Each harvest season people celebrate what Mother Earth has given them. They prepare the feast, gather together and eat it. The feast is to celebrate and give thanks for what has been received.
I grew up eating family meal nearly every night. We had a big oval table with a mixed family of brothers and sisters and kid-friends and often neighrbourhood kids there too. The meals were not extravagant, but were always home-made and somehow there was always enough for everyone- even the last-minute drop-ins. If we were late to the table, Mom would yell ‘dinner’s getting cold!’ and we would unenthusiastically slump to the table. Wow- I had no idea how good I had it!
When I went to friends houses, they often ate take-out or freezer meals. The Mom eating weight-watchers frozen dinner, kids eating pizza pops and dad going for the canned chili. Or they’d get take out; which embarrassingly, I was actually jealous of at a time! This meal was usually eaten at different times by different members of the family according to their schedule and preference, or it was eaten in front of the TV.
Back then I did not realize that this simple routine of gathering together to eat the same food at the same time was a tradition worth fussing about. Back then I did not know that this simple act was a tradition that was already largely extinct.
Flash forward a few years and I’m living on my own in the big city. The connectedness of family meal seemed a distant memory. Most everyone I know was eating dinner alone in their apartments, either at the computer, in front of the TV or ( ahhh!) from the pot in the kitchen.
I craved a ‘normal’ community meal, everyone eating the same food created a united and warm atmosphere. We are having the same experience. Reflecting on our day, connecting; it’s the human–ness about the family meal that I was missing.
Yearning to re-create the family meal, I took a look at the facts:
First, I was no longer a kid, and not at the time in my life when having a brood of kids just so that I could sit down with a family at dinner was a good option either.
Also, I worked most nights at the restaurant, or went to night school for nutrition. Dinner time was either scarfing food sitting on a bucket in the kitchen at work at 4:30pm or home after work or school at 11pm, making it tough to call friends and family over for a ‘normal’ meal.
I started thinking about my city ‘family’ as being like an urban tribe. Right now the people who I see most often, confide in and know well are my co-workers and my friends. When I first started working at radha yoga and eatery as Chef, the staff were ordering off the menu and have their meal when they could find time. I brought forward the idea of eating together before service.
At 4:30 every day, a cook (usually me because I loved making staff meal!) assembled all the food that was in excess or needed to get used into a crafty concoction like a stew, casserole, stir fry or whatever inspired us that day. ( Many of the dishes on radha’s menu were actually created based on staff meal favourites and happy accidents!) All the staff; dishwashers, servers, hostess, yoga teachers if present, cooks and office staff were invited.
This tradition evolved to include ‘reflection cards’, simply a deck of cards with a word on them that each of us took a turn to reflect on the meaning of that word as it applies in our life right now. Our reflections allowed for us to really see the human-ness in each other. Routine tensions between the front and back staff were eased once we instituted the staff meal with reflections. Many studies show that families who eat together have healthier relationships and have better overall nutrition. We were finding that to be true around staff meal as well.
When I finished working at radha to focus on Rooted Nutrition full-time, many of the staff expressed that their favourite times at work were around staff meal. For most of us, it was the only family meal that we had aside from maybe Thanksgiving and Christmas.
These experiences with eating as a community have re-affirmed that teaching people to cook at home is my passion, not feeding people from a ‘have it your way’ type of menu in a restaurant atmosphere.
We are well into the autumn session of cooking classes now, having completed Ancient Grains, Intro to Herbalism, Legumes, Gluten-free baking and moving on this weekend to Sourdough Baking part 1. Learning to cook healthy meals at home is an important first step to the family meal. My mission is to bring people powerfully back into their kitchens to prepare healthy meals with love!
People often ask me whether I plan to open a restaurant. What I know about the power of sharing the experience of eating together makes conventional menu-writing kind of crazy-making.
If I were to open a restaurant, the menu would be one option called ‘what’s for dinner’. I’d choose it based on what’s fresh,what’s abundant and what I feel the most love for making that day. It would be served at a long table, each person or group sharing family-style meals from communal bowls. Literally breaking bread together, passing the butter and reflecting about their days. I would be joining them in the meal that I made, completing the meal-making process with a warm bowl of food, good company and my daily reflection.
This week I am going to be sharing a meal with my relatives for Thanksgiving. The conventional turkey may well be dry, the vegetables overcooked and the mashed potatoes sticky from over-mixing. But I know for sure that it will be nourishing on many levels because my grand parents made it with love and I will be benefiting from bonding with my community in the name of gratitude!
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