13 Comments

Oh my gosh I just LOVE YOU SO MUCH 😭😭😭😭

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What a lovely thought! Except for my four lemons a day (which I ate like a sweet, I actually devoured them like crazy lemon monster, followed by obligatory sparkling water) I had a phew childhood related longings, like my moms Milchreis mit Zimt und Apfelmus (ricepudding with cinnamon and applesauce), Grießbrei and pain au chocolate (which had to be from the fancy bakery 25 minutes away). Fortunately my mom came to visit us in Glastonbury from Germany before and after the birth and prepared some goodies for the freezer for postpartum.

I have to admit that I love Spaghetti Bolognese and can eat it 3x a week no matter if pregnant or not but during pregnancy my partner Sean also made it with liver and despite it being nice, I totally get why it didn’t hit the spot!

What is it though with these intense annoyance episodes when something isn’t exactly right? I still sometimes have them, even though milder ad I can control them now haha, but phew it’s like primal lioness force coming through

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Okay I only read half of your comment but I'm from Austria and goooddd I'm now wanting Grießbrei and need to source some immediately 😂😂

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Haha it’s such a specifically delicious warm soft nurturing childhood food, isn’t it? I didn’t know how to translate, was very tricky to explain my partner what I fancied 😅

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Hahaha I can imagine 😂😂

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Oh this spoke to my heart, especially as my Dad also made us spaghetti bolognaise... and to this day I still make his recipe and get all the inner hugs when I eat it! Even better when he cooks it still! And now it’s my daughter’s favourite meal and my husband makes it so it’s Daddy’s spaghetti! I love this idea of passing down memories through food.

My pregnancies mostly brought food aversions... in both my first trimesters I reverted to toast with cheese and marmite (a childhood fave) alongside salt and vinegar Pringles dipped in full fat cream cheese! Every time we go to the shops now my eldest points to the Pringles and says ‘Mummy your crisps!’... I had never eaten them before and never since and I have to laugh that this is probably the food she associates with me the most!

I also love that you wrote you had spaghetti more than sex... I’m 8 months PP and I would still say that’s true! 🤪🤪🤪

I love reading short and long pieces... I’m yet to find the balance but even when I intend on short I find my words pour out in bucket loads!

Xxx

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I loved reading this Kat.

I’m always slightly embarrassed to admit that my first pregnancy made me buy warm cheese pasties by the bucket load (I never eat them normally) and my second pregnancy in the pandemic pepperonis (spicy meat sticks for anyone who doesn’t know) sometimes two in a row! My daughter loves the latter and I recognised both foods as childhood nostalgia and feeling unnervingly hungry before each!

Love your storytelling so so much! ✨🙏

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Firstly I just want to make you spaghetti now. Secondly yes I have childhood food cravings all the time. Usually when I'm feeling very nostalgic and emotional and .. hormonal (which could explain the need for it in pregnancy) I think living so far away from home now, food is a way to connect me with not only the memories and my family but the culture itself. Everything about it is different .. the way I cook it, the way I am in the kitchen when serving it onto plates, the way I indulge it. It feels like travels back in time and across the continent. And at times it feels like a gentle hug after a really shitty day. Food is one of my love languages and I think it holds so much magic, way beyond nurturing our bodies with nutrients and all .. it's nurtures us with comfort and the feeling of belonging. At least that's what it does for me. Craving spaghetti now too hahah

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Oh my gosh, pregnancy nostalgia cravings are real! For me it was musk sticks, tinned spaghetti on toast and number one...plain pasta with cheese! On repeat. My mums favorite lazy meal for me as a little girl. I hadn’t eaten these things since child hood. It’s truely bizarre isn’t it

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I find this so interesting.

My husband grew up on mămăliga which is like polenta but made more like a bread and when I’m pregnant it tastes soooo good. It’s like the cells of this sweet soul know it’s heritage already and make me crave food of it’s ancestors.

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Hey Kat I hope your move went smooth! I also mourn the simplicity of my childhood in a small town by the sea. And the simple meals that went with it.

As for spaghetti, I always have time to read about pasta. It’s our go to for friends shared meals, such a lovely cheap dish to share.

The best pasta I ever had was making it with friends in the bush in Margs and catching the marron that went with it. Still the best meal I have ever eaten.

All the best with your next chapter x

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YES! 110%. If you asked me about pregnancy cravings, there is not so much the specific things (apart from cheese on toast, peanut butter, cups of tea and salt n vinegar crisps, ok quite a few) but a general feeling of needing nostalgic, comfort food from my childhood. I would say this was pivotal in healing a slightly warped relationship with food I had developed in my late 20s and really sealed the deal with intuitive eating. Many of the things on the nostalgic/childhood comfort list I would not have gone near for a number of years prior. However they remain firmly on the menu now. I don’t think I’ve ever eaten so much pasta and yes there is NOTHING better than spag bol!

As you say, it is as though we need the comfort when our bodies are doing new and wild things. That feeling remains with me as I navigate these days of mothering. A kind of mothering myself I suppose.

Thank you for sharing, I loved your words and am marvelling at your childhood as one of seven! Unbelievable. Love to you x

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Well now I know what I'm having for dinner! 😂

I love the nostalgia of food too. The fact that memories pass but as soon as we smell or taste something from the past, it's like a time travel device back to that time and place. I love that even though my nanna has been gone for years, as soon as I taste Welsh rarebit it's like I'm back in her house listening to her croaky old voice and being told I'm growing too quickly 💜

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