Toast with Melted Butter, Please
Reflections On Food, Love and Longing
Mmmmm, a recent treat.
I have a clear memory of saying that to my father when I was growing up, when I was still little enough for him to ask me what I wanted for breakfast. He would chuckle when I did and respond with:
“Punkin, don’t you mean toast with butter?” winking knowingly at me, to which I would reply, “No, Daddy, it has to be toast with melted butter, toast with butter isn’t the same thing.”
Photo of Me with My Two Dads:
On the left, my biological Black Father, Ronald Paynter, and on the right, my adoptive White Father, (and the one I grew up with, who made me toast with melted butter), Ronald Dodds.
And it really isn’t, to me anyways. Have you ever had toast that was cold, with butter that didn’t melt into it? The two breakfasts are a far cry from each other, and I’ve known that since I was a toddler and my preference is clear. But the other thing I’ve also come to realize lately, is that the emotional connection I have to food, and I suspect most of us do, is one that is intertwined with memories of the people and places associated with those foods you love (or despise).
That particular toast memory was one from a winter morning in Southern Ontario, Canada. The sun was streaming through the kitchen and it was early enough that the rest of the household was still asleep, or at least not yet downstairs in the kitchen. It was the early 1980’s and breakfast wasn’t ever fancy when I was growing up, unless it was a special occasion. Toast, cereal, a banana or some other fruit was about the extent of it. But it’s the memory of someone making it for me, and making it with genuine care and love that I most recall. Biting into that perfect piece of warm toast, almost dripping with the melted butter, is a memory that makes me sigh with sweet surrender to this day.
I recalled this memory recently I think because of two things:
It’s been nearly 10 years since I was diagnosed with Celiac Disease. Celiac is a serious allergy to gluten, and one that will damage your intestines if you ingest it, in any amount. Gluten free breads until recently weren’t worth my time and attention because they fell apart and tasted like cardboard, so it had felt like forever since I’d enjoyed a decent piece of toast.
I listened to the 100% Guilt-Free Self-Care Podcast recently, where two people that I actually know in real life, Tami Hackbarth, and Julia Washington, talked about Julia’s morning routine. Julia revealed that every morning, pretty much with out fail, she and her son have coffee, toast and turkey bacon together.
Morning Glory
Each morning, Julia, the host of the show, Pop Culture Makes Me Jealous, enjoys toast with preserves, coffee and turkey bacon with her son.
The very same day I listened to that episode, my husband Richard came home with what turned out to be a most special treat: a new loaf of gluten-free bread by Canyon Bakehouse (no they’re not paying me for this), and he toasted a piece for me, patted a square of cold butter on it, and as I watched it melt, and then brought it to my lips, and teeth, and tongue and tasted, smelled and chewed, I swear to God I almost passed out with joy. It tasted so good, no actually, wonderful. Just like I remembered toast tasting. My mind and heart were swiftly spirited back to that cold winter’s morning when my Dad asked me what I wanted to eat, and the simple love that was shared on that breakfast table was upon me here again in my own kitchen, thanks to my partner who had done such a simple and yet, profound thing. The next morning, I made a piece of toast again and took the photo that’s the headliner image for this post. I’ve actually been thinking about our connections to food for some time, and this seemed like the perfect place to start.
A Brief History of Toast
Most historians think that toast originated as a way to preserve or revive stale bread, rather than our modern interpretations of it smothered in avocado, peanut butter, jam or my favorite, butter. Bread as we know it was popularized in Egypt, and the closed oven was invented in Egypt for the baking of leavened breads by 3000 B.C. Europe, as usual gets most of the credit as the word “toast” actually comes from the Latin “tostum,” which means “to burn or scorch.” Ancient breads in Egypt and elsewhere were toasted by laying them in front of the fire on a hot stone, because they sure didn’t have toasters or toaster ovens back then.
My life-long love affair with bread didn’t end with morning toast however: every school day from the first grade through the eighth grade, I had the same thing for lunch - a peanut butter and jam sandwich. I’m not kidding. Whether it was made by a family member or myself, that was what I ate and truly LOVED for the entirety of my childhood. The security and familiarity of what to expect each day is what I suspect attracted me most. In addition to the PBJ in my lunchbox, the other constant with it was a thermos of chocolate milk and an apple. Seriously. The same lunch, every school day, for eight years. Did kids tease me? Sure they did. Did other adults who came into the house try to encourage me to try something else? Of course. Did I eat said something else’s - NOPE. That one constant in my life was something that I came to rely on. Breakfast could vary, (much as I loved toast with melted butter), and dinner was variable too, but lunch? PBJ or bust.
What comfort foods do you remember from your childhood or teen years? Do you still eat or think of them now?
