Tiny Bites!
Aaron Rollins:Welcome. I'm Aaron Rollins, and this is Tiny Bites, a taste of the stories behind our book, Nourishing the Soul: Exploring Comfort Food at Diverse Tables. In this episode, you'll hear from our professor, Dr. Michael Longinow, who wrote the introduction to our book, and Dr. Christine Lee Kim, who wrote the foreword.
Michael Longinow:As the host mentioned, my name is Dr. Michael Longinow and I teach journalism and media classes here at Biola. I've been here since 2005, that's a long time. In some ways it seems like yesterday, sometimes, some ways it seems like a long time. But this this book project is one in a series of projects our students have done over the years.
Michael Longinow:It's number nine in the list of books. And this one follows up on our last book project which was done during the pandemic that had to do specifically with Asian food during a time of anti Asian hate and violence and just a horrible time in our country. And so what this what that book talked about was how food can bring us together and maybe even bring peace between people who disagree or something. And how there's something much more deep and compelling behind a menu. And that book was called More Than a Menu.
Michael Longinow:This book is about comfort food and so I'm gonna tell a little bit about myself and my journey of understanding comfort food, from my background. I grew up in Chicago, Chicago area. My dad, came to Chicago from Eastern Europe when he was in, his pre teen years. And with his parents and his sister, just navigated life in The United States. He didn't speak any English when he came over.
Michael Longinow:He had to learn English by listening to the radio and going to movies. He would skip high school and go watch double features. And so he learned to speak English from Humphrey Bogart and Clark Gable and all these movie stars. And he listening to Elvis Presley, which his his Russian Baptist church people told him was evil and that's Satan and you're gonna go to hell if he'd do that. But that's how he learned English.
Michael Longinow:His family, my grandparents, would show love, a preview of what my colleague is about to talk They showed affection to each other by serving and enjoying food. In Eastern European culture, the food is served hot and plentifully and so that that's that's what I grew up with. And as a kid, what I learned was you weren't allowed not to eat at grandma's house. You you ate what she gave you and there's a trick I learned, too late, but if you eat slowly, you do better off. And I tend to just, ate my food really fast and the faster you eat the more you got.
Michael Longinow:And I would just walk out just busting so overfed.
Christina Kim:Yeah, that's awesome.
Michael Longinow:But she was happy because she had shown love to me. My mom's culture, Mexican culture, treated food a little bit differently. It was it was also kind of an expression of love but it was a little more open ended and they didn't care if you didn't eat. They're like, you don't you don't want that, that's okay. You don't have finish your food.
Michael Longinow:At grandma's house, you licked the bowl. You did not leave anything on the plate because in Eastern Europe people were starving and it was huge. So that's my perspective on comfort food is that it is for me it was a family thing and when I'm sharing food with friends, the food tastes better. It's hard to explain that, but it just does. Better than eating alone.
Michael Longinow:There's a restaurant near Knott's Berry Farm called Portillo's that
Christina Kim:Oh, I love that place.
Michael Longinow:serves authentic Chicago food. You can get Chicago hot dogs, Chicago Italian beef, Italian sausage, and I just love that place. And it's especially good with a certain beverage that I can't mention now. I get that and my food, but nobody gets that place, so I always have to go alone. And so I sit off by myself and it's still good, but if I had people that get Chicago, it would taste better.
Christina Kim:We need to go together. Yeah. My husband lived in Chicago for many years and so, yeah.
Michael Longinow:So maybe we have like minded culturally. Yes. So that's kind of my journey. One thing I'll just say, I'm a grandfather and I used to hate talking about that but I just have to own it. I'm actually not 27 anymore, my doctor reminds me of that.
Michael Longinow:In my mind I am, but I have grandkids because my kids had children. I can't help it. They just they did. And so I hope that I will be able to pass down to my kids and their kids how important tradition is, especially in food, and what the meanings are of that.
Christina Kim:Mhmm. Mhmm.
