For many people, the first time moving away is stressful and daunting. Especially at universities like the University of Idaho, where most of the students come from out of town, it may be hard to access the things people grow up with and to find the things that they are used to eating.
Food is something that connects us to our memories and our emotions. Memories of boba-shop freedoms and late-night studying with high school friends are hard memories to access when you no longer live in your hometown that those memories were made in. And while one can still get a jasmine milk tea with boba at Young’s Alley, it might not taste quite the same.
Many people have their own favorite foods that they grew up with people making for them. These recipes can even link us to our pasts.
“I associate this recipe with my great-grandmother, and I really like it because of that,” Paige Martin, said about her great grandmother’s stuffing recipe. “She died when I was ten, so being able to learn that recipe from my grandmother and mother has helped me get to know her on a level I didn’t get to when she was alive.”
Martin says that her family only makes the recipe around thanksgiving, but it makes the holiday even more special.
“My great-grandma loved having her family around and loved this recipe, so its nice to have those things that make her feel closer around the holiday,” Martin said.
For many other people, food is an experience that they have had their entire lives. Alice Ma, a Dietitian with Washington State University, moved up here in 2015, and went on the hunt for an Asian grocery store, and found the Phung-Mart on 6th Street.
“It’s a very nostalgic experience for me when I find familiar childhood snacks,” Ma said. “We [Ma and her partner] like to get rice paper and noodles to make spring rolls at home, as well as some snacks”
But for other people, the tastes of home are a lot farther afield. 24% of UI first-year students come from out of state, and finding those foods from home is difficult, and being taken out of those parts of one’s culture can feel lonesome.
Even having your family closer to you doesn’t mean you don’t still get disconnected from your favorite foods. Gabby Stenzel, a first-year student from Lewiston, doesn’t get her comfort food, her mother’s chicken and dumplings soup, as often anymore either.
“I don’t get to have it as much anymore,” Stenzel said. “But when I go over to my sister’s house, I can use her crockpot and make it for the both of us.”
But the memories are still there, even if the food isnt, and we still can relate back to the foods we grew up with.
“When I was about six years old, coming back from a school day when all the sidewalks were iced over completely my sisters and I kept slipping all over trying to get on to the bus,” Stenzel said. “We had bruises all over our legs from falling so many times. We came home to a full pot of soup that day”
Abigail Spencer can be reached at [email protected]