Reading Anthony Bourdain is funny but saddening at the same time. He seems like he’s searching for something but he just can’t seem to find it. If that thing is indeed food, well, that’s going to be pretty hard in my opinion. Food is quite subjective, and I don’t think it can be forced. Maybe it could be in a place that you wouldn’t need to travel thousands of miles to. A good example is France for Bourdain–he senses all his nostalgic memories there and I believe he got a pretty good connection there. Food is so embedded in our memories that I think to find the source of the “perfect meal,” one has to go back to their home terrain. At least for me, that is, because I know that all my favorite meals are not newly discovered treasures–they’re treasures from the past that are seemingly ordinary and melancholy to other eaters. I remember eating my mom’s homemade food, especially her stuffed green peppers, taco soup, spaghetti, cookies, and pumpkin bread. The food I remember the most vividly is not even messed with. Watermelon is a treasure in my heart because I spent so many summers with the juice dribbling down my chin and the seeds spewed in many directions onto the still-simmering pavement. Coupled with watermelon is my “perfect meal”: barbecue chicken, corn on the cob, beans, and sweet tea. Call it generic, call it common, but it is cemented in my childhood. I think Bourdain really touched on this with the oysters from his past, too.