Michael Longinow:Because at this point in their journey, food is just like, yeah, whatever. They eat on the run, they just didn't really think about food that much, with the exception of my daughter, who I think caught the vision of Ukrainian and Mexican food. With that, I will yield the floor to my illustrious colleague.
Christina Kim:Yes. So, my name is Christina Kim and I'm also a professor here at Biola. I teach in the Psychology Department and I've been around Biola quite a long time, too. I've been teaching since 2003. I remember the project y'all did during COVID and it was particularly meaningful to me just as an Asian American going through that time.
Christina Kim:It was pretty challenging and disturbing actually. And so, the More Than a Menu book was very meaningful and it was wonderful just to see the students and what they, the work they put into it, and the pictures and the stories. And thank you for inviting me to write the foreword for this book because yes, food is such an important part of my culture and experience as a second gen Korean American, so I was born here in the US, but my parents were immigrants and in our culture, you know, you don't talk about feelings really. And so, it's funny, like as a psychologist, I remember in graduate school, there were many times I felt a little bit behind my majority culture peers in terms of their ability to talk about what they were experiencing or feeling inside. I felt like I knew it more at an intuitive level and at a non verbal level, but it was a skill that I built up over the years to learn how to articulate what I was feeling and I quickly started to piece together that part of that was just because in a lot of Asian cultures, there might be other ways to express emotions that aren't always via words.
Christina Kim:And I think food is one of those avenues and I've mentioned it, you know, in conversations with you before, but in grad school actually, I learned the concept of food is love. And it's this way that we connect as humans. I think it goes back to the earliest parts of our existence as babies, like as newborn babies when you're crying, how do you receive comfort? It's through breastfeeding. It's through being nourished through food and held at the same time.
Christina Kim:And so there's this automatic pairing that happens in our brains and in our experience where food becomes a comforting thing. And so the topic of comfort food is amazing, it's incredible. And as a mother now, myself, you say that you're just learning how to like accept your grandparenthood status and I find myself actually, my kids are not married yet but I'm like, oh, I wish I was a grandparent. Iim already like thinking ahead to that, like how fun that would be. But as a mother and, you know, as a psychologist too, so I can have conversations with my kids that I could not have with my own parents, with my parents because of language and cultural barriers.
Christina Kim:And my kids and I don't have those language and cultural barriers. We may have generational differences, you know, and as a psychologist, I did inquire of them, how they felt. And, you know, early on they were articulating their inner experience. But food was still a really prominent way that we experience love together and I think part of that is just from my own experience. Like if I was upset, you know, my mom wouldn't necessarily ask me to recount, you know, what caused me to feel upset, but she would cook a meal, you know, and feed me.
Christina Kim:And I noticed myself doing similar things with my kids, like they've had a rough day and, you know, I would probably ask them what happened and we'll talk through it, but then it's like, let's go get a boba. Let's go comfort ourselves through a sweet treat, you know, or something, right, really yummy for dinner. And in that way, I feel like that legacy of food being love, of food being comfort, definitely my kids have it. Yeah, I see it in them. And, you know, every celebration, every event, things that are sad, as well as happy, like the meals that accompany those moments become very meaningful.
Michael Longinow:Just as you were saying that, I don't know if there's somebody's written a study on this, I'm sure. But I think it's possible to taste love in food.
Christina Kim:Interesting.
Michael Longinow:And the difference between food made by somebody who doesn't really care and whatever is just this mechanical, I'm gonna throw this together, and somebody who is there's every picking out the elements and how it's cooked and the duration and how it's spiced and everything. Love has been part of that, I think it just tastes better.
Christina Kim:Oh yeah, I would agree.
Michael Longinow:And I'm sure there's some culinary experts, maybe psychologists have unpacked that. But I can tell the difference. I married somebody whose upbringing was a little stoic when it comes to food and to kind of creature comforts and she doesn't like cooking.
Christina Kim:Huh.
Michael Longinow:When our kids were small, she would put love into it because it's our kids.
