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Introduction of the panel
The journey we take in this blog will take us around the globe. We will explore the food memories of three people from three different places and look closely at what not only ties them together, but also what gives them distinctively different identities. The first person is a single Mother living in Carterville Illinois and working at the Law School at Southern Illinois University. Akami Eayrs’s Father is a retired Air Force Officer and traveled all over the world and her Mother and Grandmother are Japanese. Though her Mother was raised in Japan, she has spent most of her adult life living in the United States. The second person we meet is a retired Medical Doctor, published Author, an American folk-art painter and regionally acclaimed pasta extraordinaire. Dr. William Renzulli grew up on the East Coast of the United States and is a proud 3rd Generation Italian American. Finally, we meet a smart Polish woman from Chicago whose Father was a Chicago Police Officer and she married a Greek / Albanian Chicago Firefighter. Most impressive though is that Karen Samata raised two daughters while managing in some of the most highly regarded fine-dining Restaurants in the world. She possesses a sharp and profound pallet for wine and currently leads a raucous Chicago Ukulele group. They gave me their time and shared poignant stories of their lives and their families and gave me a much clearer mission for this project. I am thankful for their friendships, their kindness and their laughter.
Ethnic Revitalization Through Authentic Generosity
Through my conversations all three people shared overt correlations to their ethnicity and how it built the foundation of their identities, however, clearly for different reasons. Each person spoke in depth and with a sense of validation about the memories of where they come from and the experiences that have guided their own personal food journeys. They all share a core belief that sharing and being generous with one’s food (or food supply) holds high social value, yet no one felt it was ever done with future expectations of reciprocity, so as Sutton writes, their examples represents “general reciprocity.” This led me to the question then of why are they are so generous? For that, I discuss each person’s thinking and hear them reflect on powerful reasons that made sharing an important part of their life. Next we will get further away from identity and explore their thoughts on how past memories of food are taken into every day and celebratory meals through what Sutton calls “revitalization.” We will look at a shared perspective around meal ingredients and the value they hold in producing “authentic” meals from the past during current times. Finally, we reflect on another shared perspective between all three people; the deep, rich connectivity to past meals, memory and identity, thru the culinary and kitchen tools used to prepare current meals.
Education, Pride & Preservation
The first part of my discussions and questions were focused on establishing the significance of past food memories to each person and how they shaped their identity and values. Each person made quick reference to their ethnic background and gave me detailed information about their food journey over the course of their lives and how it had changed and evolved. The early part of their lives, to say the first 17-18 years while living with their parents were the most impactful. As a child in a military family, Akami spent the early years of her life traveling from one city to another and her memories are connected to snapshots in time. However, her and her Mother were always sharing Japanese food and cooking techniques wherever they lived. Often preparing sushi or sashimi for an event and they set out as Akami said to “educate people” about traditional Japanese foodways. She also referenced Japanese New Year’s Celebrations in many contexts, but felt her identity was tied to as Sutton suggests “Food does provide calendrical structuring, but within this structuring human action has the potential to make particular food-events especially memorable.” Her early stage values and beliefs then were tied closely to the sharing and education of Japanese foodways to others and thru her and her Mothers actions, delivering memorable food experiences for people all over the world.
As we traveled back thru Dr. Renzulli’s memories of his life growing up on a New Jersey farm and vineyard he eloquently shared that his memories had changed over the past twenty years. He had always felt Italian food was incredibility important in shaping his identity. He also referred to the pride he has in his past memories of food that he still feels today. Yet his sentiment of his first 17-18 years was profound and he said that for many years he had “taken the food of his youth for granted and only was it later in life that I realized that the food I ate was special.” He shared stories of ingredients and recipes and what we discuss later as “revitalization.” Yet what ties him together with the others in this study is the priority and value put on sharing their food. In an article he wrote for the Paducah Sun in January 2019 he laments “I experienced the love and generosity of my parents,…their williness to share and forgive,…around the kitchen table, drinking coffee, sipping wine, or sharing a meal” (authors personal version). I’ve had the pleasure of sharing a number of meals with Dr. Renzulli and his caring wife, and their memories of meals past are on full display as they pridefully share the treasures of their garden, heartfelt stories of food past and present, and the beauty of their heritage.
As Karen and I discussed her early years growing up, she felt deeply connected to the past and related generosity to the Polish community in which she was raised. In her memory she tied it to her Mother’s Parents and a certain recipe that her Grandmother Loti made once a month that packed the local VFW hall! Loti’s Chicken Dumplings brought this small Chicago Polish community together and instilled the value of hospitality in Karen that would travel with her the rest of her life. Today they honor this family meal tradition at one of their favorite restaurants in Chicago’s famed Chinatown neighborhood. She spoke about the richness of flavor similarities between the dumplings from her past and the dumplings of today. This is a confounding food scenario to analyze, but perhaps it goes more to what Belasco would call another of many “line extensions” (75). Through our conversation it became apparent that Karen was focused on preserving the memories and meals of the past for the future of her family. Specifically, she said she had “learned with her daughters that if you plant a seed around food memories” they will grow and continue beyond one’s life. She went on to say that she wants to continue to propagate these food memories with her “daughters’ children and beyond.”
It’s not what you serve, but it’s what you serve it with that matters
In each of my discussions we touched on the “how” of keeping past memories alive today and launching them into the future. I was curious to understand each person’s current meal habits and meal plans and the ties to their past memories of meals. Sutton addresses the concept of “revitalization” in a number of ways, however for my purposes I look at “small “parts” which evoke a whole world that one has left behind” (Sutton, ANTH410Q study guide). This is exposed in two central areas of my research: first, each person utilizes what they call “authentic” ingredients in their current prep and execution of meals they eat today. Second, they all point directly to physical culinary tools, or serving vessels as an important way to connect with past meals. Many of these items have been passed down thru generations of their ancestors and are still currently being used in both ritual and mundane meals.
