간병기록 『나는 매일 엄마와 밥을 먹는다』에 나타난 노인간병에서 가정요리(家庭料理)의 의미

Abstract

This article has contemplated the significance of home cooking appearing from the text of <I Eat with My Mom Every Day>, a record of home care by a son of 60 years old who nursed his mother in her 90s for 9 years. Under this article, the home cooking means the dishes that are personally cooked by the son who had the nursing of his mother. Two conspicuously impressive matters during this nursing period are fact that the son who was turning into his own senior years folded up his social life to personally take on the nursing of his mother and the fact that he personally learned and developed cooking in contemplating of his mother’s health during the period in a way of taking care of their meals. He began his nursing for fulfilling his filial duty or ethical obligation as a son, and for the purpose of practicing Banpojihyo, he naturally learned how to cook and it has become the only way of communication with his mother since there was no other way of communication due to his mother suffering from the senile dementia. His mother who was really good at cooking retrieved her sharpness of yester years only during the mealtime as she expressed all phases of life through food, and she came up with her sharp critiques with clear pros and cons. While exchanging such dialogue and sensitivity, the author was able to wipe off his adverse emotion of regrets, resentment, anger or the like arising during the time of nursing. Furthermore, his passion and immersion on cooking ventilated sentiment and purified emotion and it also functioned as the catalyst to cure the devasted mind and body, namely, restoring the wounded mind. While living along with his mother in a space of apartment, the author had to accept the distance away from his social activities, including ordinary exchanges with his own family and this part was led to the decline of self-esteem and self-efficacy. However, he was able to recover his status unexpectedly for engaging in diverse activities through a way out in cooking. As such, the motivation for him to start cooking was to serve his mother well, but with the time of nursing prolonging, his endeavor paved the way of communication with his mother who the normal dialogue would be difficult as well as a salvation for himself, and this article has analyzed the text by paying attention to such points.