Caramel Cake, Pimento Cheese and the Abundance of my Grandmother's Kitchen Table (Made to Crave, Day 2)

My parents divorced when I was very young so I spent a lot of time with my paternal grandmother Frances as a child while my mother worked or attended college. My Hamblen and Green county people know, my grandmother made the best cakes on earth.

I would often spend my day eating whatever was around at Nannie’s so when it came time to eat our actual meal I was not hungry. My grandmother never made me eat if I was not hungry and would always allow me to have whatever I wanted later in the evening. 🤣🤣

It was the opposite in my mother’s home. She cooked a meal every morning before she went to work so that we would have a balanced meal when we got home from school. Our snacks in the home were fresh and never came from a package. We did not have sweet drinks unless it was a special occasion. We did not even have meals like tacos unless it was my birthday!

So how do you manage two different worlds when it comes to eating?

The short answer is: You don’t. You don’t really learn what is the proper way to eat. You just know what people prefer individually, and follow suit when you are with THEM.

But that is the kicker! If I was always doing something to please other people, how would I learn what worked for me?

For me, it is starting with what am I eating INSTEAD of meals?

Yesterday we talked about Chex Mix and while we were joking about it, it is a serious issue for me because it is a snack I turn to on a daily basis.

So my question for the day is: am I craving snacks Or am I craving something deeper? We all know how it feels to be sad, forgotten, left out, etc. What do we do when we have those feelings? Some of us eat too much, others drink, others engage in activities that are inappropriate, we all have some thing we do to cope. But when that coping mechanism becomes a daily occurrence, it is time to rethink how we are living.

Question:
What were you taught about eating as a child? Were there clear boundaries around what you could and could not eat or was it a free-for-all?