I have a dear friend who describes herself as a “foodie.” She loves to try new dishes without necessarily knowing exactly what the dish is comprised of. That’s not to say she will eat just anything, but if she trusts the person offering the food, she will try it.

I am not totally on the other end of the food spectrum, but close. I like to know the ingredients and experience the food with the comfort of trust in who is offering it. If they are ingredients I am not familiar with, I will take a hard pass on the dish. I realize that I am willfully limiting my exposure to something new, but it’s a trade off I can live with.

I am a Filipina-American and was raised to eat whatever was put in front of me. As a child, there was never an option to say “I don’t want that.” That’s part of our tradition of not giving children a decision making role until they are mature enough to understand what the choices are and how they affect the situation. Simple things like food choice are the places where understanding choice begins.

At a certain age, Filipino children are allowed to take only what we want to eat. The grownups still control the portion, but we only have to eat what we choose. But if we choose it, we must eat it. The day I was able to pass on the baby octopus sushi stands as a memorable moment for me.

Having said that, grownup, mature me, misses those meals. Not so much the food as the togetherness that it represents. To move through whatever venue the gathering was being held, be it a community hall, a family members home or even our own home and seeing faces that I could see myself in is a feeling that cannot be created in other way, in other place.

Now I remind myself if those precious memories by sitting down to a quiet dinner of the Filipino food I love most, using the recipes handed down by my late mother, recipes handed down to the generation that came after mine. Comfort food is not about the food for me. It is about the legacy of my people, my family. Rice, adobo, lumpia, sinigang, sotanghon, pancit, as well as a host of others are dishes that are the living history handed down throughout time.