The comfort of porridge
'Perhaps the world will end at the kitchen table, while we are laughing and crying, eating of the last sweet bite,' Joy Harjo, Perhaps the World Ends Here.
"People ask me: Why do you write about food? Why don't you write about the struggle for power and security, and about love, the way others do? They ask it accusingly, as if I were somehow gross, unfaithful to the honour of my craft. The easiest answer is to say that, like most other humans, I am hungry. But there is more than that. It seems to me that our three basic needs, for food and security and love, are so mixed and mingled and entwined that we cannot straighly think of one without the others. So it happens that when I write of hunger, I am really writing about love and the hunger for it, and warmth and the love of it and the hunger for it...and then the warmth and richness and fine reality of hunger satisfied...and it is all one."
-- M.F.K FisherIt was one of those mornings: too early and too cold, hungry, with not much left in the pantry. I had oats. I had eggs. I had some miso. I recalled a time someone told me about living on savoury oats breakfasts as a student: oats and marmite. So I poured some oats into the small pot, put cold water in the pot, water enough to cover the oats and some, and cooked the oats. Then at the last minute I cracked in two eggs, and stirred with some vigour, so that the sign of any egg might disappear. Once I was satisfied the eggs were cooked: that all the albumen had turned white, I poured it into a bowl and stirred in a spoonful of miso. I crept back into bed with my bowl of oats.
My hunger was fulfilled. The all I had in the pantry, it was enough.
I remember a poem by Warsan Shire:
they set my aunts house on fire i cried the way women on tv do folding at the middle like a five pound note. i called the boy who use to love me tried to ‘okay’ my voice i said hello he said warsan, what’s wrong, what’s happened? i’ve been praying, and these are what my prayers look like; dear god i come from two countries one is thirsty the other is on fire both need water. later that night i held an atlas in my lap ran my fingers across the whole world and whispered where does it hurt? it answered everywhere everywhere everywhere.
‘I ran my fingers across the whole world and whispered: where does it hurt?’
‘There are plenty of lives and whole towns destroyed or about to be. We are not wise, and not very often kind,’ Mary Oliver wrote in her poem Don’t Hesitate.
I remember the times when all I had was really enough. The many mornings of oats and honey, oats and peanut butter, oats, often my last resort breakfast, but often so fulfilling. The late night bowls of rice with a fried egg and soya sauce. The dinners of left-over-rice porridge, with miso and whatever leftover vegetable or meat was left. The miso soup and rice vermicelli, sometimes with frozen peas added in, or nori if there was any. Sometimes with an egg, sometimes with spam. The much we can make from what is not much at all. But these were the meals that comforted me the most.
The food eaten in solitude.
It is true that there are places in the world where it will take much more than all they have for there to be enough.
An Gorta Mór saw the Irish population of 8 million in 1841 decimated, reduced, to 1.5 million in 1851. Much is lost in decimation: the 4 million native Irish speakers were reduced to 2 million during an Gorta Mór. I recall a passing comment made by a friend about a gut-feeling she had that her Hashimoto’s disease was an inheritance from her Irish ancestors. Ancestors who had survived an Gorta Mór by emigrating to Boston. She told me of studies that link exposure to famine during the fetal stage, and thyroid disorders.1
I looked it up, it was possible that it is not just the ancestors of an Gorta Mór survivors who inherited thyroid disorders. There were other famines: the Great Chinese Famine, the Bengal famine of 1943, to name a few. All these left an inheritance. The physical reminders of hunger codified in the body in order it may be passed down generations.
The body instinctively, amidst dire situations, hopes, grasps for its future.
The bodies of many in Gaza may be turning hunger into a code. A report had projected over one million people in Gaza would expect to face death and starvation. ‘Should the current situation in Gaza continue, more Palestinians will die due to enforced starvation and associated diseases than as a direct result of Israeli military bombardment,’ wrote Brendan Ciarán Browne.2
‘However, Palestinians in Gaza are not starving; Palestinians in Gaza are being systematically, determinedly, and brutally starved by the Israeli regime and in coordination with European and North American allies who have enabled and emboldened the Israeli state, and who have refused to intervene for the past 278 days and 76 years of its colonial occupation,’ wrote Browne. ‘While famine is often a consequence of armed conflict, enforced starvation of people under siege, as history has shown, is a tactic routinely adopted by colonial powers.’3
Listen. There amidst the rubble are bodies fiercely working to turn their desperation, their fight for survival, their robust determination into something it can leave behind as an inheritance.
‘Don’t ever be surprised to see a rose shoulder up among the ruins of the house,’ wrote Mosab Abu Toha:
‘This is how we survived.’
Much can never be redeemed Mary Oliver’s poem continued.
Still she said, I imagine with eyes tender, yet firm on us. The way someone does when she tells the truth with her heart. Life has some possibility left. Perhaps this is its way of fighting back, that sometimes something happens better than all the riches or power in the world. It could be anything, but very likely you notice it in the instant when love begins.
Joy Harjo’s poem, Perhaps the World Ends Here, begins like this: The world begins at a kitchen table. No matter what, we must eat to live. The poem calls forth to the surface memories of times when abundance was enough.
I reminisce about the home cooked meals shared with those so hospitable, the cocktails and brunches with those who had love, in all its forms and expressions, in hearts. The family meals over Chinese New Year, when food came out of the kitchen gushing, like water from the spring. My parents’ pantry whenever we are home. The dinners with old friends in restaurants that echo decibels of loud conversations and laughter, but also the ones in spaces so pristine and quiet, and dishes so divine.
