Eating: a medium for mother-daughter bonding

How three weeks of eating and cooking our way through Southeast Asia has brought my mom and I closer together.

On’s Thai Isan cooking class in Kanchanaburi, Thailand.

The month of March has distilled a theme of eating with my mom. On March 6th, my mom and I set off for three weeks in Cambodia and Thailand, which has just concluded. As extended periods with a parent can sometimes be a cause for concern, I have been surprised by how easeful our time together has been. I have even savored it. This savoring of our time together has been encouraged through a perspective of impermanence, of the likelihood of never again being 22 and 60 and experiencing all we presently are, while exploring Southeast Asia together. The practice of savoring has arisen through the evocative nature of sharing meals- extended periods of enjoying flavorful, unique dishes and allowing communication, understanding, and connection to emerge.

For this March’s Intereating book club, we read Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner. At the age of 25, Zauner lost her mother to cancer, and her narrative navigates the complexities of coming into adulthood and being a daughter. She reckons with the brevity of their relationship and her own Korean identity. She uncovers how food has been a nurturing force between the pair- a manifestation of their unconditional love. Beyond death, food connects Zauner to her mother and her Koreanness.

In an interview with the Today Show, the hosts asked Zauner about her favorite reactions to her book. She responded she couldn’t ask for a better response than when someone finishes the book and calls their mother. As I have listened to Zauner unearth these realizations, I have looked at this opportunity to travel with my mom with increasing awareness of impermanence and emergent gratitude.

In these weeks, we enjoyed delicious meals and expanded our appetite for Thai food. We also discovered our new favorite tourist activity: cooking classes. We’ve taken three classes together, and my mom took her fourth yesterday evening at a farm in Chiang Mai. Simultaneously, I pondered how to politely bribe the restaurant I dined at in Nakhon Phanom to teach me the secret to their fried rice. Anyway, we have bonded in our love of all things food and found pleasure in brainstorming how to expand our food practices when we return home. It feels like a gift to share this mutual passion and support one another in pursuit of honoring it.

I am looking forward to returning home to Chattanooga and helping one another flourish through the mutual understanding we have cultivated. At times it can feel far from easy to be accepting and understanding. Nevertheless, it appears to be an utmost and worthwhile endeavor to relish opportunities we have to learn from, support, and enjoy one another. Mom, get ready to put all these Thai recipes into action.

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Eating

Vietnamese fried rice, Massaman curry, and mango sticky rice. My absolute favorite this week has been Vietnamese crepes [bánh xèo].

Reading

The One-Straw Revolution by Masanobu Fukuoka, our April book club selection which I’ve just finished. The summary:

Fukuoka demonstrates how the way we look at farming influences the way we look at health, the school, nature, nutrition, spiritual health and life itself. He joins the healing of the land to the process of purifying the human spirit and proposes a way of life and a way of farming in which such healing can take place.

Here is a free PDF copy from the Soil and Health Library.