Process Writing

One valuable part of this class was how it pushed the importance of treating food and the context in eating it like experiences to be savored. The food review in particular allowed me to take myself out of the picture, and focus on the atmosphere as a key part of the meal. It brought to light how food doesn't make or break the dining experience. Oftentimes, for myself, it is a great meal if I am surrounded by people I appreciate and care for, and decent food. However, I don't think I will ever be able to mindlessly eat a meal ever again, to be quite honest. This in itself if a huge shift towards mindfulness that I am glad to dip my toe into.  

The writing for this class has also helped me to be more observant all around. In class, we'd pay special attention to the detail of food descriptions employed by every author we looked at. I remember feeling like the descriptions are even more powerful in their specificity. I think I began to close in and focus on the small details in my restaurant review and this final perfect meal assignment. I know that I was more vague than specific for a lot of my memoir.

In reflection, this is because in that piece the content was something I really wasn't ready to write about. I pushed myself to experience emotions and reflect on it in the same stroke. This is similar to writing a draft and editing at the same time, and it is just counterproductive. I think the space of this memoir just wasn't enough to hold what I wanted to share, and I needed more time to process what I was dealing with in the first place. My process for that piece was to free write for between five and ten minutes before exploring what parts had potential. This is how I start a lot of my poetry, also. I decided to start this way because memoirs are immensely personal, as is my poetry, so I wanted to start thinking about it like one cohesive piece. When it got down to the actual writing, it was a tough project that I need to work through for as long as I pursue creative outlets for expression. Wrestling with the way food plays with identity and family has been eye-opening, and I am excited to dig deeper moving forward.

Final Perfect Meal

Going to my mom’s childhood home is perhaps the most “Indian” thing I’ve done. My brothers and I call her parents Dida and Dadu, which is Bengali for Grandmother and Grandfather, respectively. They immigrated to the United States in 1967 from Kolkata, India. My mom was tiny, just three years old, and Dida was pregnant with another child. They lived in Detroit, Michigan for a while, in the student apartments of Wayne State University where Dadu went to school and eventually became a professor, teaching students about Civil Engineering. Dida looked after the kids and the house, and worked at a boutique in Somerset Mall.

For maybe the last forty years, they have called this funky house on Lone Pine Road their home. The house is covered with many depictions of Ganesh, an elephant-headed Hindu god. Known as the remover of obstacles, the table by the front door is entirely covered with idols in his image, all about the size of a coffee mug. A mix of South and South-East Asian art adorns many of the walls. With two creaky bamboo spiral staircases and a bathroom with floor to ceiling mirrors as the walls, this house has character. The kitchen is an eggshell white color, with a lot of counter space and old pictures of my brothers and myself on the fridge. A cookie jar my mom made in high school sits on top of the refrigerator; her take on a jolly French chef, reminiscent of Santa Claus, looks over everyone in the kitchen. We like to watch Dida knead dough for the Luchis. She takes the dough, all floured-up, and rolls them into spheres the size of golf balls with quick, circular motions. We squish them into even circles with rolling pins, our brown hands made pale after this task, thanks to the flour. Once deep-fried they morph into an airy pocket of bread, the size of the palm of your hand. It looks like magic, how they puff up so quickly around simmering oil. I've always thought she was fearless, cooking with such hot oils and not being afraid of getting burned. We leave these family dinners with full bellies and too many leftovers placed in old cool whip containers.

We live only twenty minutes away, but it feels like a world apart. My house’s cabinets, rather than being filled with fragrant spices from the local Indian grocer, are filled with boxes of Kraft Mac ‘n Cheese, Cocoa Pebbles, and Quick Curry Paste from the multi-cultural section of Kroger. There are times when I feel more of a craving for Velveeta cheese than I do for anything Dida can make, even her classic meal of aloo and luchis. Sometimes I feel that I don’t deserve this skin. I feel as if I am not performing my ethnicity in quite the right way. I mean, I don’t know many Bengali words or Hindu gods. I don’t get the movie references. I can’t remember whether certain family friends are to be referred to as Mashi, meaning Auntie, or Dida, meaning Grandmother. I have never tied a sari. I am sorry. Until this point I’ve been more comfortable with my whiteness, despite this brown body. I eat the food and take in the sights. I have been an outsider within my own family tree, by choice. Not anymore.

