Edible Memories Day 8: Food and Longing

Even when I eschewed most food, I never stopped wanting it. I could ignore my desire, punch it down, beat it back, disavow it, but behind that curtain, the longing grew. Such is the primal relationship to that which we need.

I see it everywhere. In my insatiable pug who dances around his food bowl with salivating anticipation, who licks it clean for minutes after finishing the last bit of chow. In my ginger cat who nips at my heels when hungry and then seems to relish the glistening mound of pheasant or tumble of kibble I put in his bowl. In even our tank of fish as they race skyward each morning toward the shower of orange flakes –better for their color, see- raining down to water level.

It is in my garden, as the flowers shine their faces toward the sun, as that very reach determines angle of growth all around. As the soaring sugar maple tries to steal all the soil’s nutrients for itself. Year after year, I compost and fertilize on behalf of the smaller plants trying desperately to assert their worth against that tree’s. I see it in the bursts of green shooting from sidewalk cracks and microscopic fractures in the mortar between bricks; life finds a way. It longs to do so and will.

I remember the longing when I think of relationships past.

My high school boyfriend and the fettucine alfredo we cooked for each other one night.

My college love, the first real love of my life, and the way our eyes met over a high top at a bar a year in. There we drank cold pints, played darts and he fashioned me a ring from a foil wrapper, slipping it down my slim finger before kissing my waiting lips and whispering, “I love you, Emil.”

The man in Africa, next to me at the Ethiopian restaurant in Nairobi, where a slinky belly dancer beguiled the room. Frothy Naishos and plates of earthy greens and that spongy injera. We ate with our hands, scooping portions of the sumptuous food between bread and fingers, slipping bits into each other’s mouths, fingers sometimes lingering there, the belly dancer simply background noise then.

I watched it as my newborn sons rooted and suckled, hungrily and then blissfully when the milk came pouring forth. I watched their eyes roll backward before closing; never was there such a picture of heady satiety.

I saw such longing in my three-year-old when he came upon a case of chocolates, plastered his face and hands against it, and began making the big decisions when we said he could have one of whatever he wanted. I saw it too in my toddler as he pressed up against the oven, ogling the puffy muffins cooking within. “Please mama, when ready?”

I smile as I watch my husband’s eyes as I set a plate of his favorite pie or ragù bolognese in front of him. Watch him take a bite, close his eyes, and say “Thank you, honey. This is so good.”

And I think, my god, this thing called eating.

Edible Memories Day 4: Food and Childhood

Nanny was a surprise baby, born when her older sisters, Hilda and Elia, were teenagers. I never knew Elia; she died in her 50s after a fast and furious bout with ovarian cancer. Hilda was my mother’s favorite aunt. She called her Aunt Da, and so, my sister and I did too.

Aunt Da lived on a corner lot near the train tracks. I don’t remember if she was on the good side or the bad side or even if there was such a thing. I didn’t know and didn’t care. She just lived in the old part of town, and my sister, Elia (named after Aunt Da’s sister, of course) and I loved to visit.

Her house was old and creaky. It was the house she’d grown up in. I don’t know for sure, but it appeared to be raised on those flat-topped concrete cones. Was that what held it up so that rainwater could run underneath? Three concrete steps led from the sidewalk to Aunt Da’s front door, and to the right was as screened-in front porch –was it screened, actually? The memories are both vivid and faint.- on which sat four metal chairs, each painted in a different hue. They were colorful and comfortable, and for a decade now, I’ve wished I could find some like them.

Aunt Da let Elia and me take pennies over to the railroad tracks and lay them on the rails. Those rails baked in the hot Louisiana sun all day and glistened with the exertion of doing so. Gingerly, we set our coppers down and then scurried back to the safe, cool, dark confines of Aunt Da’s house.

Her kitchen was at the rear of her home, abutting the back yard. The yard where Nanny broke her back when she was little, falling off the swing and landing spine-down on the edge of the sandbox. If you looked out of the back door, you’d see a magical garden: ancient Amaryllis shooting thick and strong from the earth; a whole fence covered in Dr. van Fleets, the most beautiful, delicate climbing rose I’ve ever seen.