My Classic PBJ
My daily sandwiches as a kid certainly did not look like this photo, that’s for sure. But the thought, memory and experience of how familiar and good it looked and tasted to my growing and overwhelmed childhood brain tells the whole story.
There it was, all my messy and gooey insides and emotions, a metaphor in peanut butter and jam, standing in for my fragile sense of self, somehow being held comfortingly together between two slices of bread.
Our Family Connections to Food
The Father who I grew up calling Dad, Ronald Dodds, was born and raised in Southern Ontario, Canada. He was a kid when the Depression of the 1930’s hit and his Mother died young. He told me that even as a child, in order to help survive and provide for the household, he learned to fish, to hunt, and he was in charge of a city-block sized vegetable garden. Their family wasn’t wealthy, and the depression made things quite a bit worse. He captured rabbits and pheasants to eat when needed for meat, and he took care of the garden plot all by himself, selling extra vegetables at the market to bring home cash income.
Undated Photo, circa 1940s
At age 14, Ronald joined the Canadian Military and became an airplane mechanic, serving throughout WWII.
When he was only 14, and just prior to the start of World War II, he fibbed about his age in order to get into the military (you were supposed to be 16). He wanted to leave his home, a very difficult place with no Mother around anymore, and an abusive Father he did his best to steer clear of, to see the world and find something of himself in service to his county too. He returned several years later wearing the same pants he had left in, and there’s a photograph I’ve seen (which I don’t have, but wish I did!), where his pant hems are in the middle of his shins because he had grown so much while serving overseas. Tall, skinny and happy, one of the first things he supposedly said was:
“I’m going to have dessert everyday for the rest of my life.”
Ronald Dodds, circa 1980’s
This photo was taken by one of my Uncles on one of a few annual fishing trips he went on with them in the Northern and Western provinces of Ontario and Manitoba, in Canada.
And indeed he did have dessert everyday for the rest of his life. To my knowledge and memory, he had dessert at lunch and at dinner, everyday. He remained fit and slim despite this, only gaining some additional weight much later in life, but for the most part he was very mentally and physically active, even after retirement, and didn’t have major health issues until his final years. He lived to age 91, passing in 2014 from complications of pneumonia.
I learned a lot about food, and my relationship to it, from a very young age. But I didn’t really consciously realize that until much more recently, and curiously, that it was this man, Ronald Dodds, who was not even technically biologically related to me, and who raised me as his own, who taught me so much about it.
1959 L-R: My Uncle Guy Van Brabant, my biological Mother, Maria Paynter (Van Brabant), my Aunt Caroline Skoronski (Van Brabant), my biological Grandmother (whom I called Mom), Madeline Dodds (Van Brabant, Segers), my biological great Grandmother Flavia Segers (Craeye) and by biological great Grandfather, Charles Segers, at what appears to be Christmas or Thanksgiving Dinner.
My Grandmother, Madeline, who I grew up calling Mom, after my biological Mother Maria, her eldest daughter, died in 1974, is nearly 100 years old as of this writing. She married to Ron later in the 1960s after divorcing from her first husband, Joe. It was a second marriage for Ron too. Growing up, there are two major things I recall about Mom Madeline’s cooking: one food that I really loved, and one that I really despised.
Food to love?
Belgian crepes. Born in Belgium, she had a recipe and knack for making this treat that I’ve never encountered since. It was the food we had on every special occasion, the one that everyone asked for. The one that could be tailored to whatever your heart’s desire was, rolled up on the inside, (fruit? cheese, meat? yoghurt?), blanketed in the thin, fried and slightly sweet dough that wrapped around the outside. Thinking about it now, they actually didn’t look all that particularly attractive, but the taste?! For me personally it was always butter, brown sugar and syrup for the win and in fact, just rolled up cold from the fridge the next morning was also a delectable and fast leftover breakfast.
“Pannekoeken” (pan-ah-cookin) is the Flemish name for crepes - it translates as pancakes, but they’re different from pancakes in that they’re very thin and stretchy, and able to be rolled and/or stuffed, unlike typical pancakes which are enjoyed in thick, fluffy stacks.
This recipe from The Hungry Belgian might be one to try if you’re curious.
Needless to say, I haven’t had a crepe since I was a teenager - the whole gluten thing. But when I think about that positive eating experience and the memory, it’s also infused with the occasion. Being surrounded by family or friends, something to celebrate, something prepared with love - the maker knowing full-well that everyone is anxiously waiting around the table for the goodies to be set down to enjoy. There’s something to that, isn’t there?
What do you remember about big meals or celebrations around a table when you were younger?
Circa mid-late 1970s L-R: My Great Grandmother, Flavia Segers (Craeye), my Great Grandfather, Charles Segers, Me, my Grandfather/Adoptive Father, Ronald Dodds, my Uncle Guy Van Brabant.
Conversely, Brussel Sprouts.
