Last week, when I was watching “Fresh Off the Boat,” I was reminded about the holy grail school lunch of Lunchables. (By the way, you should really watch the show! It’s groundbreaking AND funny!) It made me think about some of my “holy grail” foods – foods that I coveted as an Asian American child with immigrant parents. It was food that I would regularly find at my Caucasian friends’ house or food that I didn’t discover until I went to college.
One of these holy grail foods is Rice Krispies treats. I vividly remember watching a commercial on tv about a mom who throws flour on her face and brings out a tray of the treats. She made it seem like it was something very difficult to make. Little did I know that it is a relatively easy thing to make – it doesn’t even require baking!
We rarely ate cereal for breakfast at our house and I’m sure the only reason we actually had a box of Rice Krispies was because it made that sound when you added the milk. If only I had looked at the box more carefully – the recipe for the treats are usually on them! But I didn’t know what delicious things these treats were until I went to college. A friend showed me how to make them in the microwave and I was hooked!
Much later in life, I was shown how to make them on the stove top. It is one of the things that I definitely wanted my own daughter to experience as a child. It may sound funny to you, but to me, this was one of the things that represented a typical American upbringing. It was something that I yearned to have had experienced as an American child. I didn’t want my child to miss out.
It also made me realize that food is such an important part of our culture, memories, and to some extent, our identities. Are there foods that are “holy grail” foods to you? Or foods that bring you back to distinct memories?
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