When Aunt Da died, Mom took some bulbs and clippings, and now most everyone has the descendants in their own yards. I love the idea of the bulbs reproducing underground, generously sharing of themselves in the ways Aunt Da always did.

She was a tremendous cook. An old-school Louisiana woman who knew what to do with flour, sugar, butter, beans and drippings. God, I can still taste her butter beans, each one big as a thumb and so tender I couldn’t understand how it hadn’t fallen apart. How did it retain its oval shape, still with the tiny embryo clinging to one side? They were soft, velvety, utterly and unabashedly beany. They tasted faintly of onions and bacon but mostly of the earth. I imagine that’s exactly what a butter bean is supposed to taste like.

After the train roared by, my sister and I would run to the tracks to fetch our pennies-now-pancakes, copper disks smooth and shiny as a water’s reflection on a sunny day. They were oval-shaped, like those butter beans, and still warm from all they’d endured. Treasures. Each one.

When we got sweaty, from too much play or from the simple fact of living in Louisiana and being in a home without central air, Aunt Da would clear off her sink and surrounding counter and tell me to jump up. I’d lay down and tip my head into the deep basin of her sink, just as the cool water began to run.

Aunt Da believed in Prell shampoo rinsed clean with cold water and white vinegar. Even though her hands were gnarled with arthritis, they were strong and the skin unbelievably smooth. She’d massage the fluorescent green Prell into my hair and scalp, and I’d close my eyes and take it all in.

Suds, vinegar, bacon, beans, her tea cakes or maybe a French Silk pie.

My dad and I loved that pie. Like the fudge his patient always made him at Christmastime, the French silk pie is not for the faint of heart. It is rich and creamy, and it is sublime. Eggs, melted Ghirardelli, Cool Whip and our family pie crust. It’ll bring you to your knees.

Years ago, so long after I was a child, the taste memory of that pie coursed over me suddenly, like the train over the pennies, like the cold water through my hair. I called Nanan, which is what I call Aunt Da’s daughter, and said, “Nanan, do you have Aunt Da’s French Silk recipe?”

She found Aunt Da’s old cookbooks which are really just journals with recipes written out in Aunt Da’s scratchy hand and sent me the prize. That very day, I made the pie and with the first bite was transported back to that old house near the tracks from which good smells always emanated, where flowers always seemed to bloom, and where a wonderful old woman waited to hug us tight, wash our hair and feed us well.

Edible Memory Day 1: Comfort

I'm so happy to be participating in a Winter Joy Writing Retreat from now through December 14. It's an online "class" hosted by Jena Schwartz and Cigdem Kobu of The Inky Path, and this year's theme is edible memories. It's a lovely way to carve out a bit of space each day for two weeks, a tremendous gift to self during such a hectic time of year. 

Food writing is really how I happened upon and fell in love with the craft of writing, so this retreat marks the loveliest of returns to some of my roots.

At its best, food writing not only makes your mouth water but also transports you to a time, place, the taste sensations of certain foods. You might find yourself experiencing someone else's memory as seamlessly as if it were your own, or you might find your memory jogged, tripping you back to a time you savored the very dish or ingredient or flavor in question.

Today's prompt asked us to consider comfort foods and the places, people and memories associated with them. As is often the case, I sat down to write and was happily surprised by all that spilled out onto the page. I'm going to share it with you here and plan to do the same, during the next fortnight, for all the writes I feel moved by and inclined to publish.

I hope you enjoy.

***

I grew up in south Louisiana, a flat land speckled with Cypress trees and their woody knees, an intricate system of swamps, bayous, lakes and the mighty Gulf, swarms of mosquitos, soaring Oaks, spindly Pines, thick carpets of St. Augustine grass, gators and the sing song hum of “Hi Y’all, How are you today, Baby? Your momma’s OK? Are you hungry?”

