Sour Soup
When I moved to the UK from 2000 miles away, I wasn’t homesick. Not for my family, nor language, nor my hometown. Yet I kept eating and eating, unable to satisfy the longing lodged in my stomach.
I was never a fussy kid.
I remember — do I really remember, or was I told enough times that I started believing? — I remember sitting in the high chair watching Romanian folk singers singing melodies of longing, my grandma next to me.
It must’ve happened early.
She died when I was four.
One of my earliest memories is eating sour soup — ciorbă — soured with borș.
Borș is made from fermented oats.
You use it to sour soup,
or maybe we borrowed that too.
I have not been having ciorbă in the UK.
My mum sometimes sends parcels with childhood sweets and my books, but they never satisfy me.
My stomach diagnosed me with homesickness.
And every time I’m about to board the plane to Romania, I call my mum to prepare sour soup.