Family Dinners

In my family of origin, food was always a shared experience. My parents and brother and I ate dinner together every night when I was younger. Now when we’re all together on visits, we tend to eat most of our meals together. We plan them together, too, with everyone giving input and expressing opinions. We share the responsibilities of buying ingredients, preparing food, setting the table, and cleaning up after a meal. Our meals – especially dinner – are usually long, lingering affairs, where we sit around the table for well over an hour or more, talking, arguing, laughing, singing, debating, telling stories, or looking up facts. (Now we look things up on our phones, but throughout my youth it was common to have someone go get a dictionary, encyclopedia, reference book, or my Dad’s old etymological dictionary out at the dinner table.) They’re like the montages you see sometimes in films of a large group enjoying themselves over the course of a meal, background music included.

Finding Family Abroad

When I moved abroad in my early 20s, I tried to reproduce the energy and warmth of my family’s dinners with new people, as a way to make (close) friends. I made dinners for friends in tiny apartments, conscious that I wanted to bring together awesome people, yummy food, good drinks, and a chill atmosphere. Often, the people I invited would reciprocate, and we’d end up trading off hosting duties with the same give and take that my family fosters: we’d figure out what to make, where to get ingredients, and do the cooking together. We’d share favorite dishes from home or try new things from the country we were now living in, asking local friends or market vendors for guidance.

It makes me happy to see others happy, to be a good hostess and to see people enjoying themselves and making connections with other people. I love introducing people to each other when I think they would get along well, and what better way to do that than over a meal? We all gotta eat, right?

Evolution

To this day, food is a source of joy for me, but the social aspect has evolved. I’ve now been in a relationship with my partner for over a decade. He’s an athlete, and his relationship with food is entirely different from mine. To him, food is fuel, something to be consumed so that you can go do other things. So, while we absolutely go out to dinner together and our vacations often include discovering local food and drink, our daily lives are less structured around eating together.

These days, I mostly cook for myself, and that has taught me a new way to enjoy food. Rather than cooking for others or to facilitate connections, now I also cook as pure experimentation. Will I like this combination? What if I took this element from this recipe and that element from that recipe and put them together? What can I make with these last bits and pieces in the fridge? I wonder how this Flemish ingredient can be used? Since I’m the one eating it, it doesn’t matter if things go wrong. I can always make myself a sandwich as backup.

Thanksgiving

One thing that hasn’t changed: bringing people together and feeding them is still important to me. Every year I put on a traditional Thanksgiving dinner for about 15 of my closest friends here in Leuven, many of whom have become my family of choice over the years. I’ve had to make some adjustments (a Turkey just won’t fit in my little Belgian apartment oven), but I make sure that all my favorite sides are on the table. Those dishes, combined with the flow of conversation and drinks, dulls any pain at being far away from family on what is arguably the most family-centered American holiday. Over time, it’s become my own tradition, to the point that now I’d probably feel kind of sad to be in the States on that day!

Quick Fire Food Round

Dish that reminds me of home
Mac and cheese

Go to meal for friends
Caprese pasta in the summer, Buffalo chicken casserole in the winter

Biggest cooking disaster
Knock on wood, I’ve never really had one! 🤞

Where do you like to get your ingredients to cook something from your home country?
Albert Heijn is great for ingredients that are less common in Belgian/Northern European cooking. In the past I went to Exotic World a lot. Stone Manor in Kortenberg also often stocks American ingredients, including canned pumpkin in the autumn.

What is a new meal you discovered since moving to Belgium?
Working with white asparagus. I’d never really encountered it before and I had no idea you needed to peel it.

What traditions do you have around food?
Thanksgiving is incredibly important to me, and it’s important that I cook the entire menu so that the table reflects the Thanksgivings my parents used to put on. It keeps the emotional connection alive for me and makes it easier to be far from family on the holiday.

In your language, how do you say ‘enjoy your meal’ or ‘that’s tasty’ or ‘I’m full’
My favorite phrases after having a good meal are ‘I’m delightfully sated’ and ‘We’ve kept body and soul together again,’ which is something my mother often says after a big family meal.