Food Currency

Currency is defined as some sort of monetary payment for goods or services. During my therapy session last evening, we discussed my recovery from the surgery and the plan moving forward to maintain a healthy weight loss while starting a new job and making a crap load of changes to my every day life. When my therapist asked “Why do you think it is so important for you, to gift people with food?” My response instantly was “because it makes them feel better.” She countered with “how do know, where did that come from”?

When I was little girl, we lived with my paternal grandmother in a tiny two bedroom house in East Austin. Every Sunday she would make a huge spread of eggs, papitas, frijoles, pork chops, tortillas and a batch of oatmeal. My cousins and I loved Sunday’s! With Sunday’s came Mr. Valentine, a friend of my grandmother’s and the reason for the spread. Mr. V was always dressed in Khaki’s from head to toe with work boots and bag of gently used clothes and shoes for me, my brother and my cousins. Think Hispanic Mr. Green Jeans.
He came, he said a mouthful of words, he ate and then disbursed whatever he had in the bag. It smelled like mothballs and sometimes the shoes were too big or not so gently used. But we were poor and he was doing us a favor. The meal and the company were his payment. Hence food currency. To this day, I am not quite sure of the exact nature of the relationship between Mr. V and my grandmother, however, what I learned from that was that he held some importance in our lives and a costly meal was prepared every week for several years. Little kid mentality- if you mean something, you get the “good food”.

Mr. V was not the only person that was compensated with hearty meals. My grandmother was the primary cook because my mother was often away working. She was out earning real currency but that’s a story for another time. Let’s get back to the value of a meal. My father was always served his meal first. He expected his meal, the hot sauce and glass of ice water. He always seemed to be angry about something or other and we walked on eggshells to pacify him.
My father was a violent drug addict that often used my mother, my brother and I as human punching bags. Have you tried eating food with a lump of fear in your throat? It ain’t pretty. I hated meal times with my dad, shit I still do. But the idea that if you were “important” you were served your meal with all its accessories while others waited fueled the mentality that I created that there was some sort of food hierarchy.

Don’t get my wrong, I have been the recipient of food currency in a positive way as well. My maternal great grandmother Ramona, would shower my siblings and I with a wealth of the most humblest of meals that were also fit for a king. She instilled in me my love of cooking and my love of creating meals for those I love. When I discussed this with my therapist, she countered with “Do you use your cooking skills to make people like you? Do your culinary skills become a way to shield yourself from situations that may be difficult and you see it as a way to either pacify the person or sway them to take notice of you?” WTF!!! I didn’t like what was she was asking and I felt like she was implying that I was unlikeable. I was on the defensive. After a several seconds of awkward silence I asked her to elaborate and she said quietly stated “Does food equal love?“

Food currency can be worth a million dollars or have the equivalent of a Mexican peso. Here’s what I mean. If I am all up in the feels about a certain someone, I will create a delicious meal that will make them remember me. I create a memory of me through the food. Their praise is my payment for a plan well executed. The more I like you, the more meals you are prepared. That person is rich in food currency and they don’t even know it. So yes, food does equal love to me. Is that a bad thing???

About what about the Mexican Pesos??? Yeah, that’s the ugly part of food currency. Those are the meals you make to pacify assholes that feel entitled and will make everyone’s day hell just because they want to eat whenever the hell they want. Example: My mother had the flu or something and was very ill. She looked and sounded ill. My father WOKE HER up to ask if she was going to make him breakfast??? I mean, hey, he was hungry, right? A man’s got to eat……even if it means the distributor of the food currency is at death’s door. That meal she prepared was doomed to be unsatisfactory, the second she dragged herself out of bed. Not because it was unpalatable, but because “she did not put any love in it“. My father bitched the whole time as he ate the breakfast my mother slaved over while she tried desperately not to be sick. My father often decreased the value of food currency for many years. But that’s a novela for another time.

My love affair with food and my love affair with loving people with food has taken a detour as of late. I am re-examining so many things in my life at the moment and that in itself will effect the exchange rate of my food currency.