Dirty Spinach

Most of us like to tell stories from our past. Amusing anecdotes or life changing events are popular. But my mother loved to share her humiliating and shameful experiences of trying to cook when she was first married. She would describe her young self as someone completely disconnected to her present self. “What a dummy!!” she would crow, and laugh in mock disbelief.

Mom grew up in a repressive and bleak home. She was the fifth in a family of seven children, five girls and two boys. Another daughter was a bit redundant on a hard scrabble farm during the depression, and she felt it. Mom received little encouragement in any direction, and surprising to me, was never taught to cook by her mother. Perhaps there were some lessons, and a few starchy and plain dishes from her past occasionally appeared on our table, but there was never a joyful connection to cooking from her early life.

When mom left the farm and followed her older sister to LA, she worked as a switchboard operator and other low paying jobs. She lived in rooming houses, met interesting people, bleached and permed her hair, and probably survived on coffee, cigarettes, and a sandwich or two.

My parents met when they were both students at University of Berkeley, California. Dad’s mother was a gentlewoman, from good American stock. She was petite and elegant, and had faultless manners. Her husband, Dad’s father, was a general in the American Airforce. I am sure she fit the role of wife of an esteemed military leader admirably.

My mother was tall and dark, with strong features and strong opinions. Perhaps she wasn’t what my grandmother had hoped for in a mate for her eldest son, but Grandma was a kind person, and as far as I know, she accepted Mom, and they had a warm relationship. But, of course, Mom wanted to make a good impression with her mother-in-law.

So, my mother muddled along, and as the family grew, she prided herself on stretching the dollar. One of her stories relates her bragging to friends about the soup she made from lamb’s neck. Her friend Glenna replied “Oh Virginia, there you go, turning necessity into a virtue”.

Cooking for a family of five, while attending graduate school was not fun for our mother. The meals were not inspired, nor made with love. Overdone roast beef and watery spaghetti come to mind. Every meal was, however, made from scratch. Processed and convenience foods never made an appearance at our house, except the occasional can of Campbell’s Soup. At every evening meal there were fresh vegetables, or a salad. I commend my mother for instilling the habit of nutritional eating to her kids, we all three still have reasonably healthy eating habits.

As Mom aged, and after she retired, cooking became an important part of her life, and her creativity found a portal. She often told me joyfully, “I’m like a European housewife, I shop for fresh food everyday!” Shopping at Fiesta, the wonderful Italian grocery store near her home in Toronto, had became an almost daily pleasure. There was an ongoing list on a pad on the kitchen table, when there were more than three or four items, off she went!

The regular staff at the bakery and cheese counters knew her, and treated her kindly, even as she complained if they were out of her favourite feta. This was also a form of exercise, as walking became more difficult, leaning on the shopping cart made it easy to get around without showing her weakness.

As Mom aged, I visited often. I tried to make her life easier, she was tired, and was growing weak. She was also incredibly proud, and hated change. I removed the many small throw rugs she had around the house. I explained that they were tripping hazards. Of course, an hour later they were back. I made some meals and sauces and froze them for her to use when I wasn’t there, if she didn’t feel like cooking. On my next visit, they were still there. I realized that she had probably never thawed, and eaten, a frozen meal, and wouldn’t start now.

She cooked a lot of pasta with vegetables, and a lot of spinach. To save her time and work, I bought her a bag of cleaned spinach leaves. She let me cook them without complaint. On the next visit, we went to fiesta where she bought a beautiful big bunch of dirty spinach. At home, she stood at the sink, one leg bent at the knee and hand picked every leaf off the whole bunch. Then the leaves were submerged in cold water, swished around, drained in a colander, and washed and drained again. The spinach was then quickly wilted with some garlic, butter, olive oil, a generous pinch of salt, and served as a side or mixed in to a pasta dish. It was labour intensive, and she seemed to focus on the process, and get some pleasure from every stage of it. I also immerse myself in the many steps needed to create a finished and edible product. It is almost meditative, I like to work slowly, enjoy the process, and involve all of the senses.

Although Mom grew up feeling unloved by her mother, and an ugly duckling, she had some nostalgic stories of her early life on the farm, involving her father, who had a soft spot for her. She recalled her and her sister holding the cows tails during milking so that they couldn’t smack her dad in the face, and herding the livestock from the meadows back to the barn on warm summer evenings. I think her pleasure of buying, cooking and eating the fresh, local bounty of southern Ontario, carrots smelling of dirt, the ripest beefsteak tomatoes, seemingly still warm from the sun, perhaps twigged memories of a life connected to the soil and the bountiful earth.