That said, I’ve since turned to a different kind of soup that, though different, gives me a similar feeling that the soup of my motherland and mother’s kitchen once did. This new soup has grown on me and it has brought me the added benefit of a new mindset.

This is the soup I wish to talk to you about today as this new comfort food practically chose me and prepared me for a life that I didn’t know was to unfold for me years later.

…

A few decades ago, back when I was living flamboyantly in Chicago, I was introduced to a food extravaganza that could have defrocked any home-grown priest in my small country of Belize. Newly arrived and having never had a real hamburger — and by real, I mean a whopper from The House of the great whopper  — I was already sold on the American staple. To my defense, let me tell you that I ate with gusto, actually licked my fingers, again thinking of my upbringing of waste-not.

The food extravaganza I referred to is the still-happening, the notorious Taste of Chicago.

When it opened on July 4, 1980, it was called Chicago Fest. The festival was all the rage at Navy Pier and as I understand it, nearly 250,000 people showed up on the single day of the Fourth of July event that year. Amazing.

Having arrived in the city two months before the month of the festivities a few years after that first opening, I depended on my cousins to direct me to the points of interest in the big city I’d landed on to further my education. And so it was that in July 1983 I attended my first food extravaganza event.

I’m pretty sure it was introduced to me as Taste of Chicago and by that time it had been moved to Grant Park.

So, anyway, we attended the Taste of Chicago and I, raised the way I was raised, felt like a sinner there, among the half-eaten plates of food which is why I think this event would certainly defrock a priest who was brought up the way I was.

As can be expected, my stomach had already expanded to accommodate the huge portion of the whopper and jumbo serving of fries I learned to eat, but obviously, there is just so much a stomach can expand at a time. After a while, the smell of all the food makes you feel sick, and that in itself is a huge disservice to our starving brothers and sisters who have no bones to suck on.

In hindsight, I feel remorseful for living so flamboyantly but as promised, I’m determined to tell you how my comfort food chose me.

That festival in 1983 introduced me to many different ethnic foods but after that initiation, the crowds turned me off from the stalls and when I did attend, it was mostly to catch a live concert of a famous band or two.

But the food of the city kept calling me. And busy bee that I was, I kept tasting all the ethnic foods that the City of Chicago had to offer until finally, one fine day, in a Japanese restaurant on the Near North Side, a bowl of Miso soup was placed in front of me.

Unlike all the other foods which were either served on a table with the usual utensils or wrapped up to go, I had to learn how to eat this soup.

Holding the bowl reverently with both hands, one supporting the bottom and the other at the side — funny, but this was the way I’d seen the priests conducting a church service do many times — I’d bring the bowl to my lips.

I found pleasure in learning to do that. And comfort in the way the hot soup made me give my full attention to what was in front of me. It reminded me of the feelings that enveloped me when I ate my beans soup as a child when I felt connected to the world.

Today, every time I sit to eat my Miso soup I feel myself slow down. I cherish the feeling. It’s comforting and it makes me feel whole. I hope these are the same qualities that you find in your comfort food.

What’s your comfort food?
Is it comforting?

Please tell me about it.

THANKS FOR READING.
I Wish You Miracles.