Ugh, I’ve really tried since then. But less than a handful of times I’ve had them in a restaurant, and once at home where the recipe was just right, and they were crispy and fused with hot peppers and maybe some garlic and a lemon or other citrus sauce that took away the bitterness. But for the most part they always taste to me like they’ve been boiled to oblivion and I can’t get up from the table until I finish what’s on my plate. You either love them or hate them - but how much of our reaction to this kind of food is based on our emotional and physical experience of eating them? Hint: probably a lot. Absent of legitimate allergies and sensitivities, I’m guessing a lot of us have these reactions to certain foods. So in the meantime, I’ll keep trying. I love cabbage, broccoli and other kinds of bitter vegetables, but I’m taking note that there is a lot more influencing my palate than I might think.
What food to you think is absolutely awful and why? Do you have childhood memories associated with it?
We All Scream for Ice Cream
A treasured childhood memory of mine is going downtown on a hot summer night to Ice Cream Galore, a locally owned business that had in our humble opinion, the world’s best ice cream. My favorite? Tiger’s Eye, a mix of black licorice and orange sherbet. The feelings of joy and contentment experienced with a once-in-a-while treat, can follow us into adulthood in a pleasant way, but can also fuel emotional eating when we need more than just ice cream as a solution to what we’re feeling.
Let’s talk about fries now for a minute. Yes, fries. A few years ago, a work colleague asked me what my favorite savory treat was and I didn’t hesitate to say fries. It’s a triple whammy: my previously mentioned Belgian Grandmother, Madeline, only very rarely made thick-cut, delicious Belgian Fries. Fries are often called French Fries, but I’ll stop you right there and get you to read this article, which explains how they actually originated in Belgium. So, at home I love fries (again, prepared with love by the maker, who receives copious thanks and adulation from the table), as well as witnessing the 1980s rise of fast food restaurants where they were also plentiful.
Additionally, in the town I grew up in, there were “chip trucks” or “Bridge Fries,” located under the bridge that provided swift access to the state of Michigan, just on the other side of the St. Lawrence River, where it met Lake Huron. This was a family spot, a teen spot, a date spot, and, since I was a kid of the 80’s and a teen of the 90’s - let’s just say I ate a whole lot of damn fries in my life and they remain, to this day, one of my favorite foods. The emotional, familial and psychological connections run deep.
And so dear reader - if you’ve stuck with me this far - can you guess what I’m going to posit now? Well, it’s a few things, but they’re all related, at least in my mind, bear with me:
We all have emotional and psychological connections to the food we eat. If I could, when I have rough days, I would eat ice-cream, fries, and crepes, because it feels good. I associate these foods with feeling good, feeling loved and positive experiences.
I think a lot about the rise of the household where two or less parents/adults became the norm. Due to rising costs of living and shifting gender roles/demographics also means more choose or must work additionally, and full-time, outside the home. Which leads to a lessened ability to grow or prepare food at home, and thus to a fast food explosion, often leading to negative health effects. Increasingly, we are living in urban areas, the wealth gap is huge, poverty is increasing, and food deserts are a real and devastating thing.
Food and the preparation of it being a necessary but mostly pleasurable, family oriented ritual before the 21st century, begins to shift to a “get it done” by any means necessary approach.
We lose our connection to our food and look for the love we miss being shown to us in the preparation of it, from increasingly outside sources. Outside sources could be fast food and other treats which seem relatively benign, but also, alcohol, drugs, entertainment (digital or otherwise), gambling…I’m sticking to food here, but you get the idea.
December 2021 L-R: My daughter, Jesha Morgan, Me, my daughter, Sandelle Morgan, spending some time exploring at the Crocker Museum of Art.
When my daughters came home for Christmas this past December, an interesting thing happened. My husband Richard suggested that we order lots of takeout for the first few days for a few reasons:
Between all of us there are a lot of severe food allergies and preferences, but we have similar tastes in takeout menus.
It’s the holidays and we’ve all been working hard, let’s support local businesses and take a break from cooking and enjoy some great food.
Sounds reasonable and good, right?
That’s what we thought, and so we went out, gleefully for an outdoor Christmas Eve Brunch. Then we ordered sushi for Christmas Eve dinner and Indian food for Christmas Day dinner. It was all delicious and convenient, but I won’t lie, I love a home-cooked turkey, mashed potatoes and range of vegetables for a traditional meal, but we had so many leftovers from our takeout that we ate those for Boxing Day and still had more leftover. I was contemplating ordering more food to compliment what we had left when my eldest said:
“When are we going to cook? I haven’t had a home-cooked meal from you since March of 2020, I actually really like your cooking,” and that stopped me dead in my tracks. I realized that I too, like cooking. It is an expression of love for me, but when the kids were younger and we had horrendous commutes and so little time, I despised cooking. It was just one more thing I had to do, and kids are always hungry (and so are adults, frankly), and it just became whatever the fastest thing was that I could get on the table.
