Comida: The Leiton Language of Love
I’m just going to come out and say it: I love food. I love passing by a bakery and having smells of fresh bread waft towards me on the street. I love sampling various textures, feeling the way a cookie crumbles between my teeth or how a well-designed sauce melts in my mouth. I love how my mouth waters when a handful of vegetables hits a pan to be seared.
Yet, the first night of my homestay in Costa Rica, I seemed to have left my appetite back at the campus storage with the rest of my personal effects. I’m plagued by a unique combination of homesickness and apprehension for the future that makes the thought of consuming any type of food nauseating.
As I ascend the side of a mountain for what feels like the millionth time this week, my worries compile like a pit in my stomach. Maybe it’s the carsickness, but my gut tells me my concerns stem from elsewhere. How are my tennis shoes and raincoat going to withstand the trek to and from campus each day? What if I have nothing in common with this family? What if I accidentally offend someone? Or worse- what if I hate the food?
Before I know it, Jeremy, the on-site naturalist here at UGA, deposits me on the front steps of my home for the next five days. He exchanges a few quick pleasantries and some paperwork with who appears to be my new mother before the taxi that brought me pulls out of the driveway and into the damp darkness of Monteverde.
My homestay mother, whom I knew to be Cristina, lingers for a moment in the doorway after the sound of the car engine had faded into the night. She offers an uneasy “hola” and our language barrier rests uncomfortably between us like an actual concrete wall. I think back on my former self. The one that when asked about her spanish proficiency confidently rated herself four out of five. Now, standing on this tiny, tiled porch with nothing except this unfamiliar family for miles around, I would relish in the opportunity to ring my own presumptuous neck.
When I take too long to answer, Cristina resorts to asking if I’ve eaten. I tell her I haven’t, but assure her “no tengo hambre,” as I know I couldn’t eat anything even if I tried. She ushers me in behind her and motions for me to have a seat at the table in the corner of the kitchen. Once she’s sure I’m properly seated, she immediately turns around and starts fidgeting with the old stove that serves as the centerpiece of the room. We make small talk while she gathers pots, pans, various vegetables, and a few eggs. She asks me to talk more about my two cats and my parents as she combines the ingredients for what appears to be salsa in the blender.
With the even the slightest mention of my mother, it’s almost like I can hear her in the back of my head. I’m thousands of miles away from that short southern woman but I can still hear her scolding me for just sitting around when I have two perfectly good hands I can use. With my stomach pooling at the bottom of my shoes, I ask Cristina if there’s anything at all I can do to help. Without even breaking her stride she hands me a potato and a peeler. In fact, the only time she does stop moving her hands is to rest them on mine. “En lo contrario” she suggests gently. She’s right, the potatoes are much easier to peel this way.
By now I’m in my third year of college. I’ve been living in a house four hours away from my parents for a little under two years and with the exception of cherished holidays and the occasional get together, it has been a long time since my last home-cooked meal. My three roommates and I do our best to throw together actual, sit down, dinners. Yet work, studying, and school always seem to take priority over standing in the kitchen for an hour. One of the hottest topics in our house is how we wish we had only taken more time to enjoy meals that weren’t a smoothie or a dressed up Digiorno’s pizza.
Once I remove the last bit of skin from the remaining potato, Cristina chops them in a few swift motions and they’re off into a lightly greased skillet. They pop and sizzle as they warm up, and I can feel something stirring around in me too.
I’m somehow brave enough to attempt to pat out tortillas, a feat I’ve never before attempted. Cristina even coaxes a laugh out of me as I use too much force and the dough ends up flat on the floor. “Cuidado!” She warns me, but it’s obvious that we’re both aware that the only real danger here is me.
Several more successful tortillas later, dinner is ready and we’re cutting up like old friends. In fact, we’re getting along so well that Cristina’s husband Geovanny feels compelled to join us in our camaraderie. His contribution to dinner, aside from the riveting conversation, was delicately arranged on ceramic plates that rested on the table.
Geovanny works on his mother’s family farm, sowing and harvesting with his siblings and extended family members from dawn until dusk each day. I start to tell him how sorry I am for how hard he has to work just to make a living, but he quickly corrects me. His eyes get wide and wistful as he talks about how lucky he is to be able to work outside on such lavish and beautiful land. He is especially grateful to be able to work outside and fully enjoy all the earthly spoils of his favorite season, el verano.
“Perhaps best of all,” he tells me, “is being able to provide my wife and family with fresh, natural food.” He continues, telling me that when he and his family eat better, they feel better, and that there’s a certain responsibility in knowing where their food comes from. He boasts that the farm doesn’t use chemicals and prides itself on being organic. “Only the best for my wife’s cooking” he says, and they both smile in mutual appreciation for one another.
There’s a certain intimacy in the way these two work. Geovanny spends his days learning and growing the ins and outs of these fruits of the earth. Cristina, in turn, takes them and makes them into not only meals, but nourishment. Not only nourishment, but a relationship. Together, these two maintain their own special connection, and continue to forge new ones. Their meals translate across language barriers and cultural obstacles, not unlike one anxious, hungry girl.
