“What’s THAT?” my co-worker exclaimed, as I was running reports and updating spreadsheets at my desk.
In my left hand a small, green plum. About the size of a golf ball. In our Lebanese dialect, it is called jenerik (it sounds like the word “generic”). My mother had bought then from the market a few days ago and vividly recalled days of yore, eating jenerik with salt.
“riz’Allah ‘ala hadaayk al-ayaam.” (Allah’s sustenance on those days, the proper Arabic pronunciation of sustenance is rizq) She says in her heavy Lebanese accent, which even after 23 years in the US, has never left her.
I look down at my hand, into a half eaten jenerik and chuckle.
“Uh, it’s a green plum.”
My chuckle is not about my mother’s memories, but my co-workers reaction. It certainly is not a new one. If anything, I should be used to it.
As a child and even into my college years, I hated bringing my own lunch. It was awkward. People would always hover over my head, look into my plate, and ask: “What’s THAT?” Eyes wide open, giving a face as if they smelled some bad fish.
When I was in elementary school I would beg my mother to buy me Lunchables. Every time we stepped into a grocery store, I made a bee-line to them. Of course, it was always to no avail – too expensive. And whenever she made dishes like kousa mahshi (stuffed zucchini) for dinner, I would whine to no end. So then kousa mahshi was replaced with spaghetti and meatballs. And kafta ma’a riz (kofta kabobs with rice) was traded for hamburgers and fries. And the foods that my ancestors sat around and spent hours making and enjoying, were lost in the journey across the sea.
Once, around that same time, my teta (a colloquial term for grandmother, like “granny”) visited us from Lebanon. She made a dish, the name of which escapes my mind, of stuffed intestines. My cousins and I all had the same reaction: “What’s THAT?” And we laughed and pointed at this strange sight. Of course, my poor teta had no idea what we were talking about and my mother and aunt explained to their mother that we were not used to aakil baladi (traditional dishes).
In college, I would yearn for the taste of home-cooked shourabbat addas wa kibbeh (lentil soup with kibbeh, a Lebanese national dish). And I had finally developed the taste buds for knafeh (a pastry made with cheese and shredded phyllo dough), a treat I never savored the sweetness of as a child.
But even then – at an age and in a place where I foolishly believed that people had an open mindedness towards “foreign culture” – I would still have someone hover over my head and ask: “What’s THAT?” So when I would quietly put away plastic containers containing kishk (a soup made out of a powder containing whey), I would remember that small child who once exclaimed in kindergarten that our family eats Thanksgiving turkey with hummus, riz, and tabbouleh.
Today I beg my mother to teach me the dishes her ancestors made and the techniques of how they made them. Like making zaitoun (olives), which in itself was a beautiful experience simply as a result of the religious, cultural, and even political implications one olive carries. Sometimes the three of us will sit in a circle and roll wara’ ‘anab (grape leaves, the proper Arabic pronunciation of leaves or paper is waraq) for hours. Or during Ramadan, we have our own makeshift assembly line for ma’amoul (a butter cookie stuffed with dates or walnuts). You would think we were in Lebanon. You would think that our ancestors sat and taught us the details of each food we ate. I always marvel at the passing of heritage.
Well, I should admit, there is one American dish I could never swallow: meatloaf. Seriously, what’s THAT?!
