In my earliest memories, I am eating Chinese food. My great-aunt’s house in the suburbs outside Boston is split-level and her mother, my great-grandmother, lives in the lower level. You enter through the front door onto a landing between the two halves of the house, and if you walk downstairs, her kitchen will be directly in front of you.
Category: food
ONE POEM – John Dorroh
How did a barrel-chested man learn
this magic? Softened like golden butter
in a dizzy aftermath, he did too many wars perhaps.
COMFORT FOODS // The Taste of Forgiveness – Sarah Islam
We are three siblings, scattered across continents, each of us carrying the taste of a different kitchen.
COMFORT FOODS // Gulyás – Liam Skillen
I look at a photo of my Hungarian grandfather and his compatriots in Carr Bank Park, posing by the flowerbeds on Woodhouse Road, and know it is possible to belong to more than a single place.
COMFORT FOODS // Overheard at Terasa Obor – Ana Prundaru
the problem with mici is
they’re all so good
that they don’t even ask you
what you’re ordering
COMFORT FOODS // Bombay Toast – Samarth Agarwal
I see you standing there – starch white lungi draped
7AM freshly shaved – wooden spoon in hand
Commanding your caramelising populace.
COMFORT FOODS // Ends and Pieces – Lisa Ochoa
You’ve probably never noticed them. Their red and white box usually sits well below their thick-cut, smoked, and maple-flavored cousins in their clear ‘look at me!’ packaging. Or, sometimes, Ends and Pieces aren’t displayed at all, and you have to ask the butcher for them. Because mind you, they are the ends and pieces, the leftovers, the scraps. Who would want them?
My mom, that’s who.
ESSAY | Initiation – Kate Stukenborg
I wanted to be a part of their club, their conversations, their laughter. Eating, I decided, was my way in.
ONE POEM – Atma Frans
They’re small animals
wriggling to get out
Just let us touch the crust, they say
feel it crackle
COMFORT FOODS // Cooke’s Pie & Mash Shop – Jonella Vidal
My memories can be quantified in cups of tea,
and meat pies filled perfectly, slumped against
a mountain of mash
COMFORT FOODS // Ode to the Palta – Ulrike Durán Bravo
…across the bitter world, a sweet gift from Pachamama
like my father who taught me to feel
and press its skin: a map of lost worlds
Love in the Age of Instant Mashed Potatoes – Anne-Laure White
The first potatoes I loved were the dehydrated shreds sold in cereal box-style cartons at Key Foods. My mother gave them some delicacy, stirring in milk, butter, salt. On holidays her mashed potatoes were perfect, and doted on accordingly. They were adjusted hourly for flavour and texture, refrigerated overnight, and reheated slowly on the day….
Porridge 