Food, at its most basic, keeps the wolf of hunger from the door. But I am lucky — I live in a place where food is not just necessity, but celebration. Still, there are days when that feels like a quiet luxury I don’t quite deserve. And yet, perhaps food has always been more than fuel. It is, I think, the soul’s reminder of what matters.
In every home, across time and distance, the table has been a hearth. A place not only for eating, but for gathering , where the clatter of cutlery carries the news of the day, and a meal becomes the moment when a family is most itself.
There’s a kind of sacredness to it, the simple joy of a mother’s shepherd’s pie, liver and onions with buttery mash, a gammon joint carved by Dad on a Sunday with cheesy cauliflower. These weren’t gourmet meals. They were heart meals. Meals where troubles were shared, jokes passed around like gravy, and the world was slowly set to rights over soapy dishes and tea towels, even if we kids complained like crazy about whose turn it was to wash and whose turn to dry.
In this fast, bright, modern world, that feeling seems further away but not lost. I don’t miss the meals so much as I miss the atmosphere that wrapped around them like steam from a plate. The ease, the warmth, the belonging.
And maybe that’s the truth: soul food isn’t a recipe. It’s a moment. A memory. A table filled not just with dishes, but with people — their stories, their laughter, their silence, their care.
That’s the flavour I miss. That’s the one I hope to keep alive.