[Editor’s Note: This Community Voices piece was written by guest writer, Amy Cockerham.]
I think of my grandmother often. She was unphased by the daily trivialities that cause me concern, and she was generous with her unsolicited advice and strong opinions. I’m not at all like her in this respect. I worry a lot. I sometimes imagine how my grandmother would have managed a troublesome situation and alleviated the concern by either refusing to allow the problem to upset her if it was a situation out of her control, or expertly dispensing her opinion on the matter and confidently proceeding without a backward glance.
This morning, however, I was reading an essay in which the author described the memories of her grandmother as involving the kitchen and cooking. She achieved a connection through culinary traditions, and she hoped to maintain the knowledge her grandmother had bestowed on her by preserving these recipes and methods.
My grandmother was many things, but she was not a good cook. In fact, the primary food memory I have involved green Jell-O with embedded asparagus that she presented as “salad.” And no one was about to argue with her on this point.
I began to reminisce about my best food memories, and I immediately recalled several, but none of them involved kneading dough or simmering sauces using cookware handed down over generations. Instead, I visualized some wild and beautiful locations, feelings of exhaustion and accomplishment, and preservative and sugar laden edibles being torn from plastic packaging. Here are two I hold closest.
A Muffin on the Grand Teton
Grand Teton National Park contains numerous jagged peaks rising above the Wyoming landscape. I’ve summited the Grand Teton half a dozen times, and each time I’ve felt stronger on the hike and more confident on the technical terrain. But this food memory takes me back to my first attempt.
The author adventuring in Grand Teton National Park. All photos courtesy of Amy Cockerham.
My husband had climbed the peak once before, but neither of us had the prior hours of mountain adventures in our legs or brains that we do now. We managed a car-to-car ascent in about 12 hours. The dizzying altitude, intense exposure, and sheer time on feet destroyed me, and I certainly did not have the knowledge of fueling that I have refined over the last 20 years.
As we hiked back to the car, I was fading from lack of calories, and I saw a wooden sign at the last trail junction indicating that it was 1.2 miles back to the car. I started sobbing. The 12 miles and 5,000-plus feet of technical terrain we had already covered that day obscured the fact that 1.2 miles of mildly downhill trail was not a significant impediment, and I told my husband that I didn’t think I could make it back to the car.
Though I felt nauseous, he insisted that I take a few bites of a grocery store blueberry muffin. I stood at the trail intersection, tears streaming down my face and bits of blue stained pastry stuck to my hands and lips. Tourists hiking to some of the nearby lakes gave my husband worried glances, but he assured them that I was fine, and we stood there until half of the muffin was in my stomach and the other half had been clumsily dropped in the dirt. We slowly started walking back down the trail, and the wonderfully refined sugars reversed my depleted state just in time for us to make it back to the car and wonder when we would attempt the Grand again, only faster.
Potato Chips and Soda After My First Ultra
In 2014, I completed my first ultramarathon. I was not a runner in high school, college, or really even in the months and weeks prior to this race. Rock climbing was my identity at that time, but I “rewarded” myself after completing a long-term climbing goal by taking some time to hike in the mountains, free from the expectations I placed on myself in the climbing realm. In hindsight, it’s obvious I would eventually fully transition from climbing to running, but recounting that story now would prevent me from finishing this one.
Another view of Grand Teton National Park.
The race was 50 kilometers with 10,000-plus feet of vertical gain and loss in the local mountains. I trained by hiking up and down the surrounding peaks in various combinations each weekend. I knew nothing of fueling or hydrations strategies. I didn’t have a Strava account. I don’t even think I had a GPS watch. I had some headphones, and I listened to a science fiction audiobook series while training.
On race week, my mom flew out from Texas to woman the aid stations, and my husband and I decided to tackle the event together. I started out too fast, I didn’t manage the heat, and my nutrition was abysmal, but I actually finished the race in just under 11 hours. I had various gastrointestinal evacuations during the last three to four miles, and I was an empty shell of a runner after crossing the finish line. I wasn’t sure I could make it out to the parking lot. My mom left me sitting on a rock, and she retrieved a soda and some potato chips. The three of us sat in the mountains on a summer afternoon and enjoyed the feeling of accomplishment while the sugar and salt started to make me a functional human again.
I’ve since matured into a more consistent runner, and I’ve completed many more races. I’ve finished faster and stronger. My mom, due to more pressing responsibilities, hasn’t been able to crew or support me in person at any of these races. I think back often to this first ultra, and I’m hopeful that she will attend future events. I might even be coherent enough at the end of one to tell her how much I appreciate her.
The premise of the essay I read was that food can be a medium for creating lasting memories with those we love. I initially dismissed this idea. I loved my grandmother, and the only gastronomic lesson she handed down was the danger of mixing Jell-O with vegetables. But, after placing this idea into the context of my life, I realized that I have created lasting memories with my loved ones, and food was a central theme. It wasn’t the centerpiece of a decorative holiday table, but it was the fuel for some shared adventures.
Call for Comments
Do you have any adventure-food related memories to share?
