I was watching a Netflix show the other day, enjoying a beautiful scene in which an abuela (grandmother) was showing her nieto (grandson) how to make tacos carnitas. During this montage the abuela proceeded to say how important cooking and food were because “food is love”.
This stunned me even though I have heard this plenty of times before. I come from a (ridiculously) large family and one of the main ways we show care for each other is by cooking. This can take the form of sharing recipes with each other, bringing a dish to a family event or even trying to make each other our favourite treats. As a result of this, I was an extremely adventurous eater from a young age. My uncle liked to test us, proposing disgusting food challenges to us in the attempt to mature our taste pallets and my close family friends would often take us to food markets to develop our culinary knowledge.
Saturdays were the one day where my dad would cook us our ideal, decadent breakfast, to show how much he cared for us. Fridays became take out night, a treat for the end of the working week. Christmas’ were filled with arguments about who could cook the best garlic pork and contests over whose roast potatoes were better. Birthdays inflamed a fire in me as I proceeded to learn how to bake my friends favourite cakes for them.
As we enter lock down, this love takes the form of families sending food delivery parcels to their loved ones who are shielding or in an isolated community. Baking flourished as we learnt a new form of self love by providing for ourselves, in the most wholesome way.
From this, I understand food can be a huge display of love: so what does this mean in terms of my anorexia?
When food to me can seem as an access and unnecessary part of life, this form of love can seem fake. When we too benefit for the creation we have just concocted, this act of love suddenly feels selfish and greedy.
Are there not other ways to show that you love someone?
When the free market has stuck their fangs into the food industry, whatever love and care that used to be in food has disappeared for me. Dining out has become too regular an experience that it now feels glutinous and shallow.
And the industry is well aware of this: we are constantly bombarded by advertisements encouraging dieting and weight loss.
This is why I feel confused.
Why would I want to engage with food when it is criticised for being unhealthy, glutenous and selfish but is also romanticised as a caring and social experience?
On Halloween we gorge on sweets, and on Valentines day a box of chocolates are one of the best declarations of love, but any other day of the year this is seen as greedy and naughty.
I start to panic. What if I bring my own food? Or should I eat my meal beforehand and then meet my friends?
Unfortunately this begins a dangerous spiral as I then become scared of meals being prepared for me because I don’t know or trust what is them, preferring my own restricted recipes at home.
However, the work that chefs put into their food is a form of love: it's their passion for food, carefully constructed for me. I shouldn’t be wary of them, of what they create and their industry. I should instead be wary of the capitalist machine and their insidious cycle which encourages us both to gorge and to starve.
The goal is to find a balance, which is difficult in our capitalist society that promotes unhealthy extremes.
Therefore, I have taken the time to use this lock down to not only see food as a form of love and care, but also to find other means to express love, because that is what balance is.
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