On Eating Babka with Teammates
I can’t see, much less eat, chocolate babka and not think of my college frisbee team. This strong association is all thanks to one of my teammate’s parents, traveling to our tournament from Boston, always with a loaf or two of chocolate babka in tow. I’d never eaten babka until one chilly North Carolina morning in early February of 2016, our first tournament of the year. Sideline snacks are a foundational aspect of college frisbee- usually a combination of those purchased by the team and those lovingly provided by parents. Your typical snacks are bagels, some crudité of sorts, hummus, clementines, and maybe those absurdly crumbly Nature Valley Bars. My favorites were tortilla chips to dip into the hummus and the occasional massive bag of Peanut M&Ms.
But that morning in North Carolina, there was a clear plastic bag with a striped loaf in an aluminum pan on our sideline. Several teammates identified this loaf to me as “babka.” Coming off the field in search of sustenance, they began to tear at the loaf, revealing the stripes were actually layers of dough and chocolate, topped with chocolatey-streusel bits. They passed around the loaf, everyone exclaiming with joy over the flavors with their mouths full. I pulled off a piece- I remember being immediately taken with how bitter the chocolate was. Yes, the overall flavor was sweet, but the bitterness of the chocolate made each bite so interesting. The cocoa filling was almost black, contrasting against the blonde buttery dough.
I hold every babka I’ve eaten off the frisbee field to the standard set by my first delicious bites of that loaf from Boston. I’m not sure I’ll ever find one that measures up, but that won’t be because of the quality of the babka. Food enjoyed with people you love tastes different, I firmly believe this to be true. There is some special signal that fires when you get to share food with family and friends. A bond is formed, a moment cemented in time, when you lock eyes with each other and eyebrows raise in awe of the first bites, the enthusiastic nodding that comes with the following spoonfuls or forkfuls. My clearest food memories all involve people I care about. I can still see the way the melted chocolate chips glistened in the cookies my teammate made during spring break training camp in 2018; feel the La Jolla sun on my face while eating the best egg and chorizo burrito I’ve ever had with two teammates who joined me on a breakfast adventure one tournament morning; clearly picture the spread of Sundae toppings we descended upon each Saturday night after practice (I always chose rainbow sprinkles); and taste the most delicious sweet, salty, tangy sauce on the shrimp pad thai I devoured with my teammates after a stressful, traffic-filled journey over the Golden Gate Bridge after a tournament my senior year.
I miss eating with my teammates. Those crowded tables were so full of laughter, love, and trust; a special group vibration that is hard to find. Although I struggled at times to eat without complicated feelings during my college years, I found safe spaces at team potlucks or lounging on pillows and blankets, goofing off, decompressing with snacks or desserts after a day of practice. Just as a ratatouille took fictional food critic Anton Ego back to his childhood kitchen, and a madeleine cookie transported Proust, chocolate babka makes me smile, remembering the team that was my home for four years.