There is something special about sharing a cultural dish with your family that is hard to describe, but it always leaves you feeling satisfied, loved, and comforted. At least, this is my experience when eating home-cooked Japanese meals in my kitchen with my family back home in New York City. It was a way for me to connect with my parents, my ancestors, and my other relatives back in Japan. I feel a bit of the very rich Japanese culture that I have the immense privilege of experiencing whenever I go back to Japan to visit family. Coming from a home where many core memories of my family revolve around food, moving to Georgetown, where home-cooked meals were noticeably absent, plunged me into homesickness for the first couple of weeks.
There is a strong connection between memory and your senses, specifically smell. This correlation is due to the fact that, unlike other senses that pass through the thalamus before going to the cortex, the area of the brain that controls memories and consciousness, olfactory senses are rounded directly to the cortex (Matt, 10). This physiological shortcut creates a very powerful association between smell and emotions that gives way to specific memories such as those that remind us of home. Furthermore, the idea of “comfort foods” further deepens olfactory memories, as selecting particular food objects as sources for comfort highly depends on social and cultural systems. In many cultures, food plays a vital role in different situations emphasizing different ways of life, making the cultural significance of food complex (Locher et al., 2006). Many people of various cultures crave meals that are not rich and complex in taste when homesick, but rather foods that are simpler and remind them of home.
Finding Japanese food in DC is not impossible: On Wisconsin Street, there is Oki Bowl, which serves primarily ramen, and M Street has Kintaro, which specializes in an array of Japanese foods. While they satisfy the Japanese palate to a certain extent, they lack the simplicity that home-cooked meals have. This is completely reasonable, as demand would be low for simple dishes that Japanese people eat daily. Thus, finding mundane Japanese dishes in Georgetown becomes surprisingly difficult, and when one is found, it is to be savored. On campus, we have the ability to make our own meals, however, this presents itself as a financial challenge to many students as all students are required to pay for a meal plan as part of their cost of attendance, which hinders them from splurging on quality ingredients to recreate dishes from home.
I am certain that many students can relate to my dilemma, but I argue that it is much more complicated than feeling homesick solely because you miss home-cooked meals. It is the removal of the cultural significance of foods that prompts homesickness and the traditions that come alongside it. Moreover, the most accessible foods on campus such as Leos, Epicurean, and Royal Jacket do not satisfy a Japanese palate that longs for flavors such as miso, dashi, and goma, all of which can be found in nearly any Japanese dish. There have been moments where I am able to seek temporary comfort when I make miso soup in my dorm or maze gohan with other Japanese students. However, I feel a major shift in how I approach food now. Food used to be something that had cultural and familial significance, but now, it simply serves as sustenance. The feeling of homesickness is not foreign to anyone, but the subtle differences in which each cultural community experiences homesickness through food create paramount distinctions in the ways we can ease this discomfort.
Works Cited
Locher, Julie L., et al. "Comfort Foods: An Exploratory Journey into the Social and Emotional Significance of Food." Food and Foodways, vol. 13, no. 4, Oct. 2005, pp. 273-97. Taylor & Francis Online, https://doi.org/10.1080/07409710500334509. Accessed 30 Oct. 2021.
Matt, Susan J. "A Hunger for Home: Homesickness and Food in a Global Consumer Society." The Journal of American Culture, vol. 30, no. 1, 23 Feb. 2007, pp. 6-17. Wiley Online Library, https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1542-734X.2007.00461.x. Accessed 30 Oct. 2021.