Christina Kim:Right. Right.
Michael Longinow:Now that the kids are gone, and it's just us. It's more what she would have for dinner. I don't know. And she just it isn't something she really enjoys. With me, cooking is almost like therapy.
Michael Longinow:When I've had a bad day, I'll just go home and and just make something from scratch Yeah. And to kinda pour myself into it, and I'll serve it to her and and she'll say, Wow, this is you really took a lot of time with this. And I don't have words to respond to that. This is partly for you, for me in making this and it tastes good. But I've I've put love into this and I've processed something inside me as I've made this thing.
Christina Kim:Yeah.
Michael Longinow:And they're experiments. Some of them don't work. And she'll just say, I'm not gonna eat this.
Christina Kim:Yeah. Oh no.
Michael Longinow:And then I have eat the rest myself or throw it out.
Christina Kim:Yes, yes. That's the worst feeling.
Michael Longinow:Yes. I'd like to think most of the experiments turned out.
Michael Longinow:Well so, Christina, as as we think about this book that these students have put together, it's their project. I applaud them, the hard work they've put in to create this this collaboration of ideas and just their all their hearts coming from different directions to to make this happen. Think about where we are kind of in our culture, this national historic moment, maybe where the church is today.
Michael Longinow:Why is comfort food, especially in ethnic communities, especially important today?
Christina Kim:That's a good question. I mean, comfort. And I just think about from a mental health perspective, right now we are, you know, some would say, in an epidemic of kind of just rising rates of anxiety and depression, loneliness, and other types of things that would call for more places where people would receive comfort or healing or something to soothe the anxieties and the difficult feelings that they're all navigating. Interestingly enough, I find myself like sometimes doom scrolling on Instagram or something like that, but so many of my reels, probably because I spend a lot of time more looking at them and the algorithm knows me now, is like food. It's like the restaurants that have like this thing and my daughters and I will just like send each other, you know, short reels of like, this restaurant we want to check out or this food item.
Christina Kim:Even just, even if we're not eating the food, there's something about like seeing the food automatically that kind of evokes a sense of comfort. I don't know if you're familiar with the Korean mukbang. It's these, like, YouTubers that literally their entire channels are them just eating food, like a lot of food.
Michael Longinow:Wow.
Christina Kim:And they have hundreds of thousands of followers who just watch them eat. Yes, it's fascinating, you know. And so, there is something about our current day, I suspect that social media just feeds more of it, where we have found ourselves seeking out comfort food or some way to comfort ourselves via food. It's an interesting phenomenon. I don't know, what are your thoughts on that?
Michael Longinow:Interesting reading these students' writing and their exploration of this. What they found is when it comes to comfort food, it's partly the food and it's partly the people. And there's a sense in which the people bring the comfort to the food itself. Kind of like what I was saying about eating alone.
Christina Kim:Yeah.
Michael Longinow:There's eating alone and yes, it's enjoyable, but there's something about the shared sort of meaning that brings enhances the flavor somehow. It's hard to explain. And so I think we need to reintroduce ourselves to this notion of comfort food because we are too busy.
Christina Kim:Yeah.
Michael Longinow:Especially, and I guess I'm thinking in Southern California, and there are places where that are slower in this country.
Christina Kim:Right. Yes.
Michael Longinow:But we just move so fast. We're impatient with the waiting. In previous semesters, I've introduced students to this notion of slow journalism.
Christina Kim:Mhmm.
Michael Longinow:Which derives from something called the slow food movement that began in Europe.
Michael Longinow:And it's just this idea that just slow down and choose your farm to table elements and cook your own food. Don't go out, just take your time and make it in your own kitchen. And when you do that it's healthier and you tend to eat less when you do and not always, but often you're more inclined to cook a little healthier, maybe.
Christina Kim:Yeah.
Michael Longinow:I think that's something that I think this book maybe will remind people about.