Honoring my Indian heritage has played a huge role in the development of my perfect meal. I know that I need to let go of the illusion of authenticity, of wanting to embody the “right” way of being simultaneously Indian and White. Until I do I don’t think perfection, in all of its misguided glory, is attainable. That being said, I am proud of the meal I made. A simple bowl of Aloo Gobi and Naan, with a cup of sweet Vanilla Lassi. I decided to make this meal because this is a milestone, being the first Indian dish I've made without Dida watching over my shoulder. I haven’t had Indian food since coming to school at the start of the quarter.  

Raiding an acquaintance's kitchen cabinets for turmeric, coriander, and cumin was bittersweet. While I know there is not one way to be Indian, it feels like she is doing it better – this very well may be because she is an active member K-Desi, a club for South Asian students on campus to build community. It seems to be made up mostly of first generation folks. For the past two years, I have only attended one meeting, at that was just an excuse to eat the butter chicken that some kid’s mother had made to celebrate Diwali, the Hindu festival of lights. I haven’t celebrated this with my family, but my mom talks about it each year. Usually nothing more than a wistful, “We should celebrate Diwali this year”. I guess she feels a bit out of place too, being a daughter of immigrants in such a white community, raising mixed-race children.

The fluorescent lights in the dairy section of Meijer flicker, as my friends and I looked for the vanilla yogurt with the most fat. "Is all yogurt low-fat, or is this a new thing?" my buddy Karina asked. I don't know. I settled for the container of Annie's organic yogurt, because it was the only one that didn't actually say it had less fat. My house believes in cooking with full fat, with loads of butter, and extra cream. "If you're going to eat, why not eat to indulge?" - My mom's voice echoes in my head as I grab a half gallon of Vitamin D milk. One large russet potato, a head of cauliflower, a serrano pepper, and some Naan bread later, we were ready to roll.

Karina’s kitchen is small with an electric stove top with crooked coils and a sink without a garbage disposal. Still, it was better than using the dorm room kitchens because those are even smaller. I set out all of the ingredients next to the sink. I rinsed the potato, out of habit, and started using a tiny peeler to take off its skin. I had to google how to cut “florets” of a cauliflower. It looked so big, that I didn’t know where to start. I learned from a quick video that florets are the bite-sized pieces of cauliflower. With broccoli, they are the parts that my brothers and I used to call little trees. I cut out the big green leaves from the bottom of the cauliflower, and used a knife to cut out the florets. A plate full of cauliflower came out of it, way too much to feed three people, I think. We ended up using only half of what I cut. I sliced the serrano pepper down the middle and took out the seeds. I don't know if that was right though, because I know seeds can release a lot of flavor when heated up. Robert started on grating the ginger root. It was tough because the root has such a unique shape that the. Instead of grating it, he peeled the outside with the potato peeler and minced it up with a small knife. I don't think our taste buds knew the difference, anyway.

I started on the masala, which was a spice mix of the turmeric and coriander powers. I especially love the rich golden yellow the turmeric adds. These smells brought me back to Dida's house, and to wandering through the aisles of Patel Brothers, the tiny Indian grocer by my house. It felt powerful, walking through those doors with my mom and Dida. It was something about keeping Indian culture close to my heart, to carry on the legacy of Indian cooking. I always push the cart, trailing behind Dida and mom. My eyes linger on the packages with Bengali words scribbled in bold letters. Often, a brown woman with flowing black hair is on the logo, holding a pot of the cooked meal with a prideful smile. I don’t know her.  

The masala was ready to go, the produce chopped, and oil's on the stove, heating up. Once it began to simmer, I tossed a serrano pepper in. What an error in judgment that was. The oil was hot. It was too hot. Sputtering and hissing, it was volatile. I had to wait until it calmed down before taking the pepper out. I don't know what should have happened, but this was not it. Later I asked if the smoke alarm works, and Rob said no. Comforting, kind of. I just needed to remember not to start a fire. I re-read the directions on my smartphone. I winced at the memory of being asked to swap recipes with the K-Desi folks. They don’t need to know I got these directions from the food network website.

