ABSTRACT
‘Does your mom make this?’, ‘Is this how your mom makes it?’ and ‘I made you Filipino food to make you feel at home’: these were all common questions I received while visiting Filipinas’ homes to ask them about their coming to Ireland. What would start as a scheduled interview would soon turn into a few hours of rounds of food, laughter, sharing our migration stories and sometimes I received (and accepted) invitations for future meals. 3 Occasionally, we began our conversation at the kitchen table. At other times, we would move from the kitchen table to the sitting room, and after some time, return to the kitchen for tea. The initial offer of food may have been made as a gesture of hospitality, but sharing these experiences centred around food revealed more to me than just passing a pleasant afternoon or evening. In discussing the circumstances of their arrival to Ireland, the hardships of family separation and movement across the world, as well as their interest in my mother’s migration from the Philippines to the US and my own movement to Ireland, I began to understand food as a pathway which can ascribe and inscribe a shared sense of belonging. This created a sense of familiarity for ourselves – however fleeting.
