My Food Memoir

“Whenever people eat or drink together, it’s communion” (8.Foster).  We eat with family, with friends; it is a part of who we are as individuals. As Katheryn C. Twiss once said, “We constantly use food to express not only who we are but also who we wish to be, asserting our membership in certain groups and distancing ourselves from others.” When eating a hard roll, also called a Keiser or Vienna roll due to their origin, you are performing a singular act. This is a common food in cities such as New York, from which most of my family originates. When I eat a hard roll, I remember the culture that captivates it.

I remember short trips to Manhattan in which I excitedly walk down Broadway and watch the sun set from Time Square. I recall my grandfather’s stories of being a Newspaper boy for over 30 years, only stopping when drafted into the army. I remember aunts and uncles whose thoughts are deep and words are quicker than many of those around me. I remember the fast pace of the city streets and the glowing lights from the billboards and signs that penetrate the night. I, a teenager who has spent most of her life in Ohioan Suburbia, have always felt a great connection to the East Coast. There, things are faster. The food is cheap and the conversations are quicker.

Hard rolls have been around for quite some time. My great grandmother ate them on her way to work as a costumer on Broadway, my grandma ate them on her lunch breaks at Met Life, my mother ate them throughout her time at New York Medical University, and I shall eat them as I search for work in Theatrical Design. They are both a quick snack as well as a comfort food, tracing generations. When I bite into a hard roll, I feel the rush of the city, hear the traffic beside me, and see my family history stretched before me. “In the real world, breaking bread together is an act of sharing and peace” (8.Foster). And so we break bread together, generation after generation. For some, we cling to the past; for others, the present, and for me, the future.

There may not be many stars in the sky there, there be less traffic in Mason and less of a carbon footprint, but there, in New York, I am at home, walking under electrical stars in seas of strangers with a hard roll in my hand.