The Tradition of Food

Whenever a family gathers, at least in my bunch, there is always food. Lots of food. Savory and sweet, meaty and starchy, breakfast and a big midday dinner with a few snacks in between. It is usually while we’re eating a meal that we’re already planning the next. Even as we scarfed down Aunt Gloria’s homemade spaghetti on Wednesday we started making plans for yesterday’s Thanksgiving feast.

As the family members talked recipes and cholesterol levels, my brain went back to the farm – the place I ran around as a child with my sister and cousin when we visited for summer break or Christmas, the place where my father spent the largest chunk of his childhood (and still calls home) and the one piece of property I wish we still owned as a family. (My grandparents eventually sold it, and not long after the farmhouse burned down.)

Dinner at Mamaw and Papaw’s house was always the same: the main-dish meat, buttered potatoes, self-canned corn or green beans from the cupboard, sliced white bread with butter and a glass of iced tea in a Strawberry Shortcake glass. (For the record, I’ve never liked tea, but I couldn’t not drink it, for it would’ve seemed ungrateful.) Sometimes it was barbecue deer and sometimes it was something a little harder to eat – like groundhog or rabbit – but the point remains: it was a comfort to sit around the table together and share a meal. I may not have realized it in the moment, and it might have even taken having a family of my own to realize it fully, but these are the occasions that create the sweetest memories.

Right now I’m sipping coffee at Aunt Gloria’s kitchen table while she fries bacon – for a proper breakfast, you know. There is hash brown casserole to be eaten and scrambled eggs to enjoy alongside. The food is good in my family. Really good. But the family is even better.

Hope you all enjoyed your Thanksgiving. Mine has gone by too quickly.

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