There are copious ways to define “authentic” in culinary circles both in the West as well as abroad. Modern Chefs and the famed foody community look with a broad scope at what actually makes something authentic. Through my conversations, however, we can interpret “authentic” to mean an ingredient currently used in meals that originates in meals from the past. Each person describes preparation of food that is “so much better” (Eayrs) with “authentic” ingredients and they also tend to have a high level of trust in the “authentic” brand and will go out of their way to acquire the proper “authentic” item(s).
Japanese cuisine has settled in nicely in the US in the last twenty-five years, however it was not until the last fifteen or so that one could acquire high quality and “authentic” ingredients easily. In addition, today in some rural parts of this country, there are no local stores that carry even mass-produced Japanese food. Akami and I discussed her meal planning and execution, and she was the first person that told me that she would not make certain dishes without “authentic” ingredients. However, she also said that the food was not “satisfying” if it was made with off brand ingredients. Leading us to believe that “authentic” parts of a meal as Sutton states, “often explicitly evoke a wholeness, or fullness in experience,” (81). For Akami, revitalization means that she can use the same ingredient in her own meals that she had bought with her Grandmother in Japan. This sense of revitalization also comes through a number of service pieces she has that have been handed down in her family and these items are part of a Japanese ritual; a Tea Ceremony. She uses a family Tea Bowl and Tea Whisk to prepare the tea ceremony and once again we see the impact of bringing past memories to current meals and rituals, and perhaps more importantly, creating a sense of nostalgia around her heritage and Japanese traditions.
During my conversation with Dr. Renzulli we talked at length about Italian cooking including preparation leading up to the meals. He has the luxury of having a wife that grows an abundant garden and will “can” (preserve) as much as possible for the winter months. Yet a dramatic part of their revitalization process is growing tomatoes from the same tomato strains that were used by his parents when he was growing up. The numerous red gravies he produces, then have a true feel of “authenticity” that I believe best represents “embodied memory” and brings to the mind a sense of “the good ole days.” To add to this line of thinking, he makes reference to a number of family Pasta Pots that they use to prepare the pasta for the meals in current times. They have two that they use often, one from his Mother and one from his Wife’s Father. With four to five meals a week containing pasta, these pots serve as vessels for meals that are once again used to revitalize the memory of his time as a child in his parents’ home at the kitchen table. Having witnessed the use of one of these pots my memory will always turn to walking into the house and smelling the “Sunday Night Gravy” simmering and the massive pasta pot sitting proudly on the black iron grate in the middle of the kitchen stovetop. Leaving me with what Sutton calls “prospective memory”, as I have thought often about my next pasta dinner at the Renzulli’s!
The conversation with Karen was an absolute joy! Numerous times we paused as she teared up discussing a food item that is deeply interwoven into many of her family memories and meals. It’s an Alabanian dish, Peta (Burek). This dish comes from her Husband’s side of the family and has many layers, both litterly and figuratively. Now her connection to ingredients is a bit different than the other two people. “Authentic” in her memories means that the ingredients are in season and as fresh as possible. In an article about Karen’s Husband by food writer Mike Sula in 2014 he states, “The recipe, handed down from Samata's Albanian grandmother, was a seasonal thing,” Here once again, lives the idea of revitalization. Connecting to the “authentic” intent of the cook by maintaining an adherence to the fundamental rule for the meal’s ingredients. We also discussed the precarious process of preparing the paper-thin dough. Karen said that the first time she ever saw her husbands Mother rolling out the dough “she was using a broom handle…called an O-Klah-ee, in Albanian” to roll out the dough on a massive countertop. She went on to tell me that when her and her husband did their original kitchen re-design, they designed the countertop large enough to roll the Peta dough – it was not negotiable. She told me that her youngest daughter (Allie) would make Peta with her Grandma often (and is still today Allie is the best at making Peta in the family). She also shared this beautiful story “a day before Allies 10th birthday we went to Ace and spent $3 on a four-foot oak dowl…we wrapped it and gave it to Allie. When she opened it Allie exclaimed…now I have my own O-Klah-ee!”
This was a fascinating project that took me many different directions and forced me to look at the human connection to food and memory much differently. After the three interviews I had to take a few days to think about Suttons work, Kahn’s work and many parts of Belasco’s thinking about food. Yet my study of these three people’s lives around food brought me to conclude that two important elements exist in all three people’s memories. The first is the notion that sharing food and being generous is one virtue that is highly valued in all the ethnicities and cultures discussed. Yes, I believe it is tied directly to their ethnicity, however, I sought to explore a more granular thinking around each person’s reasoning. Then we see that each person had different sentiments about why they valued generosity in meals of the past and how they have carried them forward into current times. Second, I’m fascinated with the idea of revitalization that Sutton brings to light in his book. Through my research I felt a deep connection to each person as they discussed “authenticity” and they continue to revitalize long standing meal traditions and recipes; through the ingredients they use and the vessels they use to both prepare and serve the meals. I have worked to highlight the most valuable elements that go into their efforts to recall meals past, indulge in meals today and look to translate those efforts to meals for future generations and beyond.
Works Cited
Belasco, Warren (2008), Food: The Key Concepts, New York: Bloomsbury Academic.
Sutton, David E. (2001), Remembrance of Repasts, An Anthropology of Food and Memory, New York: Berg.
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