty of a mother and wife is making food. Hence I always dreamed of having freedom from this responsibility. I hope that someday people will take one pill instead of eating three meals a day when the days come where all cars fly as planes and utility robots do all the housework.
The most difficult and stressful part was the obligation of cooking after I got married. I often asked myself, ‘Am I too lazy as a woman?’ The fact that there is no food in the refrigerator unless I make it was the most awful situation to me. There are not too many good Korean restaurants in Utah, like they have in Korea Town in Los Angeles. This fact makes me miss my home country more, where can find delicious places everywhere one step out of my house.
I could not understand my friends whose hobbies and specialties are cooking. I thought that eating store-bought cookies while reading a novel is a hundred times better than making cookies for two hours in the kitchen. The standing time in the kitchen is a waste of time and life to me. Moreover, under the Korean Confucian customs, women’s fate is that they have to cook for their family their whole life.
This gender discrimination and the old era’s tradition should be abolished. My mother-in-law who stands in her kitchen over half of the day, and my father-in-law who thinks that is reasonable, look pitiful to me. The reason for separating from them was because of this as well. Then, why did I choose this Cultural Aspects of Food Class? Maybe this choice came from my guilty conscience, because I know how food is important for the wellbeing of life besides the obvious of just staying alive.
However, despite all my negative thoughts, happy memories of my childhood often begin with the smell of food made by my mother. The sound of a knife on the cutting board in the kitchen was a symbol of a peaceful home, and the smell of Kimchi stew was a metaphor for the safest haven in the world. The dinner table, sat around by my family, my six sisters and one brother, was the only time the entire family got together. Also, the sweet snacks held in my father’s hand were the most clear and sweet memories when he came home from work. In retrospect, my happiest moments were also when I watched my husband and my two children eating the food that I made.
The mealtimes helped with family conversations during my children’s puberty. The food played the role of a connection even without any words between parents and children, and the dining room table was glad at that time. When I watch my daughter, who lives outside of my home, come and eat my homemade Korean food, I feel happy as a mother. Cooking is made of devotion. The taste is always proportionate to the time and effort. Devotion of time and effort sprouts and blooms as LOVE between the cook and the eater.
Hence, food strengthens the bonds of family and also personal relations in social situations. How boring and dry would all meetings be, without tea, snacks, or special dishes being served. It is hard to be angry or yell while you are eating. Food usually comes with a smiles or pleasant chatting. Eating sounds are another discourse that could not be expressed by language. Food also creates communication between generations. My mother’s food was a lot different from now, the 21st century.
Missing my mother’s food is missing my mother. In her era, until the 1970s in Korea, people’s greetings were “Did you eat?” and this address was the same as “How are you?” “Good morning” or “Good evening.” This compliment shows the Korean national trauma of poverty during the 36 years of the Japanese colonial era and the Korean War. Food also has a significant role in religious lives. Interestingly, 90% of the two million Korean-Americans attend church compared to the 25% of Christians in South Korea. Korean churches always eat snacks or meals in association sessions for better relations. The food represents the culture.
Every country has special food for special days. Koreans have a special food called Ttukgook (떡국) for New Years Day and Songpyun (송편) for the Korean Thanksgiving called Chusuk (추석). Americans eat turkey for Thanksgiving. Learning how to cook turkey was very fun and turkey dinner is the chance to show my cultural assimilation to my children. Most meetings and conferences have drinks, snacks, or meals. Indeed, food is the most important means of human life, and the easiest way to change from daily life to a party.
Still, my husband and I drive our rental car to a Korean restaurant as soon as we go to another state. While living in the United States, we can forget or abandon everything about Korea, but not the food. Our tongues and stomachs are very stubborn. Food is the most comprehensive and also simple factor representing culture, economy, history, and ethnics. Food needs capital, but food is a humanistic capital that requires time and effort.
The following short story always touches my heart. An artist goes around all over the world to seek the most beautiful scene that he wants to draw. But he returns home with empty hands and a confused mind. Before long, he finally finds the most beautiful scene in the world at home. It is the scene of the dining room table surrounded by the laughing family. The small things in life are never small when you look back. Where there is love, there is always food.
========================= How we communicate through and with food
Wolran Kim
February 2014
“If you want to be friends with someone, eat together.” This shows how food influences relationships and communication in short. Communication becomes soft and easy while eating together. However, communication studies as a field has largely ignored the role of food. I think most pleasure comes from eating out of the three human desires of sleeping, having sex, and eating. Nowadays, modern people eat for enjoyment rather than for survival.