As I’ve gotten older, I realize that while I do truly enjoy preparing food, but only if there is time and space to do it. If you live in a small/tight space or are always in a rush because of commutes or rely on public transportation? Even harder to take time to grow, shop and prep. I finally decided that on weekends or days off I could batch prep and cook while listening to podcasts, music, or talking on the phone. It felt therapeutic and good to be unhurriedly chopping vegetables, adding spices, marinating meats in sauces and making enough to enjoy some now, and some later. By the way, have you ever read or watched Like Water for Chocolate?
While dining out or ordering in has absolutely always been a rare treat in the homes I grew up in, and the home I cultivated as a wife and mother, did we ever just pick-up fast food or order pizza because that’s what we needed to do to get by in the moment? Absolutely. And because it was such a rarity we usually enjoyed it pretty immensely too.
My girls and I eating ice cream on the couch, 2001/2002
What I want to come around to here friends is the observations we can make about ourselves and our relationship to food and how it impacts our daily life now. While there have always been so-called, foodies, the pandemic that is covid-19 ushered in a whole other kind of cooking, making and baking craze because we literally could not leave home for days, weeks and sometimes months at a time. We suddenly had time and inclination to make meals, and while much has been made about the weight that the collective population has gained during this time, there is also something else we have regained: our appreciation of food made with love, and the relationships that matter to us.
Of particular note to those who have Framilies they’ve built/are building because of severed, lost or toxic blood relative relationships. Do you have recipes or traditions that can find new life in this group? What about new things you discover that can become your specialty offering? It might just be best to separate yourself totally from something that has too much negative association in your past, no matter how much you want to reframe it. What’s important though is that everyone has something personal to offer, to feel part of the gathering, no matter how small or complicated it may be. Eating with others usually makes us feel good, whether we are related or not.
Outdoor Dining, 2014
Dining outdoors increased in popularity during the pandemic, in large part because of social distancing requirements to stay healthy, but it’s always been a lovely thing to do. In this photo, we were nestled in between my friend Margie’s vegetable garden and backyard wooden deck, and it was absolutely perfect.
L-R: Me, my husband Richard, Jose Barrientos, Sienna, Bridget and Shane Titus.
Photo by Margarita and Bruce Macdonald (not pictured).
Understand, that I am not trying to make this about weight or how you look, but how you feel. Our emotional attachments to or rejections of the food we eat, the company we keep and what makes us thrive are intimately connected. I encourage you to explore what that means for you - what do you need more of, or less of in your life?
If you live alone, or in a limited person household, is it possible to arrange Zoom or Face Time calls while eating with people you care about? (Don’t laugh, we do that sometimes with our daughters now that they both live away from home, and it’s actually a lot of fun). If that feels weird, maybe try scheduling calls close to mealtimes so that the feeling of connection can last into your eating time. Technology is not a complete replacement for actual people, but it can help to try different things out.
My Mom, Maria, and I in 1974
Whether we consciously recollect them or not, our earliest memories live in our bodies, and are associated with safety, nourishment and care.
Are you able to have conversations with caregivers about you as a baby? If not, what do photographs, if any, reveal?
I’ll spare you (and my daughters) the photos that could accompany the one above of me feeding my girls in almost the exact same position, with the same facial expression and at the same age. It’s uncanny how similar they are. Whether you were nursed at a breast or had a bottle, or whether you yourself breastfed your children and/or they had a bottle, the same thing happens: we associate nourishment with love and closeness to someone other than ourselves. And while I believe it’s also healthy and perfectly natural to eat alone comfortably, especially as we get older, we owe it to ourselves to be cognizant enough to recognize when we need or seek out other people, or when others need us. It’s wired into our brains, our hearts and our bodies to connect.
The patterns we can observe about ourselves, and how we do things now impacts our families and everyone who’s important to us in this life. I’m no food expert and am not claiming to be an authority on what’s best for everyone, but what I do think is this: when we know more about who we are, what we want (and why), along with who we love, it makes life and everything in it make more sense, taste amazing, and feel good.
And what could be better than that?
Other podcasts I like that contain helpful resources for dealing with our emotions and the challenges of daily living:
On Being, hosted by Krista Tippett
The Happiness Lab, hosted by Dr. Laurie Santos
***Note also that disordered eating is a very real and potentially dangerous situation that you or a loved one could experience and which can be extremely difficult, or even impossible to manage alone. It is often characterized by, but not limited to: severely restricting calorie intake, binging and/or purging, excessively exercising, body dysmorphia and obsessing about food (an inability to control your thoughts about food). Further information and resources are available to help online, or by contacting your preferred medical professional.***
If this post brought up any interesting thoughts or comments you’d like to share, I’d love yo hear from you: