When I was in my last year of University my Dad had just moved country, to Dubai, to embark on a big career move. Within a month of being here he was diagnosed with throat cancer (never smoked a day in his life). He had his tonsils removed, but devastatingly along with the required chemo and radiation he also lost his saliva glands.

Saliva has a profound impact on our eating experience. It is crucial to food oral processing and greatly influences ones eating experience, and sensory perception.

I spent my last year of university studying in the halls of hospitals as my Dad had his treatment and started to lose his hair. I discovered this when I was giving him a head massage one evening and ended up with a large chunk of hair that had fallen out in my cupped hands.

Once the treatment was complete Dad’s esophagus was, according to his Doctor, as thin as a needle. So, they had to fit a gastrostomy tube into his stomach through an opening made on the outside of his tummy. I didn’t at the time comprehend how difficult this must have been to navigate such a traumatic way of getting the required food/lifesaving nutrients into one’s body. Not only for my dad but the indestructible matriarch that is my mother. Dad’s tube feeder and pillar of strength during the ordeal and to this day! On a positive note, Grandpa is very popular with his two grandsons, since he is the only person they know who has 2 belly buttons now that the tube hole has closed up and resembles a second navel.

My Dad has recovered, meaning the cancer has not returned and its now 20 years since his diagnosis. However, the impact on his and our lives is still prevalent today.

It’s quite hard to write this, bring on the PTSD. My father has always been my mentor and my hero. I am to this day devasted for my father, the fear, despair, melancholic anxiety that he has had to endure. Your life as you know it changing in an instant.

On top of that his whole diet and way of living had to change. He has always been a very healthy man, with a very good diet. I know in the grand scheme of things its minutiae, but imagine not knowing that it would be the last time you can eat your favourite food? No big steak on the bbq, or a spicy curry. The tiniest hint of spice sends him into a painful coughing frenzy.

Family meals turned into lots of soups, sushi dinners, and extra saucy dishes that slide down the esophagus with ease. My Dad lost a lot of weight, with the Doctors recommending a beer with every meal to help him put on more weight. One request he very readily adhered to.

My Dad is a master horticulturist, and apart from a penchant for growing spectacular indigenous gardens, he is also a dab hand at growing his own vegetables, which he harvests and eats daily including baby tomatoes, eggplant, beans, spring onion, passion fruit, lemons, herbs, the list goes on…

It’s quite therapeutic writing this, and I am doing so with smile on my face because in all this pain, some great food stories have come from it, memories we still speak about and recipes we still make to this day.

A major one being Red Soup (there goes my mum again with her habit of naming dishes after colours – read my ABOUT page for another reference). I asked my husband this question, what dish do you correlate with my Dad’s cancer and he immediately blurted out Red Soup!

We ended up being privileged enough to live across the road from my folks at one point while living in Dubai. We used to pop across the road every Saturday/Sunday to watch the games. And by watch, I mean my Dad and husband would watch football, my mother and I would do everything and anything but. However, afterwards, we would always come together and play cards into the wee hours.

Red Soup was just a combination of (you guessed it) roasted red/orange vegetables (tomatoes, red bell pepper, sweet potato etc.). A simple soup, served with sliced baguette, lashings of butter (loads of butter helped moisten and get the food down Dad’s throat). No-one complained about that. What is better that fresh bread, butter and a sea salt sprinkling.

We really do think of those weekends fondly; a core food and family memory and I will cherish the time spent for the rest of my life.

I feel like I am not done with this story. There are a few more recipes I will share in the recipe section of a glorious roast chicken and a baked salmon. All wonderful food memories attached to my Dad.

Everyone has a story, I’d love to hear yours.

I would love to hear from you, if my story stuck a chord with you.

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