Grandmom’s Tales: ‘Fruits Of Family Trees’

Granny’s tales, and their actions/thinking, have remarkable similarities be they Christians, Jews, Muslims or Hindus. Perhaps it’s because of them the world survives despite the harshness and cruelty that we see around us. Vlasta Molak, a friend, has kindly sent me a moving story of one such grandmother, who at times appears as if she was mine.

Here is an excerpt in the NYT from a book to be published in November. “My grandmother never set a place for herself at family dinners. Even when there was nothing more to be done — no soup bowls to be topped off, no pots to be stirred or ovens checked — she stayed in the kitchen, like a vigilant guard (or prisoner) in a tower. As far as I could tell, the sustenance she got from the food she made didn’t require her to eat it.

“…We thought she was the greatest chef who ever lived. My brothers and I would tell her as much several times a meal. And yet we were worldly enough kids to know that the greatest chef who ever lived would probably have more than one recipe (chicken with carrots), and that most great recipes involved more than two ingredients.

“…In fact, her chicken with carrots probably was the most delicious thing I’ve ever eaten. But that had little to do with how it was prepared, or even how it tasted. Her food was delicious because we believed it was delicious. We believed in our grandmother’s cooking more fervently than we believed in God.

“…More stories could be told about my grandmother than about anyone else I’ve ever met — her other-wordly childhood, the hairline margin of her survival, the totality of her loss, her immigration and further loss, the triumph and tragedy of her assimilation — and while I will one day try to tell them to my children, we almost never told them to one another. Nor did we call her by any of the obvious and earned titles. We called her the Greatest Chef…”

“The story of her relationship to food holds all of the other stories that could be told about her. Food, for her, is not food. It is terror, dignity, gratitude, vengeance, joy, humiliation, religion, history and, of course, love. It was as if the fruits she always offered us were picked from the destroyed branches of our family tree….”

I don’t wish to spoil the joy of reading this excerpt, which takes dramatic turns in its narrative, by going further than this. You may click here to read the fascinating and moving granny’s tale…and a powerful message…