3 Things I Learned From My Abuela About Food
Written by Isabel Vasquez, RD, LDN
Me with Mima learning how to use a pilon
Growing up, my abuela lived with my mom and I for about half of each year. The other half of the year, she’d go back to her beloved homeland of the Dominican Republic. I’m immensely grateful for all the time we got to spend together and for all she taught me.
She is the main person who instilled Dominican culture in me, and the main reason I learned Spanish. Unfortunately, she passed away a few years ago, but the impact she had on me lives on and inspires a lot of the work I do.
I’m sure many of you also learned a lot from your abuelas, mothers, and other family members. This blog is meant to honor what they taught us, while learning how to honor ourselves too! Here are the top 3 things I learned from my abuela about food.
1) Food is love.
We all know this as central to our Latine culture. Food is a symbol of love. Our abuelas and mothers spend hours laboring in the kitchen preparing delicious meals for us. The smells fill the house and give us a sense of comfort.
When we eat their food, we can just taste the love in it. And that’s because they show us their love in part through their cooking.
They helped teach us that food isn’t just nutrition (even though our Latin foods are jam-packed with nutrients), it is connection and pleasure and love.
There is a beautiful relationship between food and emotions. Emotional eating isn’t inherently bad. It is a normal part of the eating experience. And I know Mima (my abuela) really helped show me this.
2) It’s important to eat enough food.
Food security was not always a given for our families, and in turn, we are expected to eat all the food we are served and more. For many of us, it may still not be a given.
The effects of that immigrant experience still trickle down to us (or maybe you immigrated yourself!). We are often told to clean our plates, something that we may have to reflect on if we are now in a privileged position that allows us to practice intuitive eating.
However, our families definitely value food and mine always tried to make sure I ate enough.
Mima was always offering me food (read: food is love). I remember when I was growing up, whenever I wanted to eat out, my mom and I would eat dinner out and then have to eat another dinner at home so as to not refuse Mima’s cooking.
3) Sometimes, you have to say no.
A lot of us may not have learned that saying no is okay. We may still be working on it. And it’s tough! Our families tend to struggle with teaching us how to set boundaries and honoring our boundaries if we try setting them as adults.
Sometimes, we have to learn to set these boundaries ourselves, especially when we’re working on ditching diets and embracing our bodies as they are.
If we are consistently eating way past comfortable fullness due to pressure from our families, we probably aren’t honoring our bodies. Yet, we don’t want to disrespect our abuelas or mothers by saying no.
We can work on setting kind boundaries—things like “Abuela, the food was amazing! I’m full now, but can I please have some to take home with me?” or “I’m just too full to really enjoy any more. Pero it was delicious!! Thank you for cooking.”
Final Thoughts
Whether learned directly or indirectly, I am so grateful for what my Mima taught me. She instilled so much of her culture in me, and showered me with love and good food.
We can honor ourselves AND our families in this process, striking the balance in it all. And giving up our cultural foods does not have to be a part of the process.
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