I shook the thought away, and look over the site three times before returning to the stove top, now set to a medium-low heat. The pepper wasn't completely burnt, so I chopped it up and added it to the masala, before putting it all on the stove with a lot more caution. We let that simmer for about 10 minutes, until the colors deepened into a mustard shade of yellow. Robert added the potatoes and cauliflower to the pot. Yes, I was still afraid of the oil.

The naan was heated in the oven by now, and I grabbed the yogurt and milk from the fridge. I know how to make lassi. We like sweet drinks in our house, so this was simple. Just two cups of yogurt and 1/4 gallon of milk, with sugar to taste. Other varieties are spiced lassi, and my favorite - mango lassi, which young kids especially like because it comes in a nice orangey yellow color and is creamy to help calm down taste buds after a spicy meal. I spooned three scoops of aloo gobi into my bowl, and two triangle pieces of naan. The bright yellowy green color of the potatoes made me feel at home. Those colors would be in splatters all over Dida’s kitchen when she cooked. I used the naan to help me eat with my hands, the way Dadu likes to eat. Forks are overrated. I ate this on my own, because Robert had a meeting to head off to and Karina was watching The Foster’s on Netflix. An hour later Rob came back hungry. We reheated the aloo gobi and naan in the microwave. The naan got less firm, but the aloo gobi tasted the same. Reheated Indian food is better than none at all. Robert grabbed a fork. I went back for seconds, but this time making a sandwich with naan for the bread, aloo gobi in the middle. My younger brother does this every time we go to Dida’s.

The serrano pepper and ginger added a bit more spice. The turmeric gave it all a familiar yellow color. The lassi was thick and calming. I closed my eyes and felt like I was sitting at Dida's dining room table, stuffing my face at a Sunday night dinner with my family. Not perfect in the white-picket fence fantasy of perfection, but something else entirely.

"A Letter To My Beloved" Poem

Please take a few minutes to experience this poem by Elizabeth Acevedo. It begins at 1 minute, and talks about racialized violence and interracial love by talking about food. Specifically, with a Cuban dish called moros y cristianos (moors and christians) where white rice and black beans are cooked harmoniously in the same pot. A metaphor for hope, I think. 



When I came across this poem, I knew I had to think deeper and that this would be a good platform to work through it. The poet blends images and associations of this dish with thoughts on how racism manifests itself in America and her experience with dating a white man. 

Like we discussed in class, food can embody so much more than solely its ingredients. We made this clear with each reading, and especially when thinking through what makes a perfect meal so perfect. 

"for the first time since I learned how to cook I understand a meal can be a eulogy in mouthfuls"

At this point of the poem, the beans popped open from being on the heat for too long, and had to be scrapped, leaving them with only white rice to eat. This imagery is powerful, in that it further brings attention to how whiteness is prioritized, and how too often violence against poc are not seen as a reality to those who aren't faced with the aftermath.   

"I refuse to scrub the stove. Some things deserve to be smudged, gleamingly remembered..."

Perhaps this is her way of declaring or remembering that yes, Black Lives Matter. In the context of our class, it is important that this poem's setting is the kitchen. It is a vulnerable space. Each time you enter it, it is because you need something. You need food or something to quench your thirst. You can reclaim the space by making something for yourself, and what you choose to make says something about who you are. Even heating up something in the microwave can be a revolutionary act, if you consider how many other possibilities there are.

Later, the poet ends this piece with important images: 

It's about... how we keep dancing, how we keep cooking, how we keep playing with toy guns, playing our music loud, being 'loud to get lost and ask a stranger to help, how we keep walking into store and out of store and put put our hands up and put our hands in our pockets and put our hands over our mouth when another black body falls, and we keep on and we keep on and we keep on 

Here, she's saying that this life is meant for all people, regardless of race, to be able to live without fear... that she wants to be able to wake up to this world filled with less racism and more love. In the mean time we all have to keep moving, but not forgetting the past and what pain our struggles hold.  

 "...And we keep on sitting across this dinner table with 100 tombstones that haven't been engraved yet crumbling in our mouths. And we keep on, praying that all of this spoil won't be the fruit of tomorrow, that there is still a better meal for us to share"

This is about hope. This is all about how to move on. This is about the need to look for the bright spots, for a future to strive for if we are going to change for the better. I really appreciated this poem for how it complicated food experiences with race in America.  

