Writing a Story about Food

A recent class assignment spurred a reminiscent moment to a hard part of my life. This specific rhetoric and writing course, has pushed me to expand my normal styles of writing to include descriptive imagery, strong authorial voice. Most importantly, the course has expanded writing topics and pushed me to look at place, society, travel, food through alternative perspectives. Essentially, our association with environment is entirely dependent on the way we have interpreted it. So, when my professor asked us to write a story about food. I thought of my grandfather.

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I like to say that I'm an all-American girl. Born and raised in Dallas, Texas, I frequented a hotdog with ketchup at the baseball stadium and a bowl of popcorn at the movie theaters. I grew up attending the backyard barbeques and the potluck dinners of potato salad. But I'm also a woman of many backgrounds, both Greek and Italian. For a larger part of my youth, these facts, my being Greek and Italian, didn't hold much significance. Sure, I had the dark hair and the thickened eyebrows to show for it, but I didn't speak either of the romantic languages, nor had I traveled to the Mediterranean waters to meet my distant relatives. My appreciation for my culture and family connection was limited. All of that started to change however, thanks to a traditional Greek dish called pastitsio.

When you think about it, food has a funny way of inserting itself into a lot of reflective memories: the break up conversation at the coffee shop, the get well soon basket of cookies by a hospital bed, the pizza party for every historic birthday. Well of course, food is necessary for our survival, we have to make it part of our lives. But what happens when we make it part of our story? Pastitsio, the yummy Greek version of lasagna, does not have to be part of everyone's story, but over the course of my life, it has become part of mine. My intention in this paper isn't to make you cry. Although, in telling this story, tears might be a byproduct. I guess that’s ok, because in a way I like to think that tears can be an emotion invoked by love, sympathy, or understanding. As you read, know that this is not a normal story. This is a story about culture, about family, about food and reflection. This is a story about finding the meaning in the miniscule.

Mediterranean food is notoriously delicious. Rich in fat and carbs, I was the luckiest girl in the world when it came to holiday food. I didn't think much of it though. Greek food was simply just something we ate on special occasions. Pastitsio, the layered, sweet, and meaty lasagna, always made it on my plate. This is largely thanks to my grandfather's insistence that no holiday plate was missing a sliver of pastitsio. My Papu was a short 5’5 (5’6 on a good day) and Greek in every way. He was the epitome of health; he was the grandfather who was quick to jump on the trampoline with you. He stopped to appreciate every minute detail on a walk. There wasn’t a day where he allowed the stress of a bustling city to speed up his tracks. He made you feel at ease. I miss that about him. I miss hugging him with my tiny arms that couldn't wrap all the way around him. His energy radiated love, kindness, and gentleness, ironic for a rugby player right? He fell in love with rugby during his upbringing in South Africa, and never stopped caring about the game. His two sons, my dad and his brother, played through their college years, he never missed a game. When they retired from the sport in their post graduate years, he went on to coach rugby and cared deeply for each player. He was smart as a wick but would let you beat him in a game of checkers or cards. The man could also eat. He would snag the scraps off your plate so you could be a part of the clean plate club. And he could guzzle an iced tea and his second plate for breakfast in a matter of minutes.

In 8th grade, my biggest concern was tripping in the hallway or saying something embarrassing in front of a group of people. I was at that point in my life where I thought I had the world figured out, yet in reality I had no understanding of how complicated life could be. My grandfather, my papu, was diagnosed with brain cancer, a terminal glioblastoma. When he was diagnosed, my family rallied around him. We came up with a game plan, and my world became real very quickly. My dad read so many medical journals, he could have passed the medical bar. During his treatment, my grandparents moved in with us. It became the job of our family to love on my grandfather and become his support system. He fought cancer like a warrior. Even as the radiation attacked his body, he never once complained. He smiled when we would return home from school and would greet us with a big sloppy kiss. As hard as he fought, the glioblastoma was an angry and unforgiving cancer. Slowly, we began to understand this wasn't something he was going to recover from. It was soul crushing, those moments of sadness hit our family hard. But this journey wasn’t one only filled with sorrow.

As I mentioned, my grandfather loved to eat, and his appetite never deviated during his illness. His favorite food that he often craved was pastitsio. Opening the front door after a long day of middle school, I remember smelling the wafts of cinnamon. Bustling around the kitchen, my mom and aunt stood at the island surrounded by ingredients. The meal is quite the process to make, usually reserved for Christmas or Thanksgiving in our family. But without a hint of complaint, I would join my aunt and mom in preparing the meal for dinner. As I mixed the ingredients to create the traditional béchamel sauce, my mother and aunt would talk about updates of the day, about politics, about their struggles. I would listen to those conversations with alertness but not understand half of it (I had a tendency to want to grow up quickly, to be in adult circles). But now, looking back on those moments, I now realize that is when they started to really lean on each other. Here we all were, moving through this painful part of our lives only to find that it was the glue that really bound our family together. The meat sauce sizzled on the stove and the pasta boiled in the pot and we would laugh, and things would feel normal. I hastily layered the milky sauce onto the lasagna and would beam with pride at my new cooking skills. The smells and aroma of the dish would lure my sisters down the stairs, my dog would snuggle up next to Papu, and we’d stand around the island awaiting the excitement while the lasagna cooled down. I didn’t think about it then, how it created a true feeling of togetherness.

When we finished preparing the dish, my mom cut a giant piece for my grandfather. I remember walking over to the couch to give him dinner and was thanked with a classic Papu kiss and smile. His eyes would light up and his gratitude was so evident. Sitting next to him would be my dad and my uncle. On the TV, rugby would be the background noise to their conversations with their dad. He would belly laugh at my uncle's silly jokes and they would groan over their conflicting political conversations. You would forget in those moments, that anything was wrong. I would make pastitsio for hours every day just to witness that moment again.

When my grandfather died my family grieved deeply, I don't think his absence is a space that can ever be filled. But his death brought us so much. My dad and his brother bonded on a level of closeness they had never been. My sisters and I spent quality time with my cousin. My family came to know each other in a deeply personal way. Even in his hardest of moments, my grandfather brought us together. This wasn't something I was able to fully appreciate at the moment. I understood death and loss, but I didn't understand its implications, its permanence. I look back now on the moments with my grandfather and reflect on the outshine of love that was present. I realize now how special a simple hug can be, a simple laugh, a single slice of pastitsio.

On Christmas and Thanksgiving, pastitsio is a staple dish. It represents so much. It tells the story of my Greek culture, of a lineage of immigrants and world travelers. I like to imagine my papu as a child with his own mother and his yaya (Greek word for grandmother), sitting around a small wooden table all beaming ear to ear as they chewed on the lasagna. I like to imagine the pockets of giggles from my future kids as they stuff their faces with lasagna while I relay funny tales of their great grandfather. This is a food that has transcended its basic principle. It represents little laughs in the face of hardship. This dish represents my Papu, a man full of goodness and light.

I never would have thought that a food could become so symbolic and full of emotion. One dish, one bite invokes a flood of memories that often moves me to tears. Now, at 20 years old when I sit around the dining room table on Christmas, I am filled with gratitude to be surrounded by a family so connected and in tune with each other. And as I take a bite of my pastitsio, I can feel the giant hug of my grandfather and I go to hug him back, not quite reaching all the way around him.

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