Big Mama’s House
Whenever I smell certain spices, I think of my great grandmother.
Big Mama we called her, indeed a large woman whose parents immigrated from Lebanon to South Carolina in the early 1900s, bringing with them the rich food of the Middle East and a passion for cooking it.
I smell turmeric or cumin, and I am transported to Big Mama’s kitchen, a cavernous room that contained not one, but two refrigerators, not one, but two stoves, on top of which always sat two jars wrapped in towels, fermenting into homemade yogurt. The Lebanese call it Laban — a condiment like catsup that adorns every plate of Lebanese fare.
I smell mint and I see Big Mama again, shuffling over to the second oven and with a paddle board on a long handle, pulling out two round, homemade “ pie breads” — what they call pita bread now. Hers were better. They were more flour-y, less processed and big as pizza dough, nothing like the small, factory-made pita breads we buy packaged at the grocery store now.
I smell cloves or allspice and I remember Big Mama’s thin, silver hair slipped into a bun at her nape, her heavy, maternal body contained in a dark silk dress. She is sitting at her kitchen table with her feet shoulder-width apart and solid on the ground, her stockings rolled to just above her black laced shoes. The bottoms of her heavy arms flap as she uses a large wooden pestle to pound allspice into lamb and cracked wheat for the raw meat dish, Kibbeh.
Reviving the Lost Art of Cooking
Remembering the images and smells of Big Mama’s kitchen makes me long for a time when the experience of food was as much about the preparation as it was the eating of it.
And so from time to time I buy all the ingredients – with some modern-day tweaking - for grape leaves. Where Big Mama used lamb and plain white rice, I substitute chopped chick peas, roasted pine nuts and Basmati rice. I throw in chopped mint, dill and parsley - growing tangled in the side yard. I add the other common Mediterranean ingredients - lemon, olive oil, sauteed onion and garlic and a bit of allspice.
I assemble everything on the table. And then I call to my 16-year-old daughter.
“Time to roll!”
Emily never met her great-great grandmother.
She died 10 years before Emily was born.
But Emily, an introspective teenager, already knows that rolling grape leaves with her mother in the kitchen is more than just the act itself.
And so she leaves her text messaging, her IM graphics fun, her CDs, her soccer practices, her relationship intrigue and all that preoccupies a teenager’s life. And she rushes to join her mother, where together, we will make her own memories of allspice and rolling grape leaves in the kitchen.
Here’s how to make grape leaves:
Pinch off a stem. Lay the leaf vein side up. Smooth the leaf with the fingers. Spoon a teaspoon of stuffing mixture onto the leaf near the stem end. Roll the leaf from stem to center. Fold in the sides. Roll to the end.
Place the stuffed rolls next to each other, like sardines, in a large skillet that has been lined with torn leaves to keep the rolls from sticking to the bottom of the pan. Drizzle the grape leaves with more lemon and olive oil. Add water to cover, then lay a plate on top of the rolls, to keep the rolls from unraveling.
Place a small pot or something else heavy on top of the plate, to keep the plate and the rolls in place while they are cooking. Simmer 45 minutes. Remove grape leaves from pan and put in a separate dish. Drizzle more olive oil and lemon over the top. Place grape leaves in refrigerator to chill.
Emily and I always chill our grape leaves. While I have certainly seen grape leaves served warm at Mediterranean-style American restaurants, chilled is how Big Mama always served them.
- Debra-Lynn
P.S. - For a recipe close to the one that Emily and I have tweaked, click here.
Tags: cooking with kids, family cooking, family recipes, homemade grape leaves, making grape leaves, parenting advice, parenting story, parenting tips, Teenagers (13-18), teenagers cooking