In spite of all these affirmative facts, I have lived with a persistent thought about the labor of cooking rather than the enjoyment of eating. In my experience, the most basic duty of a mother and wife is making food. Hence I always dreamed of having freedom from this responsibility. I hope that someday people will take one pill instead of eating three meals a day when the days come where all cars fly as planes and utility robots do all the housework.
The most difficult and stressful part was the obligation of cooking after I got married. I often asked myself, ‘Am I too lazy as a woman?’ The fact that there is no food in the refrigerator unless I make it was the most awful situation to me. There are not too many good Korean restaurants in Utah, like they have in Korea Town in Los Angeles. This fact makes me miss my home country more, where can find delicious places everywhere one step out of my house.
I could not understand my friends whose hobbies and specialties are cooking. I thought that eating store-bought cookies while reading a novel is a hundred times better than making cookies for two hours in the kitchen. The standing time in the kitchen is a waste of time and life to me. Moreover, under the Korean Confucian customs, women’s fate is that they have to cook for their family their whole life.
This gender discrimination and the old era’s tradition should be abolished. My mother-in-law who stands in her kitchen over half of the day, and my father-in-law who thinks that is reasonable, look pitiful to me. The reason for separating from them was because of this as well. Then, why did I choose this Cultural Aspects of Food Class? Maybe this choice came from my guilty conscience, because I know how food is important for the wellbeing of life besides the obvious of just staying alive.
However, despite all my negative thoughts, happy memories of my childhood often begin with the smell of food made by my mother. The sound of a knife on the cutting board in the kitchen was a symbol of a peaceful home, and the smell of Kimchi stew was a metaphor for the safest haven in the world. The dinner table, sat around by my family, my six sisters and one brother, was the only time the entire family got together. Also, the sweet snacks held in my father’s hand were the most clear and sweet memories when he came home from work. In retrospect, my happiest moments were also when I watched my husband and my two children eating the food that I made.
The mealtimes helped with family conversations during my children’s puberty. The food played the role of a connection even without any words between parents and children, and the dining room table was glad at that time. When I watch my daughter, who lives outside of my home, come and eat my homemade Korean food, I feel happy as a mother. Cooking is made of devotion. The taste is always proportionate to the time and effort. Devotion of time and effort sprouts and blooms as LOVE between the cook and the eater.
Hence, food strengthens the bonds of family and also personal relations in social situations. How boring and dry would all meetings be, without tea, snacks, or special dishes being served. It is hard to be angry or yell while you are eating. Food usually comes with a smiles or pleasant chatting. Eating sounds are another discourse that could not be expressed by language. Food also creates communication between generations. My mother’s food was a lot different from now, the 21st century.
Missing my mother’s food is missing my mother. In her era, until the 1970s in Korea, people’s greetings were “Did you eat?” and this address was the same as “How are you?” “Good morning” or “Good evening.” This compliment shows the Korean national trauma of poverty during the 36 years of the Japanese colonial era and the Korean War. Food also has a significant role in religious lives. Interestingly, 90% of the two million Korean-Americans attend church compared to the 25% of Christians in South Korea. Korean churches always eat snacks or meals in association sessions for better relations. The food represents the culture.
Every country has special food for special days. Koreans have a special food called Ttukgook (떡국) for New Years Day and Songpyun (송편) for the Korean Thanksgiving called Chusuk (추석). Americans eat turkey for Thanksgiving. Learning how to cook turkey was very fun and turkey dinner is the chance to show my cultural assimilation to my children. Most meetings and conferences have drinks, snacks, or meals. Indeed, food is the most important means of human life, and the easiest way to change from daily life to a party.
Still, my husband and I drive our rental car to a Korean restaurant as soon as we go to another state. While living in the United States, we can forget or abandon everything about Korea, but not the food. Our tongues and stomachs are very stubborn. Food is the most comprehensive and also simple factor representing culture, economy, history, and ethnics. Food needs capital, but food is a humanistic capital that requires time and effort.
The following short story always touches my heart. An artist goes around all over the world to seek the most beautiful scene that he wants to draw. But he returns home with empty hands and a confused mind. Before long, he finally finds the most beautiful scene in the world at home. It is the scene of the dining room table surrounded by the laughing family. The small things in life are never small when you look back. Where there is love, there is always food.