When I was 8 years old, I would wake up for swim meets before the sun had come up, groggy and anxious. My mom would already be downstairs, cooking me a breakfast sandwich; though I would be lucky to get even half of it into my stomach due to my pre-race nerves. The bread was always toasted exactly to my liking and the egg would be steaming and salty with melted butter. Her sandwiches cannot be replicated.
I grew up an exceptionally picky eater, constantly creating obstacles for my parents to figure out how to feed me. After hitting second or third grade, I was packing my own lunches for school to have full control over what I ate.
It’s embarrassing to admit, but often the only way I would eat fruit would be when my mom cut it fresh for me. Mangos, pears, apples transformed from sensory nightmares to delicious treats from her graceful knife skills. Now that I’m in college, she can no longer be around to cut my fruit for me, and I am in charge of my own fiber and vitamin intake. The intact apples in the dining hall are far from the realm of the perfect slices my mom cuts with peanut butter on the side.
Related: [A basement, a band and a burning couch: the night that changed the Bloomington music scene]
I am not alone in believing that my sandwiches or fruit—both simple things I can prepare on my own— taste better when my mom makes them for me. In response to many others asking about this phenomenon, psychologist Daniel Kahneman told the NY Times Magazine that food tastes better when someone else makes it for you because you are spending less time anticipating its taste. In other words, its deliciousness comes as more of a surprise. This idea may be true; I know nothing about psychology, but I think that it’s because my mom always spreads a little more butter on my sandwich than I do.
My mom taught me most of what I know about cooking, and I would guess she learned the same from my bà ngoại—grandmother—who moved her family to the U.S. from Vietnam during the war, when my mom was just 7 years old. Though finances were not always easy for them, my mom tells me her family never worried about having enough food on the table.
Whenever we travel down to Florida where my bà ngoại lives, there is not a moment when her rice cooker is off, or there isn’t something waiting for us in the oven—even if we arrive near midnight. At her house, the dining room is the family room: a place where we can share stories and laughter, and some of us will get teased for not eating the eyeballs of a fish.
Next time someone you love prepares your food, thank them for that secret ingredient that makes it satisfyingly sweet, perfectly crispy or otherwise impossibly delicious. It's something you just can’t recreate on your own.
