Proust had it right
Certain foods can bring back powerful memories. I picked up some eggplant at the farmers market, and since I had peppers, onions and olive oil at home, I decided to make eggplant rumanish (Rumanian eggplant), a staple of my childhood.
One of my earliest memories is my mother seating me in the kitchen on Friday afternoons with a shallow wooden bowl and a chopping blade with a handle, and putting me to work chopping the eggplant. I couldn't have been more than six or seven years old--they raised 'em tough in those days and put 'em to work early!
I know I was that young because my mother died when I was eight, and there was no more eggplant rumanish in my life. As an adult I ate it in other forms, and chopped eggplant is a staple in Israeli cuisine. But it never tasted like my mother's.
So I threw the eggplant on the grill (my mother would have done it on a gas flame), chopped peppers and onions, and when the eggplant was soft and warm, I scooped it out, chopped it with a chef's knife, added the peppers, onion, a little olive oil and salt and pepper.
It was tasty. I'm going to have the remainder with supper tonight. But it didn't taste like my mother's eggplant rumanish. Maybe it needed to be chopped in a shallow wooden bowl.
Nonetheless, it brought me closer to her memory, and after all these decades, I can still remember the taste, the fragrance, and the feel of the wooden chopping handle in my hand and the shallow bowl covering my lap. It's a good memory.
One of my earliest memories is my mother seating me in the kitchen on Friday afternoons with a shallow wooden bowl and a chopping blade with a handle, and putting me to work chopping the eggplant. I couldn't have been more than six or seven years old--they raised 'em tough in those days and put 'em to work early!
I know I was that young because my mother died when I was eight, and there was no more eggplant rumanish in my life. As an adult I ate it in other forms, and chopped eggplant is a staple in Israeli cuisine. But it never tasted like my mother's.
So I threw the eggplant on the grill (my mother would have done it on a gas flame), chopped peppers and onions, and when the eggplant was soft and warm, I scooped it out, chopped it with a chef's knife, added the peppers, onion, a little olive oil and salt and pepper.
It was tasty. I'm going to have the remainder with supper tonight. But it didn't taste like my mother's eggplant rumanish. Maybe it needed to be chopped in a shallow wooden bowl.
Nonetheless, it brought me closer to her memory, and after all these decades, I can still remember the taste, the fragrance, and the feel of the wooden chopping handle in my hand and the shallow bowl covering my lap. It's a good memory.