Food Essay

    If you were to ask people my age what they’re top 3 favorite things are, the vast majority of them would put food on the short list.  I know I would.  I love food, but if you were to ask me what my favorite food is, I honestly couldn’t tell you.  I could fill pages listing my favorite foods.  Eating food is just so simple.  Either I love it or I don’t, and I experience the former more often than the latter.  What’s interesting and more complex is why we love different foods.

    What I think I’ll focus my food essay on is talking about what draws me to particular foods, for example memory.  Smell evokes memory more than any of the other senses, and I know that sometimes I get a whiff of food that can really trigger nostalgia as it brings me back to a day that occurred years ago.  There are also certain tastes that remind me of my childhood. 

Food also connects people to their cultures.  For me, Haitian food is a large part of what makes me feel in touch with my Haitian roots.  Sometimes I eat Haitian food that gives a feeling that is equivalent to a mother’s familiar hug.  Some Haitian foods are traditional to eat only on certain occasions.   As someone who was raised in the United States, I feel most connected to my culture when I am eating griot or macaroni au gratin or soup joumou.

    In America, there are other foods that are only consumed and enjoyed seasonally.  Candy corn only tastes good in October.  Most people really only choose to cook a whole turkey on Thanksgiving.  Nobody buys ice pops during the winter.  I’ll definitely explore that in my essay and talk about the odd feeling one gets when eating certain foods on days other than their associated holidays or seasons.

    I am going to try to be as descriptive as possible in my essay when talking about the experience of eating food so that my readers can feel the same connection to food that I do.  Although, the topic that I’m exploring is broad, I feel that I can condense it to feel more specific rather than making it seem like a bunch of different topics mashed into one essay.