Food for the soul

This week I had a religious experience with a box of Kraft Dinner. I am only half kidding. This week my brother, Frank, sent Justin & I our first care package of Canadian food. This all started because of my gripes about not being able to find honey mustard. Frank said he would send us some, and asked what else we wanted included. Kraft dinner is an obvious one. We also came up with Pretzel goldfish, coffee crisp (mostly for me), butterfingers (mostly for Justin), swiss chalet sauce packets, and peanut butter. He also threw in a bunch of Canadian classics - maple syrup, maple cookies, carnation instant hot chocolate, etc.

If I'm being honest, at first it was hard to think of foods we missed. For the most part, all the food in Melbourne has been really good. We are pretty sure they have some intensive tariffs on foods not produced in Australia. Everything local is way cheaper than the imports, and all kinds of packaged foods have labels telling you exactly what percentage is Australian ingredients. The tariffs mean that Australia has super tasty and cheap produce, dairy, and meat.

All the good food here + the massive change of environment/routine/habits meant that old cravings and comfort foods from Canada felt pretty far away. Until I knew there was a box on its way. I have been talking about coffee crisp to my colleagues since I requested them. So this week when Justin sent me a pic of the box that was delivered, I knew I was done being productive at work, and headed home early (to be fair, it was already pretty late in the afternoon).

After unpacking and surveying our loot of course we immediately started snacking, with plenty of well intentioned comments about how we can't go crazy and make ourselves sick. After quite a few mini-coffee crisp, we agree to put everything away so its out of sight. But of course we were going to have KD for dinner later.

Now, I don't know how many of you realize this, but I am very food motivated. Yes, its true I have some peculiar tastes (hello very dirty martinis with extra olives), and left to my own devices I tend to eat the same 3 things over and over again for extended periods of time (cheese, eggs, and buttered toast, in various combinations). But I get great enjoyment and satisfaction from food. The coffee crisp was better than expected. But the KD I had for dinner - it was a whole different experience. When we were in Canada, I would sometimes look forward to when Justin wouldn't be home for dinner because it meant I could make myself really weird dinners and eat all of it without sharing. I had a couple of different go to solo meals. One of which was that KD that's made with freeze dried cauliflower (so its healthy) that I would make with extra butter, extra cheese and a splash of sriracha (so its tasty). I would add lots of black pepper, and sometimes throw in some chopped up pickles, olives or cured meats. I would then eat all of it in one sitting, usually on the couch (to be fair, the cauliflower KD is only 150g/box. Less than the regular KD). It was a warm cheesy, salty, bowl of carbs, and I loved it.

Despite having this ritual, I hadn't really felt like I had been missing KD. Until I made myself some. Even though Justin was home, I weirded it up, adding extra cheese, sriracha and definitely not sharing. I have always heard about people being transported to memories of other times and places with food. It wasn't quite like that. It was more like.... eating a giant bowl of calm. I felt like someone was gently petting my nervous system. It was a restoration of something that I didn't know was missing. I felt like I could feel myself relaxing. This was not mindless eating I was doing, quite this opposite in fact- this felt like some of the most mindful eating I have ever done. I was well aware and actively savouring the calming powers of my KD.

I do realize how ridiculous this sounds. It was a bowl of kraft dinner - it wasn't even anything particularly fancy or tasty. But it was so comforting, so good. Of course I am familiar with the concept of comfort food. But I don't know if I have every reacted both this viscerally and mindfully to a meal. After finishing it, I felt so contented. Apparently, food is one hell of a drug.

While Justin didn't react to the KD the way I did, he did admit that the snacks seem especially tasty and enjoyable. One of the snacks was maple cookies. I never thought of either Justin or I as eating a lot of maple-y things. But as it turns out, if you live in Canada, you probably consume more maple products than most other parts of the world. Of course you can get maple syrup here, but you don't see it in products or baked goods the way you do in Canada. I don't think I've seen a single maple danish since I've been here. As soon as we opened the maple cookies, we knew they were going to be delicious. Turns out I really like maple! I just didn't realize at home because I didn't have a chance to miss it. The cookies were also better than they should have been, even in spite of the significant jostling they seem to have taken in customs.

The rest of the week was punctuated with delightful treats from home. I shared some of my mini coffee crisp with my colleagues. While the response was favourable, they obviously didn't have the same emotional response to familiar tastes. I tried very hard not to hold that against them. Later in the week we made Swiss Chalet sauce to go with some chicken we made. I practically drank it while Justin watched in awe.

I've always understood and accepted the concept of comfort food. I just totally underestimated the power familiar tastes have on me. It made me wonder why a similar thing didn't happen when we were backpacking Europe. I think it probably did, just not to the same degree. Partially because we spent a bunch of time in places with similar climates and therefore cuisines (Scotland, Ireland, western Europe in general), partially because we were so tired from hiking all the time that all food was magical, and partially because Western European junk food is way closer to north American junk food than Australian junk food is. Whatever the actual reason, I remain surprised, delighted, and grateful about how impactful these Canadian snacks are.