I find that in those dark times of the soul when I need peace and a nearness to God, I turn to seaweed and fermented cabbage. More precisely, I turn to kimchee and doll-kim. With rice. They say that smell is the sense most powerfully associated with memory, and presumeably “they” know what they are talking about. Smell is closely linked to taste, and I suspect that this is what makes kimchee, kim and rice my comfort food of choice. It links me back to my mission — in Korea, of course — and the sense of working in God’s presence that I had then. For me kimchee will always be God’s food, the food of the Spirit.
Growing up my father had a complex moral cosmology of food. It was extremely important that one test and enjoy lots of “ethnic” foods. This was a way of combating narrow-mindedness, Western elitism, racism, and all the rest. The rejection of other cuisines was a kind of moral failure. God, it was understood, seasoned mainly with herbs and spices, rather than the sugar and salt of Wasatch-front cuisine. My wife (who enjoys ethnic food) still looks back in mortification on the time shortly after we first met when she told my father that her favorite food was a good steak.
I suppose that my father’s training my have as much as smell and memory to do with my strong association of spirituality and kimchee. I wonder if anyone else has religious relationships with food…
[…] is only partially LDS related, but a while ago, elsewhere in the bloggernacle, there was a discussion about gastronomy. Several people mentioned favorite dishes, many of which they came t […]
Kimchi and kim and a hot bowl of rice! mmmm. I had sun-tu-bu jang for lunch. Not quite as comforting as the kimchi combination, but right up there.
For me, German food does this. I know, it’s not as exotic as Korean food because, after all, Germany is in Europe and Europe counts as the West, and the West is elitist, racist, and all the rest, as Nate puts it. But give me a hot white asparagus soup, a saurbraten with saurkraut, and bratkartoffeln or kartoffel puree with a good braunesosse. Or Rotkohl with Speck and Waldfruechtemarmelade as a side dish to that. And make sure it’s a cold, wet day outside. That’s my idea of comfort food. Of course, this is the case for me for the same reason that kimchee works for Nate, namely, I served my mission in East Germany where the above mentioned dishes were standard fare, as was the above-mentioned weather.
Or even better is Kasseler auf Wirsinggemüse. Even the thought of it reminds me of Sunday dinners deep in the Stalinistic paradise of Schwester Schröter’s tiny, East German, Plattenbau (picture of some of the nicer of these Stalinistic, pre-fab buildings here, here, and here) apartment in Marzahn-Hellersdorf. Any other missionaries from Berlin out there who enjoyed Schwester Schröter’s fantastic cooking and lessons?
John, get the chip off of your shoulder. It will keep you from standing straight and ruin your spine.
Though I’ve never eaten at Sister Schröter’s apartment, I agree that Rotkohl with Speck can be very comforting. But so can a really good Weisswurst with a piece of hard bread and a pile of spicy mustard. And who in his right mind could turn down mussels and frijtes in late August or early September?
The mission has a lot to do with why Nate, Russell, and I think of Korean food and John thinks of German, but I think comfort food can come from any important experience. It can be a spiritual experience, like the mission, or it can be some other experience, like schooling. All that is required is that there be some important bond with the people and culture of the cuisine in question.
I attended a baptism yesterday and afterward they brought out food! I didn’t expect that as none of my English-speaking wards have had more than punch and cookies, if that.
The cake was fine. The tortillas were fine. However–one of the foods offered was a full roasted cow’s head. I love these people dearly, but I do not love cilantro, and I have a difficult time with new foods. They served me a very very large portion of cut-up-cow-head, wrapped in tortillas, with tons of cilantro. I had seen it, had seen its ear lopping over the edge of the tray, and I was just reminded far too strongly of anatomy class dissection trays. I also saw the little film of the cow staggering around with mad cow disease one time too many. I really had a moment where I thought I might faint–or worse! That never happened to me before. I tried very hard to disguise the distress I felt.
I hope I didn’t offend anyone. They offered this element of their culture to me with love, and I could not eat it. My husband managed to consume all we had been given.
Seconds on the flan. Tortillas, rice, great. Please, please keep the cilantro and the Cabeza de Vaca/Barbacoa.
