Know Your Minnows: On Food and Hometowns
The emails of our first giving campaign through the end of 2022 included a prompt we shared with ourselves at the Minnow team, which asked, “What meal or food reminds you of your hometown?” It was a way to keep learning about each other beyond our bios, and we hope you get a chance to do so too. Below we collect our reflections on the tastes of home.
Neil Thapar (he/him), Director of Land & Financial Redistribution
Honestly, it's Taco Bell. I know that's a "bad answer" for someone trying to upend the current food system, but it's real. Growing up in a suburb on the border of Los Angeles County and Orange County, I looked forward to going to the drive-thru with my mom after school on Fridays. I would get a bean and cheese burrito, and my mom would get a veggie tostada. Then, we'd share those salty chips, dipping them in the little plastic container of orange sauce they called nacho cheese.
My mom loved Taco Bell because, as a South Asian immigrant, it was one of the few places in 1990s southern California where she could buy food with real vegetarian options. To this day, the South Asian diaspora swarms to Taco Bell like bees to nectar.
As a kid, I didn't appreciate how lucky I was to access freshly made, delicious, and healthy foods from my culture. Today, Taco Bell reminds me of how invasive fast food culture can be, even when I had an authentic food culture right before me at home every day. I still live pretty close to a Taco Bell, and I'd be lying if I said I don't take advantage of that proximity sometimes!
Check out Neil’s website bio here.
Javier A. Román-Nieves (he/him), Director of Strategic Storytelling
As a Puerto Rican immigrant in my colonial metropolis, this question is laden with longing. If you also happen to have been uprooted several times as I have. In that case, different foods will likely remind you of different hometowns and people in your life.
A verse from a Gustavo Cerati song says, "where we're together, that'll be home." There's also a line in Adolfo Aristarain's 1997 film Martín (Hache): "your homeland are your friends." I find a great deal of longing in Argentinian cinema and literature; those quotes have always stuck with me when thinking about place and belonging. In food, there are people–family, friends, and lovers you've shared meals with over laughs, tears, drinks, banter, or silence–and for me, they're inseparable from loss because I've lost many people to death or circumstance. So I can't separate that joy from a certain sadness.
Anything resembling New Haven-style pizza reminds me of my last hometown. At the same time, enchiladas al mole poblano always takes me to my favorite corner taquería from my years in Ciudad de México. But, as much as I crave those, nothing reminds me yet of some good old mallorcas with ham, cheese, and egg–a typical sweet bread roll from Spanish cuisine that's become a San Juan staple.
Then there's liquor, which is not sound sustenance but is inseparable from good food to me. Puerto Rican rum, Oaxacan mezcal, and Vermont gin instantly transport me to the places and people I've loved–I guess that's partly why we call them spirits. My only wish now is not to have to long for the food and drink I've been finding in my new hometown.
Jump to Javier’s website bio here.
Anchal Bibra (she/her) Director of Resource Mobilization & Engagement
Nailing down a hometown is difficult for me, as I moved from London to New Delhi to Orange County before age ten. However, the throughline between all the places and spaces is the warm, spicy, and dynamic Indian home cooking created by loving hands. It’s hard not to feel at home when your aunty hovers inches away with a newly risen roti ready for your plate as you eat the vegetarian sabjis she spent most of the day making specifically for your visit.
There are a few dishes that I always look forward to when traveling between these spaces–the humble rajma chawal (kidney beans in a thick gravy and rice), tangy bhindi masala (a semi-dry okra curry with garam masala), and the staple saag paneer (spinach and mustard greens with Indian cottage cheese). Sometimes my family laughs that I request these everyday dishes when I visit. Still, I want what everyone wants when they finally visit home: comfort food.
The one dish I usually only get in India is golguppa (pani puri in some parts of the subcontinent). Golguppa is a typical street food consisting of a round, crispy, hollow fried bread that you break at the top and fill with spicy potatoes and chickpeas. You then dip the whole thing in tangy and sweet water filled with mint and spices and stuff the entire thing in your mouth in one go. The experience of eating a golguppa is fun and delicious!
Indians pride themselves on being good hosts, and regardless of where I am, I know I’ll be well-fed, and the taste of home will always be a bite away.
Visit Anchal’s website bio here.
