Reflections: Boiled chicken and memories of my grandfather


Marcel Proust famously made the link between food and memories in his novel In Search of Lost Time. For Proust it was the taste of a madeleine that brought back warm and fuzzy childhood memories. One of my enduring food memories is far more ordinary.

I didn't see my Grandfather a lot as a child - he lived in another country. He was also famously difficult to get along with, always landing himself in the middle of some or other family controversy. But one summer, at his small holiday flat in Paris, he cooked for us. He made us boiled chicken with onions, served as a soup of sorts. It was really basic food, but I loved it. My mom, who already knew what a foodie I was, was surprised how much I loved the dish.

Maybe it wasn't the taste that was so grand, but the simple gesture from my elderly grandfather, a famously dour man, of making boiled chicken for his grandchildren. It was a rare scene with my grandfather, or indeed any grandparent, because I grew up far away from the ones who lived long enough for me to get to know. As a result I always had a yearning to be closer to them. My grandfather died just as I was turning 23, but the memory of his boiled chicken - that simple gesture - has always lived on with me. 

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