When I want to more closely examine the “complex” LDS epicurean cosmology, I go to Chuck-A-Rama. I’m amazed at how many RM’s I’ve spoken with who said they avoided the indigenous cuisine of the land their calling, and profess little desire to leave Utah again.
If rotting cabbage ever gives you a burning that feels like the Spirit of God, a couple Tums ought to put that fire right out.
Let’s turn the question around: does feeling the spirit make you hungry for kimchee? If so, this could really drive you nuts in the afterlife!
Fasting, the opposite of eating, can be a very spiritual experience.
Since kimchee is, in my experience, the opposite of food, I think I understand how it can be considered the food of the spirit.
I served my mission in good old Salt Lake City. Somehow I have avoided equating (conflating?) spirituality and spaghetti, which was the overwhelming favorite choice to serve missionaries for dinner.
OTOH, my last couple of months I also got to serve in the Jordan Stake’s Tongan ward. Tongan food is hard to find, so I don’t know for sure, but it’s entirely possible that lupulu, talo, and roast pig might cause me to feel the spirit.
I have a “religious relationship” with food of all sorts, but probably not in the way this post intended.
However, as others have expressed, one of my favorites is something I had (nearly) every night of my mission: arroz y frijoles with warmed tortillas (corn, of course). You don’t have to have been a missionary where these are staples to love them, though. And I think my affinity for them (and their link to my mission) is more, like Jim F. suggests, an attachment to the people rather than any intensification of the Spirit–if those two are separable.
I have a theory about Korean food: The basic problem with food is that it rots. In Europe they tried to get around this problem in one of two ways. Either they salted the hell out of everything or else they went to great lengths to get pepper in order to cover up the rot. Remember why Columbus was so hot to get to the “Orient” and all that. Korea, however, decided to simply embrace the rot and place it at the center of their cuisine. Strictly speaking, however, kimchee is not rotten cabbage. It is fermented cabbage. There is a difference. Indeed, kimchee can actually become rotten, at which point it really becomes pungent.
It seems that some have not yet come to their senses, with the result that theyconfuse fermentation with rot (which means, I suppose, that they also do not eat vinegar, soy sauce, worcestershire sauce, pickles, cheese, aged sausages, yogurt, or sauerkraut–all fermented). As I always said to my children when they were young and passed up the kimchi, “Great! That means more for me.” For them, the result was in increased mimetic desire, with the result that they now love kimchi. But I doubt that internet relations will have the same results. Too bad.
Nate writes:
“Indeed, kimchee can actually become rotten, at which point it really becomes pungent.”
Kaimi wonders:
Really pungent, huh? And that is different from regular kimchee . . . how?
:)
How about a nice hot bowl of udon, with a lot of spicy red pepper, bought at a stall on the platform of the train station in Takamatsu on a cold dark December evening? Simple, fun to eat (what kid, or former kid, doesn’t love to slurp his food, and how can you eat a bowl of noodles with chopsticks without slurping?), warms you all the way to the bottom of your soul.
No, it won’t ever make the menu of a Cordon Bleu restaurant, but it’s great soul food.
Nate, we seem to have been posting at the same time. However, I am preparing to teach a class on food history, and I have to correct something you said: spices were not introduced into European cuisine in order to cover up the rot in food. That is a popular myth, but untrue. Spices became part of European cuisine because the Crusaders learned to like them. European courtiers liked everything they encountered in the highly cultured Near East–except their religion. They copied their food, clothing, etc. once they got back home. Living as much as possible like a Muslim prince would (or as one imagined he would) was the sign of high culture. Europeans used the same ways to preserve foods that Koreans did: salting, pickling, drying, etc.
I had occasion to spend weeks at time in Houston for work. I found my way to “Little Korea” looking for some Seoul food. The missionaries were walking by the restaurant as I walked up. Noting their Korean name tags, I asked in Korean if they could recommend a good place to eat. They recommended a place and I asked if they wanted to join me. I was filled with the spirit and good Korean cooking (not an oxymoron).
When I got home that weekend, my wife demanded to know what I had been eating. She could smell the kimchee on me two days later!! She did not feel that it was the smell of the spirit.
We do associate food with the surroundings and situations where and when we ate. It’s no surprise that Korean RM’s associate kimchee with spiritual feelings, as a Korean missionary requires the spirit to survive the difficult circumstances of the mission. Or at least as the mission was 29 years ago.