I look through the window at Joy Harjo’s kitchen table as she tells us:
Our dreams drink coffee with us as they put their arms around our children. They laugh with us at our poor falling-down selves and as we put ourselves back together once again at the table.
This table has been a house in the rain, an umbrella in the sun.
Wars have begun and ended at this table. It is a place to hide in the shadow of terror. A place to celebrate the terrible victory.
We have given birth on this table, and have prepared our parents for burial here.
At this table we sing with joy, with sorrow. We pray of suffering and remorse. We give thanks.
I have had my share of abundance. I was always replete and it was always enough.
That is the truth. But it also true, still, that there are places in the world where it will take much more than all they have for there to be enough.
So I am left with a cutting juxtaposition: on one on hand the headlines of lives being taken, each with value and each significant, being decimated daily in numbers, one life lost in this manner is one life too many lost. On the other hand are the moments I live that are filled with enough, replete.
That is the truth. And also true is the fact that the lives of those replete, and the lives of those in hunger, they are of the same value.
This leaves us with a burdensome juxtaposition: that each moment of replete is also filled with sounds of bodies fiercely fighting, and silently dying. Each moment is filled with enough, and not enough. With love and hate. With goodness and evil. With life and death:
both.
This truth is a necessary weight we should confront, and carry. As long as this ‘both’ exists, we must carry its heaviness in every moment.
I think again of that Mary Oliver poem:
If you suddenly and unexpectedly feel joy, don’t hesitate. Give in to it. There are plenty of lives and whole towns destroyed or about to be. We are not wise, and not very often kind. And much can never be redeemed. Still, life has some possibility left. Perhaps this is its way of fighting back, that sometimes something happens better than all the riches or power in the world. It could be anything, but very likely you notice it in the instant when love begins. Anyway, that’s often the case. Anyway, whatever it is, don’t be afraid of its plenty. Joy is not made to be a crumb.
A friend once said to me: but we know there is good, because we are good. I do not necessarily agree with the statement that we are good. But I will run a little further with it because of the moment of hope that my friend’s words sparked. What they might have meant was that we are capable of good because I see it around me. It is true that I have people in my life who are loyal to good. Not just the good in them, but they somehow recognise goodness: whether it be the goodness in their hearts, or in the people around them, and they choose it. They protect it, nurture it, encourage it: they make space for it through their simple acts of love.
These things: joy, hope, goodness they are not made to be crumbs. So we should not be afraid of its plenty.
Love is not made to be a crumb.
I think again of Mosab Abu Toha’s poem:
Don’t ever be surprised to see a rose shoulder up among the ruins of the house: This is how we survived.
The simple everyday acts of love, perhaps, are Toha’s roses.
The small instances that make up part of the ‘both’ in every moment.
Small instances of resistance that shoulder up among the ruins.
Small instances of fighting back.
They are how we survive.
Perhaps the world will end at the kitchen table, while we are laughing and crying, eating of the last sweet bite, rings the last line of Harjo’s poem.
I remember the meals where I had felt loved the most. The ones we spend hours making, and then enjoy in the company of others, with wine and conversation. With laughter, and sometimes tears. With music, and sometimes dancing. Of most recent times, I think of new friends who feel like they are old friends because of the grace they had extended in the welcoming of the whole of me, just as I am. I think of the recent fares we shared. The plethora of meals that filled me with delicious company and hearty conversation.
We were always left replete. It was enough. More than enough.
‘I ran my fingers across the whole world and whispered: where does it hurt? It answered, everywhere. everywhere. everywhere.’
I think of the bodies fighting fiercely amidst rubble and ruin. I see the ones who remain loyal to goodness and choose love amidst the cruelty that diminish each and the other. I recognise the goodness in my company, the ones who together with me fully enjoy all that is given, grateful for the moments of replete, amidst the painful juxtaposition. The clock ticks: every moment passing is filled with the replete, and the battling bodies,
both.
‘Still life has some possibility left. Perhaps this is its way of fighting back.’
I look down at my bowl. This morning’s porridge, it is done. It fulfilled me, it is enough — but, did it really, is it really?
Yes, and no. As I eat in solitude I confront and hold the heaviness of the ‘both’.
Don’t ever be surprised.
As we eat in good company, the weight of the ‘both’ is carried. Together.
This is how we survive.
I am not really sure if this is about porridge anymore — is it?
Well, yes, and no.
It is about the burden, the ruins.
But, it is most certainly also about roses.
See for example: Guo, J. et.al. (2021). Exposure to the Chinese Great Famine in Early Life and Thyroid Function and Disorders in Adulthood: A Cross-Sectional Study. Thyroid, 31(4), pp.563–571. doi:https://doi.org/10.1089/thy.2020.0325. Accessed on https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33138723/. See also: Keestra, S.M., et.al. (2022). Thyroid Function at Age Fifty After Prenatal Famine Exposure in the Dutch Famine Birth Cohort. Frontiers in Endocrinology, 13. doi:https://doi.org/10.3389/fendo.2022.836245. Accessed on https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9280834/.
Brendan Ciarán Browne (2024) The Coloniality of Enforced Starvation: Reading Famine in Gaza through An Gorta Mór, Journal of Palestine Studies, 53:2, 74-80, DOI: 10.1080/0377919X.2024.2379709
ibid.