Object or First Memory

Food is a lot of things. It is art, it is life, and most definitely, it is love.

Where food originates from is very important but I like to think of it as the hands they were made from. I often eat a lot when there is food present in front of me, no matter what it is. From chips to cookies to popcorn chicken, you name it, I eat it (except seafood which I am allergic to). I stuff a lot of stuff in my mouth in that matter, but I never feel the sense of fulfillment and satisfaction. I often think that by eating junk food, my stomach would stop growling and start gurgling and moving down the contents in my intestines so the new stuff could fill it up. I would always be wrong because I would only lose energy and still want more junk to stuff down my throat, but I never knew how to stop so I would continue eating.

Eating food made by the hands of my mother is nothing like eating junk food as most of you know. I remember one night when my siblings and I were tired of eating popcorn chicken and hot wings so we decided to wait for my mom to come home and cook for us. When she got home though, she went straight to her room and put a movie on to watch. We did not want to cook because we all knew it was not going to be the same as the food made by my mom, so my siblings and I decided to go and beg my mom to make food for us.

"Mommy, make food for us... PLEASE! Only the stuff you make taste good. We don't know what you put into it to make it taste so good!"

"And you've been gone for so long that we've missed your food and have forgotten, only slightly, how it tastes like."

Her lips curled up, but then opened up to tell us to make our own food and to try to make it taste good.

Whenever I eat food made by my mother, my heart dances and skips around. I feel the need to take it all in, to finish all the food she made in hopes that her love won't be wasted and thrown into landfills. Still now, I prefer my mother's hand made food over any food in restaurants or any packaged and preserved food. With her food, I know that it is real and honest, that even if I only ate a little of it, I would be full and content with that amount.