But that begs the question, why don’t most U.S. LDS feel the spirit when partaking of lime Jello with carrot shavings?
Most eating is a chore for me–literally, since it almost always involves feeding my children, too–so I’ve never understood the phenomenon of comfort food, and food never provokes spiritual feelings in me.
I did love the food in Portugal, where I was a missionary–not only the aceite (olive oil) and pao (bread) and frango (grilled chicken) and bacalhau (dreid salted cod), but also this odd breakfast food… a powdered cereal to which one added cold milk, and mixed it up into a sticky pap… What was that called? Ryan? Frank? Oh yes, Nestum: http://mercearia.net/loja/product_info.php?cPath=7&products_id=36
It came in “mel” (honey) and “chocolat” flavors. Mmmm. I would still eat that for breakfast, if I could.
Nate, I love the way you wrote about your father’s complex moral cosmology of food–and I confess to a bit of the same tendency. It seems to me a mark of moral quality to seek out and enjoy unfamiliar regional foods, and I was somewhat judgmental of missionaries who didn’t like Portuguese food. My mission president’s wife, wonderful in almost all ways, complained for months about the markets and unfamiliar foods, and I felt a little superior to her. When I moved to Missouri from California, though, I found myself, when shopping for food to feed my children, similarly nonplused at the grocery store, looking at unfamiliar brands and foods.
“why don’t most U.S. LDS feel the spirit when partaking of lime Jello with carrot shavings?”
Because lime jello with carrot shavings is gross.
My favorite Korean dish is dol sot bi bim bop in a hot stone pot, not so much because of how good it is to eat (which it is), but because of the pleasure of rolling that string of monosyllables off the tongue.
My husband was pretty fresh off his mission in Pusan when we got married (11 months after his return) and still eating quite a lot of kimchee. For the first year, he’d open the jar and I’d want to retch. I was not pregnant … it was just nasty. Then, really almost exactly a year after we married, it suddenly smelled good. It literally turned my head–I had to see what he was doing. I’ve liked it ever since.
Then again, I’ve always had an adventurous spirit on the culinary front. That probably comes from a combination of factors: a mom who served in Ecuador and always sought out the best Latino foods, even when we lived in Pittsburgh where pierogies and kielbasa are much easier to get, and a dad who always had Chinese and Indian scientists as colleagues who invited our family to share their foods and cultures.
The ethnic food I’ve been eating lately that’s most comforting is a homemade curry prepared with boiled eggs, coconut milk, green beans, tomatoes, lots of onions, turmeric and cayenne pepper. Served on basmati rice with raita (yogurt mixed with grated cucumber and cumin) and diced mango, it is soft and sweet and nourishing and so very close to perfection … I can’t say I feel the Spirit but I feel darn good eating this stuff.
A kimchee-related World Trade Center story:
I worked at the WTC from 1982 to 1987. I reached my 52nd floor office by taking the express elevator to 44 and changing to the local elevator for the rest of the trip. The express elevator must have been nearly as big as one floor of my house–perhaps 15 by 40 feet, and could fit 75 people (or so it seemed).
My schedule must have been similar to a Korean gentleman’s, so we often shared the same express elevator to the 44th floor. I could tell when he entered the car, even if I was facing away from him, and even if he stayed at the opposite end of the car. I suspect that anyone with a working olfactory nerve could also sense his entry into the car.
I don’t know if I’ve ever eaten kimchee, but the smell the next day was enough to make me wonder about the wisdom of eating it.
I feel impressed to bring up the dark side of serving a mission in Europe — the Nutella addiction.
——
Fermentation is the secret makes Romanian’s version of cabbage rolls superior to those of other Eastern European nations. The acrid, sour element helps balance the sweet taste of the tomatoe paste. Toss in a generous helping of mamilaga (polenta) and and several spoonfulls of sour cream and you truly have a spiritual experience.
John Fowles:
Our concepts of German soulfood definitely overlap a bit. Rotkohl, Wirsing, and Spargel will always be the vegetables of inspiration. You left off one mainstay of my mission that must be added though: Quark. A good bowl of Quark was essential to any missionary planning session to help get the enlightenment flowing. And, as the German Elders were fond of reminding the Amis, “Der Quark macht stark!”