My grandfather, Papa, was a Sicilian emigrant whose parents had come through the Port of New Orleans before settling three hours west in Lake Charles. My grandmother’s people had been in Lake Charles since, well since they arrived. I don’t know more than that. They were Louisianians with a hearty French Cajun influence that you can hear in the very specific Cajun accent of the southwest region, of the French-not-French language, in the cuisine’s piquancy as it hits your tongue.

Nanny, my grandmother, cooked daily. For Papa’s restaurant -she made the cheesecakes; thousands over the course of that restaurant’s life- and for her own family. My mother, flanked by an older brother and younger twin sisters, left Lake Charles for college and didn't plan to return, but after raising my sister and me largely on her own for the years my father was in medical school and residency, she jumped when he was offered a full practice back in her hometown. Her own parents would be just a mile down the road and could help her with us.

We all came to see the enormous gift this inadvertent return to Lake Charles was. To grow up with loving grandparents nearby, and aunts, uncles and cousins both in town and just a couple hours’ drive away made for the village that so many of us don’t have today because the world has grown so scattershot and we all blow away on its winds.

Sundays drew us to Nanny and Papa’s house for family lunch. They went to church, we didn’t, but it didn’t matter because afterwards, we all came together to sit snug around the black and gold Formica table that was in that kitchen until Nanny died two years ago. Sixty some odd years she spent in that house, outliving Papa by twenty and her sisters by much longer.

Sunday was spaghetti and roast day, a tribute to Papa’s Italian heritage but flecked with Nanny’s culinary traditions too. Allspice and a bit of sugar tinged her tomato sauce which enveloped the roast until it fell apart when a fork came near. Big French baguettes were sliced and laid into napkin-lined baskets. A crisp green salad was made in the old, brown plastic bowl that was chipped by so many clangs of the tongs as they tossed and served. I watched the vortex made by Nanny’s iced tea spoons as they stirred and dissolved Lipton iced tea mix into tall glasses filled with water and, once the whirls stopped, fat ice cubes. The hinged silver sugar bowl sat waiting for those who didn’t want the “pink” stuff (Sweet’N Low), and the white plastic rotary cheese grater stood capably alongside a big wedge of Parmesan. A pie or icebox cake surely waited on the sidelines for later.

Though so many dishes from my childhood evoke nostalgia, comfort and profoundly distinct taste memories –gumbo, tea cakes, green rice, jambalaya- my mind always goes quickly to Nanny’s Sunday lunch when I think of comfort. I suspect that’s because of how much Nanny and I loved each other, how perfectly fine I always felt in her presence.

I remember the china bowls we’d eat our pasta from, and the matching salad plates too. I remember those iced tea spoons and glasses, her garlic press sitting near the sink, the trays of ice waiting in the freezer, the couches and blankets that waited in the next room to let us rest off the food comas we'd surely have.

I remember loving to twirl spaghetti and roast onto my fork with the help of a big spoon that refused to let the slippery noodles escape the tines. I remember liking to slide a big, saucy twirl between two slices of baguette; the original carb heaven. Mom often chastised me for this but Nanny always said, “Sharon, just let her be.”

I remember Papa’s big belly and balding pate, how he’d tuck his napkin into the front of his shirt and boom, “More cheese!” I remember my Dad enjoying every bite and that on his birthday, Nanny always made him cherry cheesecake. I remember that when she stopped doing that, it broke my heart a little because it meant she really was getting old. I remember that I asked her to teach me then, so that I could make it, so that I’d know it when she was gone.

After we stuffed ourselves silly, we’d retire to that next room and all fall asleep, Nanny and Papa in their recliners, my sister and I under the best plaid fleece blanket in the world, Dad always on the floor. Mom was a floater. Sometimes she returned to her childhood bed, other times she joined Dad on the floor or us on the couch.

And finally we’d awake, return home and bid Sunday adieu. I imagine I was already looking forward to the next weekend, to being back in Nanny’s kitchen as the roast bubbled away on the stove and I could stir the tea once more.