{"id":209,"date":"2020-06-11T20:26:32","date_gmt":"2020-06-11T20:26:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wordpress.evergreen.edu\/cefie-portfolio-s20-arn\/?p=209"},"modified":"2020-06-11T21:10:42","modified_gmt":"2020-06-11T21:10:42","slug":"my-personal-eating-memoir","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wordpress.evergreen.edu\/cefie-portfolio-s20-arn\/my-personal-eating-memoir\/","title":{"rendered":"My Personal Eating Memoir"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
by Makenna Medrano<\/h6>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYour\nfavorite food when you were a baby was pureed carrot and sweet potato that your\ndad used to make, that\u2019s why you have such dark skin and good eyesight\u201d my\nmother always used to tell me growing up. According to my mom all of the\ncarotene was what made my skin glow and why I had flawless eyesight even though\nboth of my parents wore glasses. I am not sure about the science behind her\nclaims but knowing my father’s cooking now, my baby food probably tasted\nfantastic. I attribute my exposure to fresh, homemade foods as an infant to my\nlove for intense flavors. I was lucky though, my grandfather Gringo Medrano,\nwas born in the mountains of Jujuy, Argentina and I don\u2019t know much about his\nlife but I do know he made the best gnocchi and empanadas de carne so juicy and\ndelicious that my heart aches for them now. Luckily, Gringo taught my father\nGaston Medrano (almost) everything he knew. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

My dad\nimmigrated to the United States in 1989. He spoke little English and had no\nmoney in his pockets. He worked illegally as a horse groom in Santa, Barbara\nwhere he met my mother, Elizabeth, a small-town girl from Omaha, Nebraska. Long\nstory short, they fell in love, got married and I came around in 1995. My dad\nalways had a passion for cooking and quickly found his way into the kitchen.\nOne thing led to another and he had the opportunity to own his own restaurant,\nPampas. My earliest memories consist of being in Pampa\u2019s kitchen eating freshly\ngrilled asado de tira (argentine ribs), and sucking the salty meat off the\nbones until my lips hurt, or sitting in the back-parking lot slurping up fresh clams\ncooked in a zesty garlic, white wine broth. At the restaurant, I was fed food\nto keep me entertained while my parents dealt with bookkeeping, management, and\npersonal problems of their own. At home, is where my older brother Tauan, my\ndad, and I would experiment in the kitchen, while my mom spectated and took\nreally cute pictures of us like the one below. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
My brother, Tauan, and I cooking, 2000<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