Let me also add a hearty “Amen” to Nate’s assessment of jello and carrots. I have heard terrible horror stories from missionaries who served in Utah concerning the various and sundry foodstuffs they would find floating in the jello served to them by the natives. One sister told me she was actually served jello with tuna chunks. I got the feeling her memories of mission food were somewhat less idyllic than Nate’s.
Now I’ll have to drive down the coast to “Duke’s Bitchin’ Burgers” on the beach at Ventura, or find a Tri-Tip BBQ in the Central Valley, or track down a silver taco truck and some Jarritos, so I can see if the food of my mission engenders spiritual feeling.
Another wife of a RM from the Pusan mission here — except it took me 10 years to convert to kimchee. Now I love it, even crave it sometimes. I had a bad experience in early pregnancy with Dwen Jang Jigae and still don’t like it :)
But in my own relationship of food and spirituality, I’m with William Morris — Nutella and pain chocolat! I will always link the budding of my own spirituality with the food in Aix-en-Provence.
kris:
Those of us who served on the edges of Europe weren’t always able to get Nutella. I think it popped up only 4-5 times during my entire mission in Romania. So during the months without, we were reduced to whatever we could find in the import stores (and sometimes even the government stores — you never knew what funky thing would show up as part of some international trade program — at one point there was this government store on Calea Grivitsei that stocked Oreos — although they had a slight banana taste to them).
Here then is the hierarchy of chocalate spreads (by country of origin — I don’t remember brand names):
Italy
Spain
Austria
Greece
Israel
Turkey
Greg, when you say Tri-Tip, I say Amen. Tri-Tip BBQ is verily the one true food of the spirit, so that the saints feasted upon it and it alone at every stake picnic I remember.
kris: Oddly my wife most enjoys Kimchee when she is pregnant. I have been feeding my own son kimchee since he was old enough to eat something other than congealed goo, and he really likes it.
William Morris —
I am ashamed then to admit how spoiled I was with my access to chocolate in the South of France — our excues was that the Nutella jars made such great drinking glasses!
Of the many wonderful Argentine dishes, the one that sticks out as symbolic of them all is bife al caballo, a steak with a fried egg on top and fried potato wedges on the side.
Nate — Interesting. We had a friend from Chung Mu come and live with us for 6 months while she was learning English when our son (who is named Jacob!) was just over a year. She would frequently cook us great food and to this day he still loves spicy Korean dishes, with a particular emphasis on rice and seaweed.
What is Tri-Tip BBQ?
/too lazy to Google
Tri-tip is a cut of beef, “discovered” in the Central Coast area of California and still very popular there (I believe the town of Santa Maria claims to be the originators, but the best I ever had was in Lompoc). It’s usually prepared on a spit, and served in thin slices with beans.
Here’s a site with more than you’ve ever wanted to know on the topic: http://www.cbbqa.com/meat/beef/tritip/NameSantaMaria.html
sounds tasty, Greg. Jonathan, how come you never made this for us?
Here’s a nice overview of North Carolina barbecue, which has a culture of its own, and which I shall miss when I leave this place.
My grandfather keyed into the tri-tip cut early on in its history so I’ve eaten a lot of it in my life. Good stuff — although being Northern Californians we don’t mess with the whole pinquito beans thing. Rub with pepper and salt and barbecue or broil to medium rare and serve in thin slices (with horseradish if desired).
Of course, it’s popularity has grown to where it’s no longer near as affordable as it used to be. In fact that was my grandfather’s main motivation — he loves steak, but had seven children to feed. Tri-tip was a way for everyone in the family to have steak.
Kris, how bad was that den jang cheegae? Did it have fish heads and cooked cucumbers? btdt … sorry to hear you have too.
But speaking of beany Korean foods, I just thought for the first time in years about jajang myun.(totally clueless how to spell that) Noodles with a salty, rich black bean sauce–yummy.
And blessed me, I live in California. Tri-tip goes on sale at the local grocery for $2.99/pound several times a year. I cook it with lots of garlic and black pepper, always my favorite way to eat beef. I could go on about the food possibilties of the Central Valley where we grow fully 5% of the nations produce, but I’ll just say I’m salivating thinking about strawberry season. Now there’s a food you could build a testimony on.
