The Foods of My Father

It seems to me that our three basic needs, for food and security and love, are so entwined that we cannot think of one without the other.

-M.F.K. Fisher

Coming home from a long day at the beach, I am in the kitchen making hot chocolate for my daughter. She is waiting anxiously beside me, watching as I add the chocolate and the milk, gently stirring the liquid as it slowly warms. I stop just short of filling our waiting cups and go to the cupboard. I pull out the salt, slyly adding a pinch to the mixture. Babou and I sit with our "hot choclit" and I am five years old again.

I cannot think of a more contented time in my childhood than the afternoons we spent on our front porch, the sun-heated deck warming our outsides while my father's special hot chocolate warmed our insides.

It would always be after a long day at the beach, when my sisters and I would return half frozen, that we could expect a nice hot chocolate to ease the numbness from our limbs.

Lying on the warm porch , we would wait happily while our father made us our special drink. It tasted distinctly different for our father always added his secret ingredient: salt. It made it taste at once more and less chocolate-ty, and always more exotic.

Popcorn was another specialty of my father. It was always a treat, and always in the afternoon, that we would get popcorn. But as soon as we saw our father pull out a certain pot, we knew we were in luck.

We would all wait for the first pop of the corn as the air filled with the scent of warming oil. Our father would pull out a paper bag, carefully fold the edges down once, and then add the popcorn and salt and shake it together vigorously.

And then it was a free for all. There was never quite enough popcorn and always too many hungry hands. It always went way too quickly, but I suppose that is part of the reason it tasted so good.

Food memories and childhood seem like two sides of a coin, perfectly fitting together with tongue and groove-like precision. Mothers, as a general rule, hold sway in this department and this was true in my growing up. My mother prepared most all of our meals and I can recall so many wonderful things that she made, things that I try to reproduce more and more for my family. But perhaps because my father's food contributions were less regular, they stand out distinctly in my memory.

Today I carry on the tradition with my family, letting the taste take me back to my childhood while creating memories for my little one. And isn't that just the beauty and the mystery of tradition...the ability a memory has to carry the happiness someone creates down through time? Memories creating new memories; an ancient echo of love.

A Tomato Story

Heirloom Plant:
An heirloom plant, heirloom variety, or (especially in the UK) heirloom vegetable is a cultivar that was commonly grown during the earlier periods in human history, but which is not used in modern large scale agriculture. Many heirloom vegetables have kept their traits through open pollination, while fruit varieties such as apples have been propagated over the centuries through grafts and cuttings. The trend of growing heirloom plants in gardens has been growing on popularity in the United States and Europe over the last decade.
-From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Last night we harvested our first homegrown heirloom tomato! Although this is only our second year of having a vegetable garden, my husband and I have really gotten into the whole experience and have been trying different varieties of vegetables testing to see what works, what doesn’t, and what starts better from seed or by plant.

Last year, we planted half of our vegetables by seed and the other half by plants from the nursery. The plants produced much faster than the seedlings, so we decided to plant entirely by nursery plants this year. I realized, at bit too late, that heirlooms are difficult to find in nurseries but are much easier to obtain by seed.

Needless to say, I planted seven varieties of tomatoes this year; one Roma, one Cherry, one called “Forest Fire,” two called “Oregon Spring,” and the only heirloom variety I could find, “Mr. Stripey.”

Since June we have been feasting off the Cherry tomatoes, the Oregon Springs and Forest Fire. The Roma took a bit longer but we finally got some in the beginning of July. All of these were quite good, although the Roma was a bit mealy, but perhaps that’s why it is a cooking tomato!

The heirloom variety took the longest to ripen, although it starting fruiting at the same time as the others. Finally, one looked like it was about ready. My husband would give me daily reports on its progress. We both had tasted heirlooms before but had never had one of our own. And, as far as we could tell, our homegrown hybrids tasted better than the heirlooms we had had.

Finally it looked ready! I decided a simple salad caprese would work best. I used the one heirloom along with a variety of our hybrids Dressed in a simple white wine vinaigrette and fresh mozzarella, the tomatoes even looked eager to be eaten!

We realized after only a few bites that there really wasn’t any competition at all! The heirloom won us over with a decidedly more delicate, sweet taste. I was also struck by undertones of a mineral quality. It was as though the tomato itself was vaguely translating the earth it had come from, making it its own. In contrast, it made the other tomatoes taste much more acidic and sharp, much less nuanced.

After dinner last night, we are converts. I am going to plan early, order seeds and plant as many heirloom varieties as I can find and have room for. It is amazing to me how just a little plot of ground can yield so much: so much food, so much knowledge, and so much happiness. I look at Babou as she picks her favorite (Cherry tomatoes) and am completely fulfilled; she too will have amongst her earliest memories the indescribable scent of tomatoes.