foodperson.com

When townspeople asked Virginia Tech students what would help them cope with the horrific aftermath of yesterday’s massacre there, students said they would like home-cooked food, according to a report I heard today on NPR.

The statement surprised me for a moment, given the current college generation’s having been raised in an era heavier on prefab food than any other, but the moment passed. Food is much more than fuel, even for the microwaveable-minded.

For most of us, home-cooked food, with its alluring aromas, takes us to our happiest childhood memories quicker than any other means of transport. Nearly everyone has experienced the vivid recall, triggered by a scent, of a memory. When powerful emotions are associated with a scent, the scent is more likely to trigger a memory (if I have my science right).

Despite various degrees of family dysfunction, I suspect most of us nevertheless have a happy association with some memory of sitting at a dinner table surrounded by good food and people we love. It’s partly the company, partly the food. A family dinner-table tradition imparts a sense of security to the extent that children whose families eat together are significantly less likely to get in trouble outside the home.

What is more, the sharing of food is one of the few, tangible ways that most of us know to try to comfort others in times of distress. When someone dies, someone else says or thinks “I’ll take his family a casserole.” After the funeral, mourners gather over platters of food to share stories and grief and to renew themselves with a few morsels that they may not have felt like eating when the shock of the death was brand new. The exact food selection will vary according to the local and family culture, but there will be food, and the people will eat it and feel, at least for a moment, comforted and restored.

That comfort, that restoration needn’t be reserved for times of grief. I think we’d all be better off if we ate together more often. In difficult times, though, the humble sharing of food may be as good a comfort as any of us can give or get.