Chris Langlitz

Professor Miller

English 110 H-511 

September 2019

Favorite Food Essay 

When you think about certain foods, you tend to associate that food or meal with a certain feeling, memory, event, or something more which you can reflect on later in life. Take me for instance. I have lots of favorite foods that I can associate with a memory or time in my life. But one sticks out the most: Bananas Foster. Eating these foods and meals can trigger many memories or feelings if you have a special connection with that specific food. All foods satisfy a certain need for nourishment; but, they also have a certain value tied to them that varies between each individual person and, sometimes, can embody their beliefs as a whole. 

When I was younger, I was always taught that dessert was a rare exception and could only be eaten when it was earned. By this I mean cleaning up around the house, completing your chores for that specific weekend or day, going above and beyond in school, etc. Personally, this gave me a very generic and rough understanding of what hard work meant. Although it is a very hard topic to discuss at this point in time, earning something you worked for is much more satisfying than receiving it immediately. For example, most people would want money, a promotion, a house, a new car, and it could keep on going; but, when I was a kid, it was Bananas Foster. Around the age of seven or eight, my parents introduced my brother and I to chores. For starters, we weren’t fans of them. But, we then learned that if we completed our tasks, we’d be rewarded. Like rats in a science experiment, we were learning. One day early on in the Fall season, my father asked Nick, my brother, and I to help him clean up leaves in our backyard. Although it was a daunting task, considering him and I didn’t want to do it, we helped and we had fun doing it. We would rake as many leaves as we possibly could into a pile and would just cannonball into it. Eventually, we did finish our job and we put the leaves into the dedicated bags. It was around five o’clock when we finished which also meant, dinner was ready. After dinner, my brother, father and I went into the living room to watch a new episode of “Star Wars: the Clone Wars” on Cartoon Network which was our scheduled “father and sons” time. That is until my mom wanted to watch her show. As we were watching it, I smell my mother making this wonderful concoction of bananas and sugar as it popped and sizzled in the pan. Eventually, she called nick and I into the dining room as it sat on the table; and, it was beautiful. Vanilla bean ice cream glazed in this glistening, mirror-like caramel sauce with the perfectly crusted bananas on top which seemed to emulate gems on a King’s crown. It was like having a perfectly roasted marshmallow with a golden brown crust right off the fire. It smelled like what I expect heaven to smell and the taste was beyond compare. This one dessert made a very distinct memory which will hopefully last forever. Now, as I think back on this time in my life, I am glad that it happened. Not just because I got to eat an awesome and spectacular dessert, but it also gave me a basic understanding that with hard work and persistence comes a reward. This hard work can also be related to how this fine dessert was crafted!

For starters, this is not an original dish whatsoever. When I interviewed my mother about this dish, I asked her where she learned how to make it. She said with the utmost confidence, “Where did I find this? To be honest with you, I cannot remember where it actually came from. A magazine maybe?” Unfortunately, it wasn’t my moms recipe; but, on the bright side, other people have this amazing dessert as well. This dish consists of ⅓ cup of butter, ⅓ cup of brown sugar, three to five sliced bananas and a few scoops of vanilla ice cream; and, a little rum if you are feeling lucky. My mom, the lovely lady who taught me to make this, loves this dish, but it isn’t her favorite. As unfortunate as it is, her favorite dish comes from her mother. It is a portuguese rice and bean soup. She loves this dish because it reminds her of her family. Especially because my great grandmother taught my grandmother to make it and she taught the recipe to my mom, and to my mother, it makes the dish more valuable than any other dishes in the world. To her, family is more important than anything, especially if the memory lives on. “My favorite dish is probably the rice and bean soup that grandma makes because it reminds me of her mother. And that means she is still with us.” Even though bananas foster isn’t her favorite meal, she still has memories tied to it. She says, “Any meal we can eat together is a favorite meal. It reminds me of when we’d all eat it together on the couch and watch T.V.” Though it is not the same dish, the idea behind the dishes still remain the same. This rice and bean soup is tied to past memories of family. This can also be interpreted that through this meal, the value of family and love is still present today. I also asked her why she thinks I like it. “You like it because it is food and since the ice cream is cold, you have to eat it right away. You eat everything Chris.” This is a very true statement. 

All of these foods and meals have varying levels of value which is normal between different people. These foods can be connected to memories and events in a person’s life. Although it seems odd to think of food in a way like this, it opens up a whole new spectrum of how we interpret people. These foods can help decipher why a person acts the way they do or do not. All of these values that we contain are usually connected to something from our past. For me, it was a food, or dessert more specifically. From working in my backyard, to eating a dessert as a result of hard work is what makes my beliefs what they are today. The idea that you earn something for working hard is extremely important. The ability to work for something is what splits people into two categories. The hard workers and the watchers. The hard workers will succeed because they have the mindset to work hard while the watchers sit and wish to have what the workers have. 

In life, there are certain things that can trigger a memory like events, foods, smells, etc. A belief or memory can be tied to one of these things if it impacted your life enough. For me, it was the dessert bananas foster. It made me understand that with hard work comes a reward. And it varies between each individual. But the point of the matter is that with this food, it made an impact in my life which made me value a specific type of idea that makes me who I am today.