Comfort in a Bowl Passed Down for Generations BY Corey Carpenter

Corey Carpenter is the son of Tracy Carpenter a veteran contributor to Lake Wedowee Life magazine. He took the reigns for this article as well as providing his photography skills. He is a graduate of Randolph County High School and a recent graduate of the University of Alabama. He lives in Tuscaloosa. Tracy still provided the recipe! 

Are there things that spark nostalgia for you? Specific things that take you rushing back to a specific place and time in your mind. Some things are just too much for me to deny a trip down memory lane. I’m an incredibly nostalgic person though, so maybe you can’t relate. If you can’t relate, I’ll try my best to explain to you how sensitive my nostalgia sensors are. Any little thing can trigger my wistfulness whether it’s a familiar smell, or an old picture. Sometimes it’s just looking out my bedroom window. It could be anything. 

Cloudy gray cold days are especially a trigger for my nostalgia. In my younger years, these types of days would bring some of my favorite little moments. I remember when I was younger I would watch a lot of TV when it was cold and rainy outside and for some reason I recall a specific Campbell’s soup commercial that I’ll likely never forget. In this commercial, it’s a cold winter afternoon when a snowman comes stomping into the kitchen from the bitter cold outdoors. A woman’s warm smile greets him as he enters and the woman sets a bowl of chicken noodle soup on the table for the snowman to eat. As he eats the soup, the snow melts away revealing it’s a boy under all that cold snow. He has been warmed up. He is home and cozy and happy now. It’s the epitome of cheesy nineties commercials and I loved it. Sometimes I even long for cold cloudy days so I can be like the child in the commercial. I want a cloudy day so I can truly appreciate the comfort and coziness of coming home. 
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My entire life I have heard you should have some soup when you’re sick. That’s perfect because Homer and the Greeks created the term “nostalgia” by combining the Greek words nóstos (which means “homecoming”) and álgos (which means “an ache or a pain”). Nostalgia is an aching for the past – an aching for the comforts we find in our memories. If you find yourself suffering from the symptoms of nostalgia, I’d recommend some soup. It will bring your childhood snow days back to life. This recipe may not be chicken soup like my commercial, but it’ll do the trick even better. It’s from mom. 

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