{"id":95,"date":"2020-12-03T23:41:49","date_gmt":"2020-12-03T23:41:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wordpress.evergreen.edu\/tmtaa-portfolio-f20-amelia\/?p=95"},"modified":"2020-12-13T22:13:20","modified_gmt":"2020-12-13T22:13:20","slug":"food-a-generations-long-love-affair","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wordpress.evergreen.edu\/tmtaa-portfolio-f20-amelia\/food-a-generations-long-love-affair\/","title":{"rendered":"Food: A Generations Long Love Affair"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-gallery columns-3 is-cropped\"><ul class=\"blocks-gallery-grid\"><li class=\"blocks-gallery-item\"><figure><img loading=\"lazy\" width=\"296\" height=\"448\" src=\"https:\/\/wordpress.evergreen.edu\/tmtaa-portfolio-f20-amelia\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/477\/2020\/11\/grumpy-2-1.jpeg\" alt=\"\" data-id=\"96\" data-full-url=\"https:\/\/wordpress.evergreen.edu\/tmtaa-portfolio-f20-amelia\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/477\/2020\/11\/grumpy-2-1.jpeg\" data-link=\"https:\/\/wordpress.evergreen.edu\/tmtaa-portfolio-f20-amelia\/?attachment_id=96\" class=\"wp-image-96\" srcset=\"https:\/\/wordpress.evergreen.edu\/tmtaa-portfolio-f20-amelia\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/477\/2020\/11\/grumpy-2-1.jpeg 296w, https:\/\/wordpress.evergreen.edu\/tmtaa-portfolio-f20-amelia\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/477\/2020\/11\/grumpy-2-1-198x300.jpeg 198w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 296px) 100vw, 296px\" \/><\/figure><\/li><li class=\"blocks-gallery-item\"><figure><img loading=\"lazy\" width=\"296\" height=\"448\" src=\"https:\/\/wordpress.evergreen.edu\/tmtaa-portfolio-f20-amelia\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/477\/2020\/11\/grumpy-2.jpeg\" alt=\"\" data-id=\"99\" data-full-url=\"https:\/\/wordpress.evergreen.edu\/tmtaa-portfolio-f20-amelia\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/477\/2020\/11\/grumpy-2.jpeg\" data-link=\"https:\/\/wordpress.evergreen.edu\/tmtaa-portfolio-f20-amelia\/?attachment_id=99\" class=\"wp-image-99\" srcset=\"https:\/\/wordpress.evergreen.edu\/tmtaa-portfolio-f20-amelia\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/477\/2020\/11\/grumpy-2.jpeg 296w, https:\/\/wordpress.evergreen.edu\/tmtaa-portfolio-f20-amelia\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/477\/2020\/11\/grumpy-2-198x300.jpeg 198w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 296px) 100vw, 296px\" \/><\/figure><\/li><li class=\"blocks-gallery-item\"><figure><img loading=\"lazy\" width=\"296\" height=\"448\" src=\"https:\/\/wordpress.evergreen.edu\/tmtaa-portfolio-f20-amelia\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/477\/2020\/11\/grumpy-2-2.jpeg\" alt=\"\" data-id=\"97\" data-full-url=\"https:\/\/wordpress.evergreen.edu\/tmtaa-portfolio-f20-amelia\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/477\/2020\/11\/grumpy-2-2.jpeg\" data-link=\"https:\/\/wordpress.evergreen.edu\/tmtaa-portfolio-f20-amelia\/?attachment_id=97\" class=\"wp-image-97\" srcset=\"https:\/\/wordpress.evergreen.edu\/tmtaa-portfolio-f20-amelia\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/477\/2020\/11\/grumpy-2-2.jpeg 296w, https:\/\/wordpress.evergreen.edu\/tmtaa-portfolio-f20-amelia\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/477\/2020\/11\/grumpy-2-2-198x300.jpeg 198w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 296px) 100vw, 296px\" \/><\/figure><\/li><\/ul><figcaption class=\"blocks-gallery-caption\">Pictures of my grandfather, Alan, at a party in March of 1969<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p style=\"font-size:0\">Food has always been a huge part of my life. My favorite Italian meatloaf for my seventh birthday, warm loaves of bread baked durning a snowstorm, thin slices of ham wrapped in wax paper brought home from the deli as a small gift, food defines some of my warmest childhood memories. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>My family has always been one to focus in on the gastronomical aspects of life over much else. One of my earliest memories of my grandfather, a memory that my father also has from childhood, is him (pictured above in his twenties) picking a box of cookies, always chocolate (anything else was &#8220;for gentiles&#8221;) while grocery shopping and eating the whole thing before going to checkout. Food is never something to be overlooked for the Pressmans.  It can be a peace offering, something to warm up a rainy afternoon, an all curing medicine, and above all a vessel for love. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image is-style-default\"><figure class=\"alignright size-large is-resized\"><img loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/wordpress.evergreen.edu\/tmtaa-portfolio-f20-amelia\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/477\/2020\/11\/grumpy-2-3-e1606273594935.jpeg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-93\" width=\"497\" height=\"328\" srcset=\"https:\/\/wordpress.evergreen.edu\/tmtaa-portfolio-f20-amelia\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/477\/2020\/11\/grumpy-2-3-e1606273594935.jpeg 448w, https:\/\/wordpress.evergreen.edu\/tmtaa-portfolio-f20-amelia\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/477\/2020\/11\/grumpy-2-3-e1606273594935-300x198.jpeg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 497px) 100vw, 497px\" \/><figcaption>Cooking with my father, maybe 2004 or 2005 (Pressman, 2020)<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p>It was with this definition of food in mind that I learned to cook. Cooking was never something that was intimidating to me and being able to cook was never impressive, it was just something you learned to do in my house, like walking. I remember learning how to make the &#8220;perfect scrambled eggs&#8221; at around age five (the trick is to not salt them until they&#8217;re almost done because the salt collapses the fluffy airy structure the eggs are building up as they cook) and helping my father stuff long strings of pig intestines with meat to make sausage at around the same age. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I have so many hazy memories of my parents hosting elaborate dinner parties when I was a toddler: women smiling big with dark red lipstick and wine gums, the feeling of a man&#8217;s scruffy cheek against my own, the smell of some meat or pasta dish, my uncle&#8217;s Italian girlfriend playing dolls with me because we knew about the same amount of English. These parties were the height of luxury and excitement for me. The concept of being able to put on a pretty dress and lipstick, cook something that smelled like an old country I was not yet aware of, and feed it to the people you love seemed terribly grown up and magical to a young Amelia. I couldn&#8217;t wait till the day I could do the same. Alas, the night would always end with me tucked away in bed, the sound of the laughing and clinking glasses lulling me to sleep. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-gallery columns-4 is-cropped\"><ul class=\"blocks-gallery-grid\"><li class=\"blocks-gallery-item\"><figure><img loading=\"lazy\" width=\"259\" height=\"309\" src=\"https:\/\/wordpress.evergreen.edu\/tmtaa-portfolio-f20-amelia\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/477\/2020\/12\/party-2.jpeg\" alt=\"\" data-id=\"161\" data-link=\"https:\/\/wordpress.evergreen.edu\/tmtaa-portfolio-f20-amelia\/?attachment_id=161\" class=\"wp-image-161\" srcset=\"https:\/\/wordpress.evergreen.edu\/tmtaa-portfolio-f20-amelia\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/477\/2020\/12\/party-2.jpeg 259w, https:\/\/wordpress.evergreen.edu\/tmtaa-portfolio-f20-amelia\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/477\/2020\/12\/party-2-251x300.jpeg 251w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 259px) 100vw, 259px\" \/><\/figure><\/li><li class=\"blocks-gallery-item\"><figure><img loading=\"lazy\" width=\"259\" height=\"309\" src=\"https:\/\/wordpress.evergreen.edu\/tmtaa-portfolio-f20-amelia\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/477\/2020\/12\/party-2-2.jpeg\" alt=\"\" data-id=\"162\" data-link=\"https:\/\/wordpress.evergreen.edu\/tmtaa-portfolio-f20-amelia\/?attachment_id=162\" class=\"wp-image-162\" srcset=\"https:\/\/wordpress.evergreen.edu\/tmtaa-portfolio-f20-amelia\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/477\/2020\/12\/party-2-2.jpeg 259w, https:\/\/wordpress.evergreen.edu\/tmtaa-portfolio-f20-amelia\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/477\/2020\/12\/party-2-2-251x300.jpeg 251w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 259px) 100vw, 259px\" \/><\/figure><\/li><li class=\"blocks-gallery-item\"><figure><img loading=\"lazy\" width=\"255\" height=\"318\" src=\"https:\/\/wordpress.evergreen.edu\/tmtaa-portfolio-f20-amelia\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/477\/2020\/12\/party-2-4.jpeg\" alt=\"\" data-id=\"163\" data-link=\"https:\/\/wordpress.evergreen.edu\/tmtaa-portfolio-f20-amelia\/?attachment_id=163\" class=\"wp-image-163\" srcset=\"https:\/\/wordpress.evergreen.edu\/tmtaa-portfolio-f20-amelia\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/477\/2020\/12\/party-2-4.jpeg 255w, https:\/\/wordpress.evergreen.edu\/tmtaa-portfolio-f20-amelia\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/477\/2020\/12\/party-2-4-241x300.jpeg 241w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 255px) 100vw, 255px\" \/><\/figure><\/li><li class=\"blocks-gallery-item\"><figure><img loading=\"lazy\" width=\"259\" height=\"309\" src=\"https:\/\/wordpress.evergreen.edu\/tmtaa-portfolio-f20-amelia\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/477\/2020\/12\/Scan.jpeg\" alt=\"\" data-id=\"164\" data-full-url=\"https:\/\/wordpress.evergreen.edu\/tmtaa-portfolio-f20-amelia\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/477\/2020\/12\/Scan.jpeg\" data-link=\"https:\/\/wordpress.evergreen.edu\/tmtaa-portfolio-f20-amelia\/?attachment_id=164\" class=\"wp-image-164\" srcset=\"https:\/\/wordpress.evergreen.edu\/tmtaa-portfolio-f20-amelia\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/477\/2020\/12\/Scan.jpeg 259w, https:\/\/wordpress.evergreen.edu\/tmtaa-portfolio-f20-amelia\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/477\/2020\/12\/Scan-251x300.jpeg 251w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 259px) 100vw, 259px\" \/><\/figure><\/li><\/ul><figcaption class=\"blocks-gallery-caption\">Polaroids from one of these parties (Pressman, 2020)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>As the years passed, a lot changed: my sister was born, my father lost his job, we moved out of the city away from all our friends. While my parents still had parties, they were different. I was older and they were not as mysterious and I wanted less and less to do with them. Food wasn&#8217;t magical or fun anymore, I just wanted to be in my room. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It was also around this time that my grandfather died. We had been relatively close, a beacon of love and friendship in an otherwise mean and distant selection of grandparents. In place of a large somber funeral, all his friends and family came to his house to tell stories over a massive table of bagels, cold cuts, and cheesecake brought in from New York City, about an hour away. Food and love brought all these people together, some of which had not seen each other in years or ever. He saw food as something magical and sacred in the same way I was raised to see it and the way his life was celebrated really shows that. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>After he died, it became clear to me that a close loving relationship with food strings back at least three generations. In the years following my grandfather&#8217;s death, my father wrote a piece for the journal <em>Gastronomica<\/em> entitled &#8220;Three Brugers&#8221; (file below) that traces his life through a series of burgers, just as I am now looking back at my life, connecting the dots through food.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-file\"><a href=\"https:\/\/wordpress.evergreen.edu\/tmtaa-portfolio-f20-amelia\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/477\/2020\/12\/Three_Burgers.pdf\">Three_Burgers<\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/wordpress.evergreen.edu\/tmtaa-portfolio-f20-amelia\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/477\/2020\/12\/Three_Burgers.pdf\" class=\"wp-block-file__button\" download>Download<\/a><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p>Now, in the seeming twilight of my parent&#8217;s marriage, our life is filled with takeout containers and flavorless pasta. We eat less and less together and dinner is now defined by the sound of clinking forks in silence rather than laughter and familial chatter. As the nature of my family changes, so does the food. Even through I am doubtful that I will ever experience one of their dinner parties again, I am certain that I will always feel the magic that surrounds food that these gatherings instilled in me. Every time the onions in the pan start to hiss and steam, or someone comes into the kitchen and says &#8220;something smells good!&#8221;, the same Amelia that stood on a chair to reach the stove grins from ear to ear and I am once again reminded of the love and warmth food can bring. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Food has always been a huge part of my life. My favorite Italian meatloaf for my seventh birthday, warm loaves of bread baked durning a snowstorm, thin slices&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":462,"featured_media":165,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[13,1],"tags":[],"geo":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.evergreen.edu\/tmtaa-portfolio-f20-amelia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.evergreen.edu\/tmtaa-portfolio-f20-amelia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.evergreen.edu\/tmtaa-portfolio-f20-amelia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.evergreen.edu\/tmtaa-portfolio-f20-amelia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/462"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.evergreen.edu\/tmtaa-portfolio-f20-amelia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=95"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.evergreen.edu\/tmtaa-portfolio-f20-amelia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":233,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.evergreen.edu\/tmtaa-portfolio-f20-amelia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95\/revisions\/233"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.evergreen.edu\/tmtaa-portfolio-f20-amelia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/165"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.evergreen.edu\/tmtaa-portfolio-f20-amelia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=95"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.evergreen.edu\/tmtaa-portfolio-f20-amelia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=95"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.evergreen.edu\/tmtaa-portfolio-f20-amelia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=95"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}