My Place With Culinary Tourism

After working on my final perfect meal assignment, the idea of food in relation to identity seemed like an idea to come back to, and I found myself reading through Long's Culinary Tourism piece once again. Long's believes that food can serve as a "vivid entryway into another culture" (1). Coming from a biracial family, thinking through the cultures I have experienced and in what contexts I might be a tourist has been tough negotiations.

This reminds me when in "Stealing Buddha's Dinner", Bich visits her homeland, but feels like someone in between tourist and citizen. She isn't quite at home in America or in Vietnam. Should I ever visit Kolkata, India (where my mother was born, and where family lives), I imagine I'd feel the same way. I don't know if I'll ever feel more comfortable there than in America, although I do plan on visiting with my brothers when they are a bit older. I know a lot about America but very little about my mom's home country. Even though I know a lot about America, living in this country as someone who reads as a "racially ambiguous" woman has been uncomfortable at times. Folks sometimes project their ethnicity onto me, assuming that I then know about the foods they are comfortable with. I know mac n cheese a hell of a lot better than I know aloo gobi or any other culturally-specific food. (This brings up the way many folks see a person of color and assume they have one specific cultural experience, just because of the way they appear. We conflate race with culture a lot of the time, and it can be harmful and exclusionary)

Long notes that food can help map and understand belonging and comfort. I guess she is correct in the sense that I feel more white than Indian, and have uneasiness around my Indian side. I visited my mom's mother last week. I call her Dida, which means grandmother in Bengali, and she said "I really am Indian" after dipping my cookie into tea, like I've seen her and my mother do all my life. It was a funny moment that I definitely have put a lot of thought into. She smiled with such pride, and I felt good about it. The way of drinking tea feels comfortable and reads to be "Indian" as Dida says. Still, my process of coming into my identity is slow, and one I wish I can speed up. But it all takes time, and I need to be more respectful of the journey - it is a lot like microwave dinners versus home cooked meals, for me. The one that took more effort more often than not has a higher reward.

Mental Health in The Omnivore's Dilemma

There is something about Pollan's mental health-related language that nobody has addressed yet. He says America is experiencing a "National Eating Disorder" in the way we have become dependent on the industrial food system, despite evidence that doing so is harmful for ourselves and our environment. Later, Pollan also notes how schizophrenic our relationship to food is, at large.

Eating disorders and schizophrenia are intense mental health conditions with very real consequences. Because of this, Pollan's language is effective in bringing attention to the urgency and severity of our food crisis. However, as someone with a family history of health concerns like Schizophrenia, it comes off as a touch insensitive. Yes, it adds a lot of intrigue and edginess to his book, associating the food industry to these experiences, but to me it also downplays the lives of those who must deal with these disorders.

It seems like while Pollan acknowledges the implications of America's food industry, he does not go into how it relates to the intricacies of mental health in America. I realize digging into this information is not the goal of The Omnivore's Dilemma, but I do feel that the reader should have been given a disclaimer at some point about how he chose to describe the food industry with mental health conditions, and not something else.

Still, I appreciate the shock-value of the claim that America is dealing with a country-wide eating disorder. I just wish that while we uncover the messy politics of our food system, that we also consider the same in how America treats and values folks with mental health concerns, because that is also horrific. I guess this text just isn't the right place for this conversation.
 

Perfect Meal Draft

Some Bengali Words To Know:

Dida (De-Dah): grandmother 

Dadu (Dah-Doo): grandfather 

Ganesh (Gah-Nesh): a Hindu god, elephant head and four arms, remover of obstacles

Aloo: (Ah-Loo): potatoes

Aloo Gobi (Ah-Loo Go-Be): potatoes and cauliflower with turmeric and various spices

Naan (Non): Typical fluffy bread that many serve with many kinds of Indian food

Luchi (Loo-chee): whole wheat bread that puffs up when fried

-

Going to my mom’s childhood home was perhaps the most “Indian” thing I’ve done. Her parents, who my brothers and I call Dida and Dadu, immigrated here in 1968 from Kolkata, India. My mom was three years old, and Dida was pregnant with another child. They lived in Detroit for a while, in the student apartments for Wayne State University. Dadu went to school and eventually became a professor, teaching students about Civil Engineering, while Dida looked after the kids and the house, and worked at a boutique in Somerset Mall. 