Christina Kim:That's real. Like the individual experience of food versus the ways that food brings people together, that's for sure a phenomenon. You know, we've all experienced that, right? When you said that you tend to enjoy eating with other people rather than eating alone, actually, my first thought that flashed through my mind was, I tend to enjoy eating alone. But the context of that is when, not as much anymore maybe, but when I was younger, as a mom of young kids, mealtime wasn't enjoyable. It was like, kind of chaotic.
Christina Kim:It was all about feeding the kids. Then so, the opportunity to eat alone, food that I wanted to eat, not things that we ordered because they could eat it, right? Because I like spicy foods and when they were little my kids weren't eating spicy foods and stuff. And so, the times that I could eat alone in peace, in an unhurried fashion, I enjoyed it so much more. Now, my kids are much older now.
Christina Kim:Of course, I enjoy meals with them. So, I think depending on the context, right? But there is definitely this element, maybe the function of food that, on the one hand, literally like the chemicals in the food, the nutrients and the carbs and all these things we like when we ingest them and how they influence our bodies and the physiological reactions we have, that's one aspect of comfort. But perhaps another aspect is purely this communal shared experience, a moment to slow down, have conversation, enjoy a meal together. I used to ask my husband because he used to travel a lot for work.
Christina Kim:Even when I'm eating alone, if something tastes really good, I cannot help but like go, mm! Like say something, like talk to myself like, this is so good, right? And then want to share it with somebody else, right? And I remember my husband because he used to travel a lot for work, sometimes he would like send us pictures of like the meals he would be eating like in the airport or, you know, somewhere else and he was usually alone. And he would send us a picture of a meal and I would ask him, When you're alone and you eat something really yummy, like, do you say anything? I just wanted to know.
Christina Kim:Because that's the experience I have. He's like, What are you talking about? But yes, this like natural, like automatic desire to want to share it with somebody else, right? Because it's not the same when you're just talking to yourself and saying, This is really good.
Michael Longinow:Yeah. I'm an introvert so I actually do enjoy my space and my alone time. I think the eating alone thing that you mentioned. For me, if a food is something that is just too complicated for somebody else to get, that's something I would eat by myself and just savor the culture and not have to explain.
Christina Kim:Right.
Michael Longinow:I just get it. And so I'm enjoying it and I am like, Oh, this is so good. Not quite that but just really enjoying it. So yeah, I think what this book explores is valuable for people everywhere. And the fact that we brought in ethnic foods. I guess my hope as was true with Asian foods, is that people will have the courage to try things outside their comfort zone.
Michael Longinow:And we are blessed in Southern California with so many opportunities to try cultural foods from different places. That's not true in all parts of the country.
Christina Kim:Right.
Michael Longinow:Where it's hard to find this kind of So that's a blessing for those who are listening to this who do happen to live in Southern California or or New York or Chicago or places where there's more access.
Christina Kim:Yep.
Michael Longinow:Thank you, Christina.
Christina Kim:Thank you.
Michael Longinow:For taking time and and unpacking your your thoughts and your culture. And I'll mention this as we're closing. This podcast was recorded the day after my dad left his life and went to be with Jesus in heaven. And he really enjoyed food.
Christina Kim:Mhmm.
Michael Longinow:And ethnic food in particular from Eastern Europe. And so, he's now in heaven.
Christina Kim:Feasting with Jesus.
Michael Longinow:There's probably really good food there.
Christina Kim:Yes. I imagine so. Yeah.
Michael Longinow:I look forward to seeing him again someday to enjoy that.
Christina Kim:Yeah.
Michael Longinow:So, I dedicate my my words here to him.
Christina Kim:That's awesome. Yeah.
Group:Thanks for listening!
Aaron Rollins:If you're interested in buying our book, see the link in our show notes to purchase it on Amazon. Tiny Bites is produced and mixed by Hope Li. Our theme music is used with permission from Warner Chappell Productions. Dr. Michael Longinow teaches the Media Narrative Project, an upper division class from the Division of Communication at Biola University.