Sharing a Meal with Roa Harb

This week, Aneta and Isaac talk with Roa Harb about food as a measurement of both distance and intimacy. Dr. Harb discusses how, through writing, she discovered that shared meals with her family in Lebanon were expressions of tenderness and suffocating control. Dr. Harb's work unmasks the role of the unconscious in memory, revulsion within desire, and survival through trauma.
 

"My mother starts asking weeks in advance for our favorite foods so that she can core, stuff, mince, chop, and knead her way into neatly packed pans, ready to be thrown into the oven at a moment’s notice. On too many occasions, I’ve objected to this cheerful affirmation of the assumption that as expats we must be living in a state of food deprivation, possibly surviving on caloric stores between one visit and the next—to no avail."
- Roa Harb, "Feeding" ROOM 10.22