TW: Eating disorders
People usually associate food with restaurants, fueling themselves for the gym, or those late-night Uber Eats orders. Personally, I associate it most with love.
I come from a family of chefs. I am not bragging about their stellar skills in the kitchen; what I mean is that they are, literally, trained chefs. Dinner time is a big deal for my father’s side of the family, and the effort that is put into every Sunday dinner could be compared to how some people prepare for their Superbowl Parties. There is enough food for my mom to give my brothers leftovers for school lunches days later, and I always seem to steal some back to my University town. Those dinners are not only filled with food, but they are also filled with laughter, stories, and life-changing advice from my grandparents.
However, these happy moments surrounding food did not always make me feel at ease and therapeutic like they do now. For most of my teen years, I struggled with various eating disorders. I was terrified to eat any food, thinking it meant I was not worthy. I felt incredibly horrible if I ate in front of others. COVID-19 lockdowns only made this worse, and I finally decided I needed to get a hold of these challenges with my body and food in my second year of university. Thankfully, since then, I have developed a much better relationship with food. However, the habits I picked up from these disorders haunted me for years. I think I can admit that sometimes they still do.
Although I sought professional help, I also knew it was up to me to get better. As an avid journal writer, I would write about my struggles. As I was trying to recover, I tried to associate food with things that made my life happy and whole. I associated it with fuel for my body, but then my mind would jump to needing to exercise. I associated it with getting ready to go out with my friends to restaurants. But then, I thought about how I would feel the need to order the smallest thing on the menu. After various pointless journal entries, I finally fell onto a memory.
Those Sunday dinners. My little brothers laughing with mouths full of food. My mom and dad holding hands at the table. My grandparents telling us about how they had the cheese we were eating in Paris once. After almost a decade of feeling uncomfortable around food, I finally fell on a word I could associate it with: love. I realized, too, that food was meant to be enjoyed. I can make it with love for others, so why not make it with love for myself?
From this point forward, I fell down the cooking rabbit hole. First, it started out with five-minute, one-pot meals on Tik Tok. Then it led to late nights watching Claire Saffitz baking on her YouTube channel. I wanted to learn different things like dicing techniques and properly deglazing a pan. Very soon, cooking myself meals became a form of self-care. I looked forward to the end of the school day when I knew I would have time to cook an elaborate meal that I would be way too giddy about and share with my roommates.
Before I knew it, I realized I was going through meal after meal without the old thoughts I used to have about food. Instead, food made me happy. Cooking made me calm. Eating the food I cooked made me feel fulfilled and proud. Sometimes I still struggle with the mindset I used to have around food, but most days, I thank myself for making all of my delicious meals with love.