I\nshould have warned you sooner but my life was extremely complicated, so buckle\nup. My brother came to the states, from interior Brazil, the year I was born.\nWe have different moms, but that never really occurred to me. With my dad being\nin the restaurant business and my mom working retail, there were many nights\nthat my brother had to take care of me. His favorite meal to make us was\nchicken and rice, and when we sat down to eat, being the silly 13-year old he\nwas, he would eat the entire meal like a dog scarfing down his food, not once\nusing his hands. I now realize he did that to make me laugh, and also because\nour parents weren\u2019t at the table to scold him. My dad took table manners very\nseriously, I learned how to properly use a steak knife before learning how to\nwrite, and we wouldn\u2019t be caught dead with our elbows on the table. My brother\nand I grew up quick and after unfortunate circumstances, my brother was\ndeported to Brazil months before his 18th<\/sup> birthday. When things\nsettled down my brother started culinary school in Argentina, but he was never\none to deal with authority so that didn\u2019t last long. Luckily, he was a Medrano\nand a third-generation chef, so he effortlessly found himself running kitchens\nin Brazil, then in Hamburg, Germany. I told you it was complicated. During my\nfrequent visits with him, wherever we were, we found ourselves in the kitchen. Below\nis an image of our recreation of our childhood favorite, chicken and rice. Although\nthis time, we used utensils. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Chicken and Rice, by Tauan and Makenna, 2015<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Tauan\nand I often dreamed of one day opening our own restaurant on our dad\u2019s land in\nBrazil, we dreamed of what it would be called, what we would serve and how it\nwould be our chance to be together again. Life went on, we moved to new places,\nand in 2015, I left the University of Nebraska Lincoln to move to Brazil to\nlive with my dad and brother on our land. One evening, my brother and I were\nwalking home from the beach when we met Roberto, an Italian chef who would\nchange my outlook on food forever. He kindly invited us to his house for a\ndinner party that same night, we had nothing to do and knew better than to turn\ndown an offer for a free meal. There we met an English shaman, a Chilean\nhitchhiker, and Italian sailboat owner who would all become close friends of\nours. We chatted over wine and fresh tuna, I was lost in a kaleidoscope of new\nfaces, delicious food and fountains of wine I doused my tuna in red wine rather\nthan soy sauce- it became the joke of the evening. I always appreciated flavors\nof food but for the first time realized the profound impact sharing a meal can\nconnect you to people from all walks of life, the table was a place where all\nshame, judgment and humility were set aside. Crazy enough, the next day I set\nsail with the Italian chef, English shaman, Chilean hitchhiker and Italian\nsailboat owner. We were headed for the closest city, Salvador Bahia, to\ncelebrate Dia de Iemanja, or the celebration of the Sea Goddess. We ate street\nfood like tapioca, acaraje, carne do sol, xin xin, and so much more. We ate and\ndrank until our bellies extended and we could no longer comfortably dance. We\nwent on epic adventures in crowded markets in search for dried shrimp,\nspecialty spices, fresh baguettes, and anchovies. Five months flew by in a\nblink of an eye, and I decided it was time to go home. My brother and I\ndeveloped a grand plan, I would move to the states and take advantage of my\naccess to a good education. I would go to culinary school and learn the\ntechniques my grandfather, dad, and brother might not know, along with how to\nrun a successful business. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Things\nwere going according to plan until the morning of February 17th<\/sup> 2016,\nthe day before my first final exams of culinary school. The phone rang\nsuspiciously early. I rolled over to see who woke me from my dreams, my cousin\nFrancine whom I hadn\u2019t spoken to in years. I sleepily ignored it. Another ring,\nthis time my aunt Genoveva, whom didn\u2019t call often. I knew something was wrong\nso I answered. \u201cThere has been an accident, Tauan is gone.\u201d I felt my spirit\nleave my body, I had to have been dreaming, there was no way. My brother took\nhis own life that morning, throwing me into a pit of despair, I grew sick and\npurged every bit of nourishment I had in me. My mom and grandma washed me with\nwarm rags in the bath. Everything was a blur, like I was in a twilight zone, an\neerie place between reality and my worst nightmares. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nothing\nhas been the same since February 17, 2016, but I can say with confidence that\nevery obstacle my family and I have faced is what brought me here, to The\nEvergreen State College. I seek an education, the one my brother and I dreamed\nI would get. I wake up every day for Tauan, and I wish I knew what my life\nwould be like if he was still here. Now, I take every bite of food with\ncaution, I want to know about where it came from, the love, labor, sweat, and\ntears that brought the food we eat into the grocery store and onto our plates.\nI savor every last bite, acknowledging that I am lucky to feel full. Through\nfood I learn to turn tragedy into survival. I want to plant seeds, watch them\ngrow, and understand how the suns energy can turn seeds into fruit, cereals and\ngrains into proteins. I want to travel the world, share meals with strangers\nand hear about their triumphs or tragedies, learn about what we have in common\nand what led us all here, to the same table. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

There\nis so much more I can write about, this has been an extremely emotional\nassignment for me. Initially, I wanted to write about the years my dad\ntransitioned to a raw, whole foods diet and cured his hepatitis C. Or the time\nI drove 3 hours just for a bowl of cooked to order chowder, the first time I\nspeared a fish, ate the entire thing, felt sick and vowed to never spear a fish\nagain. I wanted to write about how much joy baking fresh banana bread with my\nlittle brother brings me. Or the time I went to Africa to study abroad and my\nmandatory journal ended up being a documentation of everything I ate that day,\nfor 3 weeks straight. How the countless episodes my dad, brother and I watched\nof Anthony Bourdain inspired me to travel the world in search of cultural\nexperiences. Tauan is deeply embedded in each of these memories, woven into\nevery thread in my life, and perhaps why he became the focus of this\nassignment. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Makenna Medrano \u201cYour favorite food when you were a baby was pureed carrot and sweet potato that your dad used to make, that\u2019s why you have such dark skin and good eyesight\u201d my mother always used to tell me growing up. According to my mom all of the carotene was what made my skin […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":26,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"geo":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.evergreen.edu\/cefie-portfolio-s20-arn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/209"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.evergreen.edu\/cefie-portfolio-s20-arn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.evergreen.edu\/cefie-portfolio-s20-arn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.evergreen.edu\/cefie-portfolio-s20-arn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/26"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.evergreen.edu\/cefie-portfolio-s20-arn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=209"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.evergreen.edu\/cefie-portfolio-s20-arn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/209\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":244,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.evergreen.edu\/cefie-portfolio-s20-arn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/209\/revisions\/244"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.evergreen.edu\/cefie-portfolio-s20-arn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=209"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.evergreen.edu\/cefie-portfolio-s20-arn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=209"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.evergreen.edu\/cefie-portfolio-s20-arn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=209"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}