Immigrants may choose to stay connected to the past in many ways. But one of the most powerful ways is through food. The combination of smell, taste, and familiar company is often enough to keep alive the memories of the native country. A lot can change with immigration though. Food is no exception to the change in culture.
My mother had lived in Trinidad for seven years before immigrating to the United States. She rejoined her mother who had gone before. Soon, she was enjoying all of the meals that she had been eating for years. But it was not all exactly the same. All of the traditional foods that she had come to enjoy were there: Peas and rice, roti, bake, sweetbread, curry chicken, dumplings, and fish among others. But the feeling of living off of the land was gone.
Trinidad is beautiful tropical island with an abundance of sun and land. Everyone had a house and gardens were plentiful. My mother’s family owned avocado and lemon trees. Sweet potatoes, yams, cassava, and other foods such as plantains were known to have come from their own land or neighboring soil. Now in the US, finding the materials, the breads, fish, and provisions was easy enough. But there was a new concern for all of the additives in the food. Gone were the days of getting avocado from trees and chicken from their chicken coop. My mother could only feel a sense of loss that the food over here was lacking in what made the food in the old country so great. The treatment of the food over here was to be questioned, but in the end my grandmother was able to obtain the materials for all the foods from Trinidad.
But, a starker difference than the quality of the food was the company to share it with. Over here, my mother only had her immediate family to eat with. In Trinidad, there was a whole list of extended family members from which she could share meals with at their house. Most notable was her grandmother and the loss of her company. Gone was the tradition of joining grandmother for her tea and biscuits at 3:00 pm, a habit picked up during British rule of the island. Her grandmother was also of course the one who taught her mother to cook. So, more than anything my mother missed the company of her grandmother and her cooking.
Yet now in America, my mother’s dominating emotion wasn’t grief or homesickness when eating her mother’s cooking. Rather, the food of her country helped her cope with the transition of immigration. Much in her world changed with the move, but the food remained constant, an anchor to the past. She missed her extended family, but she was comforted that she remained connected to them through the foods that they both ate.
Unfortunately, my grandmother never bothered to teach my mother most of the recipes that she did know. Their whole immediate family experienced the effects of Americanization. So while the old cooking from Trinidad stayed intact, American foods would soon slip into the menu, and the firm reliance on Trinidadian cooking would crack. Nowadays my mother still has a love for homemade food and its significance for a connected family. Her displayed cooking repertoire consists mainly of pastries and desserts: cookies, quiches, and cakes.
Nonetheless, my family periodically joins my grandmother, aunts, and cousin for dinner at grandma’s house. There, recipes picked up in America, such as potato salad and macaroni and cheese, sit on our plates alongside the more traditional rice, avocado and plantains. My mother lights up at helping my grandmother and her sisters prepare the foods for their holiday dinners. Much of the food is vastly different than what they used to eat as children, but that is insignificant to my mother and aunts. What matters are the people with who they share the food. Food aided their transition to America through the memories of the land and family that they had left behind, and it was now strengthening the ties of the family that they had grown here. The times, place, and food have all changed, but my mother’s family connection between food and family remain as strong as ever.
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