As I was going through my day I receive the notice that my grandmother was going to visit us in about an hour. She lives 3 hours away, but she has always enjoyed to just arrive as she likes whenever the moment seems right.
What was this special occasion? – she went to her mother’s town to visit, and brought us back food and alcohol. You see, there is this town called Tatauzoquico (in Tlatlauqui, Puebla), it is quite far, around 6 hours away by car.
I spend so many days there learning from my great grandma and my aunts so many things regarding food (which I will for sure talk about at some point here). My great grandma is no longer here, to be honest, a lot of the family we used to visit has already passed away.
Yet the bond remains alive through taste. Whenever any of us visit the town again, we must go with bags and an empty car trunk we are bringing back everything family needs and asks for. These includes, plants for tea, cheese, mole, chicken, walnuts, yolixpa, anis and agua ardiente.
A 12-hour round trip is transformed into a promise: to bring back a piece of who we are and what we love. We are not just transporting ingredients; it is designing a sensory return to our roots.
I think a lot of people can relate to this. Physical distance disappears the moment a specific dish is placed on the table.
This invisible thread of flavor travels unthinkable distances. Once, right after making the trip to the town, I packed that same food, that same love, and flew straight to New York. I have family living there. Even in the middle of one of the world’s biggest metropolises, they still need that small piece of the town to feel connected to their roots from time to time. Food acts as an anchor for our identity.
Does moving forward in live, somehow means to stay away from the food that makes us feel at home? Somehow we are always moving away from our mother’s stock, our grandma’s tea. Is it the once in a while interaction what makes it special for us?
Yet these culinary rituals are the exact design tools that prevent us from losing our way back home.
It is so important that even if my family lives three hours away from us, they will do that 12-hour round trip, stay a weekend in Tatauzoquico, and then, upon their return, drive straight to where I live just to deliver some tamales, some mole, and a big bottle of Yolixpa. They will stay for just about two hours before driving all the way back to their own home.
Because, how am I going to just stay without my small piece of belonging?
We keep holding onto small things that make us feel like home once more, all while creating our own homes far away.
Food as Connection: A Design Question
How are we going to keep packing this love in the future? How do we preserve what makes us whole?
Food is connection. The context and the time we spend on this small ritual defines so much of who we are. As we move forward, how can we design spaces and experiences that allow us to sit, from time to time, with our roots and the love we keep sharing between us? And how are we planning on providing this for others?
Maryferi Design 