“Your eyes were like nhãn”:
A Food Memoir Collection
During college, Honors courses yielded some of the most valuable moments: I read leisurely and thoughtfully for the first time, I learned how to have a rich conversation with others, and I asked deeper questions. How fitting it is for this project, which I believe is the most meaningful work I have done in college, to emerge out of these Honors courses.
The Honors Program curriculum at the University of Tulsa culminates in an Honors Plan, where students design a project that answers lingering questions from their university studies. My project, a collection of personal memoir essays, questions the ways in which food tells the story of who I am, where I came from, and the moments that shaped me. More than anything, this project is a gift to myself, a personal endeavor that allowed me the time to read closely the works that sparked my interest and to relish in the process of writing and rewriting, finding ways to better articulate my experiences.
Growing up, Ba Noi, my father’s mother, always emphasized that my eyes were like nhãn. I had big, round eyes and dark pupils which she says resembled longan in both size and appearance, with its dark pit and glassy, white exterior. Food was always something so intricately linked with my family and with moments of my childhood. I wanted to use this project to explore those connections and thereby, document the memories that I hold close.
Along the way, I relived moments gathered at table, conversations years past, and meals whose flavors still dance across my tongue. In doing so, I began to see the threads that weave my family together and the food that brings us home. In the future, I will return to this project, to reread it, but also to experience those moments with family once again.
Acknowledgements
To Mom, who has taught me everything I know. Thank you for your steadfast support, for preparing so many meals that taste like home, and for tending to my changing taste preferences. All I’ve ever wanted is to love as you have loved us.
To Ba Noi, the matriarch of my family. You love us emphatically and forcibly. Thank you for your surprise food deliveries, profuse hospitality, and continual concern for all of us.
To Ba Ngoai: thank you for your quiet, attentive love, for midnight bowls of pho after we land in Oregon, and for all the little packages of xôi and thit chà bông.
Thank you, Jonah, for all the little ways that you support me. I treasure all the moments eating Little Caesar’s and Arby’s with you. Thank you, Jonathan and Gabe, for sharing meals with me, listening to my many stories, and sometimes, thinking they are funny.
Many thanks to you, Dad, for your continual support and enthusiasm. I wish I could’ve included the story of how you fed me topical medicine when I was little.
My sincerest thanks to Dr. Contois, who supported me in this project every step of the way. I so enjoyed the process of writing and revising under your guidance. It has been a gift to learn from you. I will always cherish the memory of discussing Crying in H Mart over a bowl of pho with you. So many of the highlights from my time in college have come from this project and your classes.
To Dr. Prudlo, whose first Honors course sparked my love for the liberal arts and learning itself. I would be a very different student and thinker if it had not been for those exciting and challenging discussions of truth, goodness, and purpose.
Thank you, Dr. Dutton, for your leadership of the Honors Program. This program has granted me so many meaningful moments that embody the ideals of a liberal arts education. I cherish the conversations I’ve had in Honors courses, with Honors professors, and in your beautiful, fifth floor office.
To Emilia, one of my first college friends. I am grateful for all our pre-class conversations and our many staring-at-the-ceiling, figure-it-all-out, growing-pains moments.
Thank you, Celeste, for your support and friendship. I appreciate all those times you listened as I waxed on and on about how much I loved learning! And Honors! And the Greeks! I’m a better thinker, friend, and person because of you.
To Bethany, one of my dearest friends who I first met in an Honors course. I don’t know what I’d do without you. Your friendship is one of the best things that have come from my time at TU.