Guest Post #3: MERE'S 'Food: The Universal Language'

as I am currently in the process of moving, I have found some lovely guest bloggers to take over for me until I'm all settled. today's guest blogger is Meredith who blogs over at Mere Mai, she's written a really lovely post for my readers and I can't wait for you all to read it.

Hello everyone!

My name is Meredith, or "Mere," as I'm commonly known, and I do have my own blog called Mere Mai, but today I am thrilled to be guest posting here at Lullaby for Pies for the lovely Magdalena!

Recently I returned home from a trip abroad in Europe, and on my way home, we were stuck at the JFK Airport in New York City and our flight was delayed. We were groaning and complaining, just sitting in those lousy airport waiting seats at our gate. Yes, not my finest moment. And out of the blue, these two young men sitting next to us at the gate, who were clearly foreign, asked my mother in choppy English, what was going on with the flight delay. My mother kindly answered their question and in turn they awarded my mother a bag of juicy Turkish pears, explaining that they were moving to the US from Turkey.

At first my mother was hesitant to take the pears. From a young age, we're always taught, "don't take food or candy from strangers." However, the two young men seemed very friendly and also seemed like they really wanted us to try their pears, to sort of share a bit of their culture with us. So we took the small risk and ate the pears which were absolutely delightful and exactly what I needed while waiting for a delayed flight in a stuffy airport.

source

The two Turkish men continued to ask us questions about America, which we gladly answered while trying to decipher their English which they told us was "a work in progress." And I realized then that eating those pears, was sort of like a "peace offering" in a weird way. Although, we could hardly understand each other, and had to repeat ourselves two or three times each time we spoke, we could easily share a food, and exchange cultures.

That's one of the really neat things about food. There's no language barrier when you eat. Food is a way to communicate and share cultures, without ever needing to physically speak. It's a bit of a beautiful thing, really.

Thank you to Magdalena for having me on Lullaby for Pies today! I always love talking about food and Magdalena is absolutely lovely! Again, you can find me at my own blog called Mere Mai, if you're interested.

Have a nice day!

xx

Mere

thank you very much for your post Meredith, I hope you all enjoyed this post, make sure to check out Meredith's blog over at Mere Mai, you can also find her on twitter here.