A Better Question Than "What Do You Do?"

Would Life Be Different If We Asked This Instead?

Food tells a story. More than purely sustenance, it speaks of connection, community and culture. It’s a living artifact, a symbol of identity, even. As a storyteller myself, I find it difficult to not include some element of food in the stories I tell. I also find I connect best with other humans asking the question “what do you eat?”

I grew up in the small towns and later suburbia of Texas where those with a skintone different than ours were neither hated nor celebrated. Instead, they were simply ignored at best or at worst seen as outsiders.

And though we didn’t travel outside of visiting family in Texas and Arizona, I did have many opportunities to expand my world if I had only had the skills. My early elementary years were in a newly desegregated town. There was a boy in my 5th grade class who had just immigrated to the US from Vietnam, another from Iran. The university I attended didn’t have an American football team but we did have a really good soccer (AKA true football) team with many players from Africa and Central America.

So many times I’ve wished I could go back and prompt each the way my dad does with “tell me your story.” My formative years may have been much more open and well-rounded. Of course, I was just a kid, painfully shy and unaware that I was missing out.

Were those circumstances different, I would ask my second-grade and sole black elementary, Ms. Washington, what she had to go through in her childhood. I would ask Yen what it was like emmigrating from Vietnam and how it felt to be in that very foreign suburban classroom. I would join in with abandon rather than standing by and watching the Central American students dancing and singing, fully enjoying life, on the big front porch of the dorm. Though I was unaware of how to connect, or at the time what I was missing, each clearly made an impression.

I had no clue until watching movies as a teenager, (mostly John Hughes movies showing different parts of Chicago) there was a much bigger world out there. Later while traveling throughout the US with a marketing troop from my college, I saw those neighborhoods firsthand - mini versions of the community members’ homelands. This fascinated me and made me feel something new…a longing.

With no real food heritage, I didn’t, nor did any of my friends, have any cultural identity. We grew up on fast food, dinners “created” from a box or can, and frozen dinners. What was considered prosperity at that time, now identifies “food deserts” where the very “foods” we ate daily are the only sustenance available for many blocks or even miles.

I began to seek answers to fulfill this longing. I did, in fact, have a few key heritages woven into my genetics, so there was potential. My maiden name (is this an outdated term?) is Weisinger and my maternal great-grandmother was 100% Native American. It was a start, though I found no one who cooked or even ate German food in my family. Then when I began asking about the Native American heritage I was stonewalled as the elder members were so ashamed of this fact, they never found out what tribe she, and therefore we, are from.

I’ve often wondered, while I’m not a German food fan, would I be had I learned to make schnitzel and sauerkraut by my grandmother’s side? Probably. Is my interest in holistic healing and using food as medicine innate from the treasured remedies and skills my great grandmother’s Native American heritage honored? I don’t know, but how much more would I know and understand if my mom could have learned directly from her and passed it to me?

As most do when traveling with an open mind, I’ve found food speaks volumes about a culture, so “What do you eat?” has become MY question. Seeing nostalgia wash over someone’s face as they talk about their Nonna’s “secret sauce” or describe their family feasts bring me such joy and that twinge of pain. What would it have been like to grow up like that?

Our holiday meals were typically with less than 10 people. It was fun enough, but when I see these beautifully chaotic family picnics, parties and reunions, that hole gets bigger and each holiday I wish there were more of us to be together around the table. While it’s too late for being with my own aunties, uncles and cousins plus all the “great-s” I dream about creating these events one of these days for my own family. My kids, their kids, in-laws, us, as many as possible all together celebrating holidays, rites of passage and birthdays with food, fun and even the possible fight.

When I look at my very favorite food and travel memories aren’t about Michelin-starred restaurants, they are about the families we’ve eaten with.

• A family in Germany returning the favor for us hosting their daughter in the US hosted us. I still got no lessons on Schnitzel and Sauerkraut but we did learn a few cuss words in German and I found I like Sole Florentine.

Dinner with friends in Germany.

• Another family just outside of Paris, friends of friends, took us and our two-year-old son in like we were lifetime besties. They created a decadent Blanquette de Veau (creamy Veal stew) for lunch that I dutifully ate, trying to not think about WHAT I was eating.

Family we joined for lunch, Fountainebleu near their home and a shopping day

• With new friends we met that day over a trivial connection - our choice to not wear the required sweatshirts on our company sanctioned tour of Paris - sitting on a park bench near the Arc de Triomphe sharing a bottle of wine and picnic reminiscing about our day of wandering like locals since Heidi had lived there in the past. (Sadly this was before smart phones, so no photos.)

These are all unforgettable moments and to me more important than a “me, too” photo opp at the trendiest restaurant.

Food is connection. Sharing meals with others is everything…gathering ingredients from local farmers and shops, cooking or sometimes simply assembling the meal and gathering around a table with friends, new or old. It’s the way I identify with life, the way I love and were we to meet, an invite to dinner would be offered almost immediately.

So tell me. “What do you eat?”

Seriously…I want to hear from you so please tell me in comments below.

(While you’re there I would love it if you would hit the ❤️.)