For maybe the last forty years, they have called this funky house on Lone Pine Road their home. The house is covered with many depictions of Ganesh, the elephant-headed Hindu god. Known as the remover of obstacles, the table by the front door is entirely covered with idols in his image. A mix of South and South-East Asian art adorns many of the walls. With two creaky bamboo spiral staircases and a bathroom with floor to ceiling mirrors as the walls, this house has character. The kitchen is all an eggshell white color, with a lot of counter space and old pictures of my brothers and I on the fridge. I like to watch Dida knead dough for the Luchis. She takes the dough, all floured-up, and rolls them into spheres the size of a golf ball with circular motions, and we’d squish it into an even circle with a rolling pin. I always get flour on my forehead, somehow. From a small and flat circle, once deep-fried they’d morph into an airy pocket of bread, the size of the palm of your hand. It looks like magic, how they puff up so quickly around simmering oil. I've always thought she was fearless, for cooking with such hot oils and not being afraid of getting burned. We’d leave these family dinners and go back to our home. 

We lived only a few minutes away, but it felt like a world apart. My house’s cabinets, rather than being filled with fragrant spices from the local Indian grocer, are filled with boxes of Kraft Mac ‘n Cheese, Cocoa Pebbles, and Quick Curry Paste from the multi-cultural section of Kroger. There are times when I feel more of a craving for Velveeta cheese than I do for anything Dida can make, even her best Butter Chicken. 

For my idea of the perfect meal, my ethnicity plays a huge role. I need to let go of the illusion of authenticity, of wanting to embody the “right” way of being Indian and White. Until I do that, I don’t think perfection, in all of its misguided glory, is attainable for me. That being said, I am proud of the meal I made. A simple bowl of Aloo Gobi and Naan, with a cup of sweet Vanilla Lassi. This was the first Indian dish I've made without Dida watching over my shoulder. This assignment allowed me to confront my anxieties around my identity as someone who is biracial, but does not yet feel comfortable in solely Indian spaces or solely white spaces. Raiding an acquaintance's kitchen cabinets for turmeric, coriander, and cumin was interesting. While there is no one way to be Indian, it feels like she is still more Indian than I am, and so even while it feels comforting being in her presence, I tend to feel self-conscious around her. Right now I only know a handful of Bengali words, and most of them are foods. 

The fluorescent lights in the dairy section of Meijer flicker, as my friends and I looked for the vanilla yogurt with the most fat. "Is all yogurt low-fat, or is this a new thing?", my buddy Karina asked. I don't know. I settled for the container of Annie's organic yogurt, because it was the only one that didn't actually say it had less fat. My house believes in cooking with full fat, with loads of butter, and extra cream. "If you're going to eat, why not eat indulge?" - My mom's voice echoes in my head as I grab a half gallon of Vitamin D milk. One large russet potato, a head of cauliflower, a serrano pepper, and some Naan bread later, we were ready to roll. 

Once back, I set out all of the ingredients, and a friend and I started peeling the potato and cutting out the florets of the cauliflower. I sliced the serrano pepper down the middle and took out the seeds. I don't know if that was right though, because I know seeds can release a lot of flavor when heated up. Robert started on grating the ginger root. It was tough because the root has such a unique shape. Instead of grating it, we peeling the outside and minced it up. I don't think our taste buds will know the difference, anyway. I started on the masala, which was a mix of the turmeric and coriander powers. I especially love the rich golden yellow the turmeric adds. These smells brought me back to Dida's house, and to wandering through the aisles of Patel Brothers with her and my mom, the tiny Indian grocer by my house. It felt powerful, walking through those doors with my mom and Dida. It was something about keeping Indian culture close to my heart, to carry on the legacy of Indian cooking, because my brother's sure aren't. 

