i was raised vegan, in the 1980s, when it was neither trendy nor particularly easy to do (health reasons coupled with the fact that my mother hated touching raw meat). the most prominent food memory I have is one thanksgiving when my mother took it upon herself to introduce us to seitan. if you’ve never experienced the joys of seitan, made from scratch, in the essentially pre-internet days where it was difficult to get a recipe that wasnt either awful or untested (presumably someone came up with the recipe but they must have been suffering from chronic mental illness), then you havent lived. after eating it, I too was wishing I hadnt lived.

seitan is wheat gluten - you make it like you’d make bread, but then you cover the dough with water and leave it alone for a day or two, then strain out the gluten. the resulting mass is then shaped and cooked. it looks like a pre-cancerous mass in shades of brown, and has the consistency of a fibrous sponge - when you’re struggling to choke it down, it’s like eating old chewing gum that has no flavor, or a nice lump of gristle without the beneficial nature of gristle. it’s foul beyond belief. anyone who actually enjoys it should be prescribed meds & involuntarily committed to the mental ward.

I love my mother but what she created in her kitchen for that thanksgiving dinner was a crime against man and god - an unholy marriage of allegedly healthy food (on a day that revels in unhealthy overconsumption) and abdominal malaise. I was raised to eat what was set in front of me - it’s polite manners, and it compliments the cook - but I really just couldnt do it and my stomach was rebelling. I was in severe gastric distress. since my folks were health freaks and they had any number of naturopathic/quack-science remedies for common ailments, I was prescribed charcoal pills (used to treat food poisoning - yeah, let that sink in). after an hour or so I became nauseous and then began projectile vomiting chunky, partially digested seitan and stomach bile that was black as night - similar in many respects to that scene in the Exorcist. it went everywhere, and the smell…

anyway that’s my not-so-fond childhood food memory.

My adoptive mother is Indian and made lots of Indian food. I’m not Indian, but it’s ingrained in me, enough that I see it and am interested.

In ramadan, people fasted all day long and broke their fast at evening. In the morning, my granma prepared “keşkek”; tomato paste, wheat and stock, put it all in a clay pot called “caba”. She’d take the caba’s, hand me a bunch of firewood and we’d walk to the neighbors house. Everybody in the neighbourhood did this. They had a huge outdoor oven, everybody would bring firewood and their caba’s. Then they’d put all of the cabas in the oven, fire it and let it cook, until it’s evening, time to break the fast. The food would slowly cook in fire and when it’s time to break the fast, the whole neighbourhood smelled like delicious keşkek. Then you’d go get your cabas from the neighbor, and there would be this thick crust on top. That was my favorite, and honestly I haven’t had anything that smells or tastes that good. I’d wait for ramadan every year. Of course I wouldn’t fast because I was just a kid

What my mother called “allergy testing.”

Basically, myself and my siblings were placed on a diet that consisted of rice cakes (the puffed-rice-compressed-discs-of-bland type) and margarine for a few days to “detox.” Then we were introduced to foods to see if we had an “allergic reaction.” Two things stand out in my memories.

1. I specifically recall the sensation of waking in the middle of the night to vomit my “dinner” all over myself: an entire plate of overcooked, boiled, green (string) beans. This meant, to my deluded mother, that I was allergic to string beans. I’m not. Unfortunately, though, I couldn’t stand the taste of string beans for about 30 years after that.

2. Going to birthday parties as an eight year old and bringing your own rice cakes (the puffed-rice-compressed-discs-of-bland type) and margarine and not being able to partake of the cakes and candy and soda and other sugary deliciousness was both soul cruising and humiliating.

Edit: punctuating

My family makes chicken broth from scratch. The recipe is boiling a whole chicken with veggies in a large pot for forever. Strain before eating.

I remember as a young child I was sick with something and couldn’t seem to throw up whatever was making me ill. My mother made the broth, then gave me a bowl… unstrained. The sight of bones, gristle, and fat lumps was too much for me and I immediately threw up (and felt a lot better!). For decades I felt guilty about this until finally my mom told me it was intentional. Still laugh thinking about it. I love my mom and the broth, but I eat it strained now.

I once ate a pizza my aunt made and almost threw up. I did that a lot when she made food, I guess we just had wildly different ideas about what food should taste like.

I find it hilarious, honestly. There’s not a single food in common we both like.

My grandma always made bread pudding. I remember with great joy, she always sat me at the old wooden table, and i enjoyed every bite. I wish she were here and would give me a pudding. I miss her so much.

My aunt forcing me to eat tomatoes. I hated them, and refused to eat them, which upset my grandmother. I had a mean aunt, who forced my brother and I to sit down and eat them anyway, even though we hated them…

Imagine my surprise when I found out how good they taste!

I still love them to this day :)

Tostinos pizza and frozen corn dogs! Made me feel happy AF!

Positive : my mums home made bread and butter pudding fresh out the oven on a cold night still brings a smile and is something I am lucky enough to still get to enjoy.

Negative: that time when I was about 5 when we were having pasta for dinner and somehow a whole clove of garlic ended up on my plate and I bit right through it. That’s the first time I ever remember tasting garlic and I was totally unprepared, I was sick everywhere a few moments later

banana + sultana + honey in a sanwich

Getting sick from too much Strawberry Qwik. C;mon, GenXers, you’ve done it too!

My mother’s homemade bread. We had an outdoor wood fire oven and she made sourdough bread with the thickest, burnt crust, but the softest, fluffiest crumb. We moved, and I’ve never had bread that good since.

I was a sickly child, so I’d spend a lot of my time at my grandma’s house. Every evening she would make me a hot cup of milo for me to dip some biscuits in. One sip and I feel relaxed, safe, warm, and loved. I love her milo so much that if anyone else made it, even with the same recipe, it was never the same. I love my grandma