From the title, you might be expecting a post about food. While I’ll discuss food, this post is more about the power of smell and taste to conjure up memory; specifically, good memories of dear friends. A warning that this is much longer than originally intended.
Last night I put together a jambalaya. Most folks who make this dish have their own way of making it, and, indeed, there are many different recipes out there. I make what, according to the recipes, appears to be a mix of both Cajun and Creole styles. I don’t like shrimp or celery, so neither camp is probably too terribly pleased with what comes out of my pot, but I like it just fine. It’s just a mix of many things. Merriam-Webster, in fact, defines it as both the food dish that you’re probably thinking of, as well as “a mixture of diverse elements.”
Now while there are many beloved food items to come from my kitchen that call to mind remembrances of people and events past, very few seem to conjure up so many memories for me as a pot of jambalaya. While chopping onions in my current kitchen, the leap didn’t seem so far to almost eight years ago when I was in a grocery store in North Carolina, shopping for fresh vegetables to put in a jambalaya that I would make that evening with friends. We’d just returned from a trip to eastern Kentucky, where we’d repaired homes in areas where I’d later return to volunteer full-time for a year, a choice that has impacted most other major choices I’ve made since. Eight years ago, I’d never made jambalaya before, but it seemed like a good dish for our group. I wasn’t sure how many we’d have that night for dinner, everyone was able to pitch in to the work of creating the meal, and eating out of the one big pot was both an actual and a symbolic sharing of the community we’d formed during our experience in Kentucky. That night, as we cooked and laughed and ate and proclaimed our joys and dreams, I experienced a natural high like very few else in my life.
The following year, I was cooking dinner for a student group I was involved in during my undergrad years; each week, a partner and I, and as many unsuspecting volunteers as we could gather to chop garlic and onions, would prepare a meal for 70-80 other students. For some, this might be their only home-cooked meal of the week, and one of the few times they might actually sit at a table and enjoy their food in a proper fashion – in good company and without haste. It meant a great deal to me to be able to provide for others in that way. I was into Slow Food before I knew what that meant. One week I proposed to my partner that we could make jambalaya. From her I learned different techniques and ingredients. Others piped in with ways in which their family made the dish. And we weren’t even near the Delta. On went the learning and the sharing, the laughing, the preparing and the providing.
I made jambalaya for a smaller group a few years later. One of that number came up to me after the meal to compliment me on my efforts, but to suggest that I try some new things. I wasn’t yet confident enough to not be offended by his remarks, but I told him I was open to ideas. A week later I was given a packet of five or six single-spaced typed pages. A recipe for gumbo, étouffée, and jambalaya lay on those pages; the longest of these was the one for the gumbo and it read as a narrative, handed down over generations of this young man’s family. Instructions on how to properly make a roux were interspersed with French admonitions to let the good times roll and to not worry so much, chere. A year after that effort, I invited friends over for a dinner party to help me celebrate my birthday. I needed a good reason and good group to try my hand at converting the novella into an edible dish. I had to call several friends to bring in reinforcement pots throughout the process. When your recipe is someone’s life story and family history, it’s asking too much to expect a clear figure on the amount of liquid and ultimate product the story would produce. We all shared in my fortunate inability to read through a “recipe” in advance and there was gumbo for days for anyone who wanted it.
There have been other times when I’ve made jambalaya; some were as memorable as these, and others were simply efforts at making enough food that I’d have easy leftovers throughout the week, like Sunday night’s foray into the kitchen. Certainly in my life I’ve made more sophisticated dishes; I’ve also cooked for larger groups of people. As I was chopping Sunday, however, and suddenly flooded with all of the times I’ve made this humble, delicious dish, I couldn’t think of anything I was more proud to make. The smell of the onions and peppers cooking, the taste of the kielbasa, and the whole mass of the thing creeping closer and closer to the edge of my pot literally stirred up so many great memories. What powerful senses these are!
Certainly, I’m never going to experience quite the same thing when heating up a frozen pre-packaged dinner. And I might feel some sense of joy by ordering the same thing at a restaurant time and again. I can only speak truth to my experience, and in that experience – my goodness! – there is nothing quite like the flood of emotions conjured up when revisiting friends and a shared meal, thinking of the work of my hands going into the preparation, and the work of so many who bring forth the animals and plants necessary to create the dish.
I also love that this dish is one big pot. It’s easy to extend the table to include more people, and even though I was only cooking for myself and my roommate on Sunday, the thought that I’d have enough to give any wayfaring stranger who came my way pleased me. Portioned chicken breasts, while lovely, hardly allow you to easily extend the table should you find yourself in the good fortune of having more friends than pieces cooked.
There was something raw and something real in preparing such a simple, varied dish. Perhaps I’m always so happy when preparing it because I’m always singing the old Hank Williams song, but I think there’s a little more to it than that. I make a joyful noise, but it’s not always a good one! I hope for more good memories and the sharing of hopes and dreams over big pots in the future, and I wish those joyful feelings for my friends (and followers!) too. Happy eating!