The masala was ready to go, the produce chopped, and oil's heating up. Once it began to simmer, I tossed a serrano pepper in. What an error in judgment that was. The oil was hot. It was too hot. The oil started sputtering and I had to wait until it calmed down before taking the pepper out... I don't know what should have happened, but this was not it. Robert ran into the kitchen as the hissing sound and started laughing. Later I asked if the smoke alarm works, and Rob said no. Comforting, kind of. I just needed to remember not to start a fire. I re-read the directions on my smartphone three times before returning to the stove top, now set to a medium-low heat. The pepper wasn't completely burnt, so I chopped it up and added it to the masala, before putting it all on the stove with a lot more caution. We let that simmer for about 10 minutes, until the colors deepened into a mustard shade of yellow. Robert kindly added the potatoes and cauliflower to the mix. Yes, I was still afraid of the oil. 

The naan was heated in the oven by now, and I grabbed the yogurt and milk from the fridge. I know how to make lassi. We like sweet drinks in our house, so this was simple. Just two cups of yogurt and 1/4 gallon of milk, with sugar to taste. Other varieties are spiced lassi, and my favorite - mango lassi. The meal finished at an awkward time. It was 9pm, and Robert had to work on a group project. It was okay, but I wish I could've eaten it with my friend. He got back an hour later, and we reheated the aloo gobi and naan. Still, reheated Indian food is better than none at all. I went back for seconds, but this time making a sandwich with naan for the bread, aloo gobi in the middle. I wish I had made luchis, because those are so much more fun to eat. You can pop the air out of them and roll the aloo inside, like my little brothers like to do. 

Nowhere near perfect, but still good. The serrano pepper and ginger added a bit more spice. The turmeric gave this that familiar yellow color. The lassi was refreshing and smooth. It felt like I was at Dida's dining room table, stuffing my face at a Sunday night dinner with my family. I think perfection and authenticity are overrated, anyway. I'd rather have real.  

PART 3

The only restaurant I have been in Downtown Kalamazoo is Crow's Nest, so this assignment gave me an opportunity to try something new, which I appreciate. The Union offers a lot of foods typical in Carolina, Kentucky, Texas, and some other southern states that are foreign to my Midwestern tastebuds. What drew my attention to this restaurant in particular were the Gator Balls, and other instances of alligator in their cuisine. This fascinated me, but was also pretty far out of my comfort zone.

Before coming to The Union, I had visions of the gator being tough and rubbery, and maintaining the physical traits of what makes an alligator an alligator. I seriously feared it would be like that, but in the name of this assignment I went and was happily surprised. I discovered that alligator was, in fact, delicious. And is something I'd like to eat at again. The venue was calm and casual, with live shows playing their most evenings by local talent.

While at the restaurant, I felt overwhelmed by all of the menu options, even with looking at the menu the night before. I felt pressure to enjoy this meal, but to taste dishes outside of my comfort zone. Looking back, I am proud of myself for tackling the prospect of eating Alligator, in the Gator Balls and the Dirty Southwest Burger, but I feel that I stopped pushing myself after that. I thought, what is the most "southern" food they had. Even though we problematized this idea when looking at Long's work "Culinary Tourism", the idea that I needed to eat authentically while I had the chance still ran through my mind.

What even does authenticity even mean to The Union? Not purely southern cooking, because even while the chef is from Memphis, he is influenced by Midwestern cuisine by working in Michigan. I guess it means eating classics of the restaurant, to feel what that is like rather than eating something I'm not feeling like, because that is what I thought I should have been doing. And so I asked my waitress what she thought I just *had* to have in order to have the full "Union" experience, something that without this assignment I probably would not have done. She said The Portobello Fries. My heart hurt a little bit when they came and my tastebuds did not agree, but moving through the rest of the dishes outweighed that initial taste for me. Instead of taking notes, I talked about the textures and tastes with my friends, because talking my thoughts through help me process them sometimes.

Moving forward, I am trying to be more thoughtful when considering authenticity and culinary tourism. For example, I am helping to plan an event in Winter called Afro Fiesta Desi Soul. This event is supposed to be a time of celebration and education for all folks to know a little bit more about the many cultures represented by our student body. It gets tough because it can slip into cultural tourism very easily, and what we are working on right now are ways to move away from that into a more respectful environment. Who has access to authenticity and who do not, along with the simple problem of authenticities, are vastly complex, and I am thankful that this class and this assignment in particular helped open my eyes to this.