Food Brings the Family Together

Some of my oldest family memories, good or bad, revolve around food. My mother was born in Portugal, and arrived in Canada as a teenager. While her strong Portuguese roots carried through to many aspects of her adult life, as a child I found it most apparent in her cooking.

Her Mediterranean style meant frequent use of fish and chicken – two ingredients that were plentiful in Portugal – combined with garden vegetables, aromatics, tomatoes and rice. On this end, I’ve never had major issues. I was never overly fussy as a child, or at least that’s my take on the matter, so her healthy but flavourful cooking was usually well received. My maternal grandparents matched my mother’s skills in this area, and for the few years they lived near me, they would routinely spoil me with all sorts of traditional Portuguese fare.

I vividly remember one dish in particular that would always excite the whole family. My grandfather would spend an entire afternoon tending to his old charcoal barbecue, making sure his fire was just right. At the end of his six-or-more hours of labour, he would present his perfectly cooked, perfectly seasoned chicken legs. Despite being such a simple dish, the amount of effort that went into making them was apparent. The whole family would come together, and the only thing to be heard around the dinner table was contented hums and mumbles. The lack of conversation was never seen as a bad thing, because everyone understood that the family was simply too immersed in the food. A conversation always followed the meal, usually about the food we had just finished.

As a stark contrast, there was one meal in particular that always brought up lively conversation while we ate. My mother would cook her favourite meal, a nostalgic dish from her past made of boiled potatoes, olive oil and salt cod mixed together into a stinky slop. While she would dive in to her meal, my brother and I would find any excuse to leave as much on the plate as we could. We would dig as deep as possible to find topics to keep the conversation going, so our mouth would never be free to take a bite. As a child, the sight or smell of salt cod would gross me out, but these days I find it a little less revolting. It’s still nowhere near good enough to eat, but it now brings me back to happy moments of my childhood.

Submitted By Sean Feretycki