I see where this discussion is taking us:
http://timesandseasons.org/index.php?p=1921
Military commissaries have Nutella. I think I’ve seen it in Albertson’s, too. I wish they had a non-hazelnut version.
I was a young married lady in Turkey and I did get quite attached to many Turkish foods. Why was the PRODUCE so much better there? Better tomatoes, radishes you could just die for…..
But while I strongly associate food with love (alas, I reflect that association physically!) I don’t really feel strongly spiritual about it. I hope to serve a mission with my husband one day–may not happen as we have an autistic son who may be dependent upon us for as long as we’re here. Maybe then I’ll “get” it. I do know that I was so grateful that my new branch will ignore the prohibition on USING the kitchens in the meeting house. Eating what we made wasn’t all that spiritual to me–maybe I just can’t find spirituality on foam plates with plastic cutlery? but being part of a laughing group of women having fun doing something together…that was spiritual.
Bryce: Amen on the NC barbecue. Vinegar-based forever!
Mark B in #14: It’s not Takamatsu, but I’ve been asked to make Japanese food for the Priests Quorum tomorrow as we leaders take turns talking about the cultures of our missions. It’s my night. Even before reading your post I knew it was going to be steaming bowls of Udon. The memory of holding the bowl in my hands (frozen from winter-time doorknocking) and letting the glorious heat transfer into my fingers is still one of my favorites. I’m topping the udon with wakame, boiled egg slices, enoki, and chicken-katsu slices. You may join us if you’d like, but you’ll have to out-race Bryce who is only three hours away ;-)
And as for the lingering post-digestion aroma kimchee gives one, I’ll stake my homemade garlic-bomb gyoza (potstickers) against your kimchee any day. When Gyoza repeats on you Thursday morning, it means you had a wonderful Tuesday night meal.
Bryce, Tri-Tip cannot be prepared properly outside of central and central coast California. It would have been an abomination to attempt it in Provo.
While I should join John Fowles and MDS in praising the spiritual qualities of German food, I confess–Turkish immigration was the best thing that ever happened to German cuisine.
Jonathan, I agree with you to the extent that Turkish food is awesome (but not to the extent it was meant as a put-down to good old German food). Give me a York-Hassan Döner-Kebab anytime. . . .
Where are you Chad Too?? I’m on my way!
I, too, served in Pusan. It’s funny how when I go to Korean restaurants nowadays all I want is the most basic thing there–Kimchi JJigae. It’s so simple, but reminds me so much of Korea. I cannot get enough of the stuff.
I learned to eat kimchee while living in Israel. There’s quite a group of South Korean evangelical students who go to the Hebrew University of Jerusalem to study the Bible (learn biblical Hebrew). One of my good LDS buds there served a mission in Korea and as a result we became good friends with some of these Koreans. The first time I had kimchee it was a bit difficult to swallow but I learned to appreciate it. I don’t crave it but I like it. We have some Korean neighbors who attended a BBQ function our apartments were having. They gave me some Korean-style BBQ ribs and I have to say that Asian BBQ is now one of my favorite things, particularly the ribs. I could eat Asian-style pork ribs all day long.
The first time I sat down in front of a tamale (cooked in a banana leaf) in Guatemala I was really not sure what to do with it. But I learned to love and crave tamales and every now and then I get one. I like both the salty (salada) and sweet (dulce) versions.
I got some counsel from my Chinese mother-in-law on what dishes to try at Chinese restaurants and it really expanded my appreciation for a number of dishes. Walnut shrimp, General Tzo’s chicken, Cantonese fried noodles (comes with a variety of vegetables and seafood). There are some other dishes I’m not remembering right now. Before that I had been a beef-and-broccoli and sweet-and-sour-chicken type guy.
Middle Eastern foods are great and each Arab country and even town has its own specialties. Stuffed grape leaves are great. Maqlube (a sort of upside-down rice and chicken dish) is great. There are some other good dishes. Kanafi is a dessert I came to really enjoy though I don’t know where to get it these days.
My texas bro-in-law has really helped our family get into BBQ.
smelly stink and food poisoning.. fermentation? its kimche your gods food
it is surely not the GOD of IISRAEL but the god of stinky food :p
you all are no good for those stuff contains ingredients that are forbidden in the book of Leviticus