What is the relation between food and relocation? Between gastronomy and nostalgia? Wilna Wilkinson wonders why food is often central to expats. To feel at home or remember home, take your pick.

I imagine that most expat households subscribe to at least one newspaper and/or magazine from their home country. In fact, it would make a fascinating survey to see how many do - and don't, which newspapers and magazines they subscribe to - and why, and what this tenuous contact they have with their home country means to them.

Looking back from a distance

I would hazard a guess that most of these publications are read from cover to cover, and more often than not, read through rose-coloured glasses. Of course, no one will admit to this, but if you were completely honest, you have to admit that the 'grass-on-the-other-side-being-greener' syndrome when it refers to the grass ‘back home', is very much in evidence in an expat community.

Like childbirth, one remembers the good things, not the bad. This is purely and simply a natural human trait. The difference is something like looking at old photographs of yourself of when you were much younger -- without the wrinkles and the sagging bits and the grey hair, rather than looking in the mirror under a harsh neon light.

I sit here, in my new life and my new country, on a terrace overlooking the beautiful Dordogne River, lulled by the soporific sound of the water flowing over the stones and lapping on the edges, breathing in the champagne air of an early summer's afternoon, under the duck egg blue sky above, the swallows and the swans for company, and the smell of freshly cut hay wafting from across the fields - and it is very hard to recall the 'real' life I read about.

The troubles and the strife 'back home' simply cannot be that serious, that hard, that objectionable, that wrong! I read about the corruption in the government, the back-stabbing and in-fighting, the bad decisions, and I smile and feel my heart melt as I think fondly of those rascals and the monkey-business they are up to again.

I read about the snow in the mountains and the towns that are inaccessible and the electricity power cuts, and I smile and picture the blazing fires in the fireplace in wintertime and the children rushing in the back door from outside with their bright eyes and rosy cheeks and little frozen noses.

I read about the  success of the latest arts festival , the hoo-ha over the  comments a certain academic made in a press conference, about the  white artist working under a black name so as to be exhibited, and I smile and marvel at the rich cultural renaissance taking place 'back home'. And I forget that I used to spend my days working on- and lie awake at night worrying about these things -- about the corruption, about the lack of solidarity, about the homeless out in the pitiless weather, about the double standards and the thoughtless drivel uttered by so-called 'academics'.

A guest abroad and a foreigner back home

Such is the luxury of living as an expat in another country. We can enjoy and savour the pleasures and benefits of our newly adopted country and good-naturedly and magnanimously tolerate, accept or rationalise its faults and shortcomings, whilst looking from this safe distance at our home country and doing exactly the same. Here we cannot change too much, because we are guests. Back there we cannot change anything, because we have lost the privilege when we left.

It helps to leave your home country with an extra container though. One container for household goods (remembering to mark the boxes with your best wines for those 'special occasions', as "Kitchen ware"), clothing, garden furniture and books, and a second container for memories.

You may well find that you end up in a house where the rooms are too small for your old furniture, where the wine gets drunk all too soon because every occasion is a special occasion, where the clothing soon becomes too tight, or too warm or too cool for the seasons here, where the garden furniture does not fit onto the balcony and the books gather dust because there is just too much else to see and do and experience. 

But the contents of the second container will often come in handy; lovingly taken out, gently held close to your tugging heart, softly stroked, carefully handled.

Food to belong, food to feel at home

And so it is interesting too to see which memories people pack into that second container. In a magazine that regularly arrives in my mailbox, I read a delightful article last week, beautifully written by a well known food consultant who is leaving her country of birth, South Africa, to relocate to Scotland. She entitles her article "A chef's Last Supper", and writes about how farewells are made easier and less painful with food -- whether it is food prepared by a loved one for you, or whether it is you preparing the food for someone else, food is the antidote and healer.

She describes in vivid imagery and poetic detail the menu that she will prepare for her own final farewell meal -- a meal that will stretch over many days, and include every special dish, flavour and ingredient that has gone into her life, and concludes to say that she finally understands how closely interwoven our three basic needs are -- the need for security, for food and for love. 

The article reminded me of films like Chocolat with Juliet Binoche, and Babette's Feast, the little Danish gem of the late eighties -- films that depict the preparation of food as being much more than just an enjoyable pastime; how it becomes an outpouring of love, of gratitude, and of giving - and the perfect consolation for the pain of a farewell.

Is this why "food" is almost always amongst the first five things that expats will tell you they enjoy most about their new home? Or is it simply that the best place to spend time with old friends and make new friends is around a table laden with delicious food?

Perhaps it is the fact that we continue to need consolation, particularly when we have a moment of feeling a little homesick. That is when the smells and the textures and the tastes evoke more vivid and tangible memories of 'back home' than at any other time. Not only the food on the table, but the sharing of the moment, the camaraderie, the warmth and the feel-good factor that feeds more than the physical hunger -- it feeds the soul.

Whatever the reason, for expats living in France there is a zillion restaurants and eating establishments to choose from, and in my experience, it is not likely that you will ever sit down to a really bad meal. And even if the food was not something that you would write home about, you could always enjoy talking about it, or compare it with other better or worse meals --- or use it as a springboard to wax lyrical about the food of your home country and your childhood. This could be the ideal moment to pull out some of those precious memories and let them be the soul food that you share with your dinner companions.

Copyright EXpatica

Subject: Relocation, Gastronomy, Comfort food