Life and Food
Photo by Zen Chung
Mom packed her recipes into our air shipment to Pakistan after learning that the food would be radically different from what she was used to in America. I remember those stained, well-worn index cards for staples like mayonnaise, yogurt, and chocolate sauce. Mom loved root beer, so she found a recipe that she claimed rivaled A&W’s. For ice cream, she hunted down an innovative refrigerator version. Mom was determined to keep some of the comforts of home and was ready for anything.
In Pakistan, our lives changed overnight. Suddenly, we had a cook and a gardener living in the apartment attached to our bungalow, just like everyone else at Tarbela. Mohammed, our cook, and Sadik, the gardener, became fixtures in our daily lives. I enjoyed having someone else make my bed, but Mom quickly put a stop to it, insisting I’d never learn responsibility. What bothered her most was their constant presence in her home. She’d grumble, “I hate that I can’t walk around my own house in my underwear if I wanted to!”
Mohammed was used to cooking British-style meals, like runny scrambled eggs that horrified me. Patiently, Mom taught him her recipes and how to cook for my brother and me. As a result, everything was made from scratch, a shock after a childhood of processed foods. Even the fried chicken was fresh, slaughtered outside the back door. And the homemade peanut butter cookies he perfected were always waiting for me after school.
Before we lived in Pakistan, Mom fed me raw hamburger. She’d slap patties between her palms, then pinch off a bit for me, calling it Steak Tartar, a French delicacy, she claimed. I hadn’t connected cows with ground beef yet, so to me, raw meat was delicious. However, in Pakistan, ground beef came from water buffalo, and Mom didn’t trust it. Fresh food preparation was taken very seriously among expatriates to avoid illness. All vegetables and fruit had to be washed in pink disinfectant to kill bacteria, and water had to be boiled before use to avoid parasites. An abundance of caution and discipline kept us safe.
Despite the dietary changes, we adapted. Breakfast became cinnamon-sugar toast with fresh-squeezed blood orange juice. Lunch was natural peanut butter and apple jelly on commissary bread, homemade applesauce, an oatmeal cookie, and orange Fanta. At dinner, only two places were set for my brother and me at the sprawling table. Mohammed served water buffalo patties with oven-baked potato wedges, steamed peas, and powdered milk, disguised with chocolate sauce.
After dinner, when the kitchen was spotless, Mohammed retreated to his quarters to cook curry and rice for himself and Sadik. I liked the smell. My brother and I retreated to our air-conditioned rooms to read, with no TV to watch and little family interaction. Dad got home late, and then Mom took over the kitchen, using her recipes to cook for just the two of them, like old times. They retreated to their air-conditioned suite to eat dinner at their picnic table, talking about their day and listening to classical music, as if the outside world didn’t exist.
When I left for boarding school in Murree, the servants had less to do. Mom used the opportunity to reclaim her household and privacy, locking them out except for cleaning and ironing, which she always hated. She became known as the rogue American memsahib in whispers. At boarding school, our meals were fresh and sometimes strange, but I survived. Mom kept me supplied with jars of peanut butter and calcium pills just in case. Looking back, it’s no wonder the kids were skinny.
When my girls were young, I wasn’t much of a cook, and it showed. Managing a business, a house, a husband, and two kids under five often felt downright apocalyptic at times. Convenience was my number one objective. I gravitated toward processed and fast food, not because the girls were picky eaters, but because I needed to for my sanity. Now, with just David and me in our cozy empty nest, we dine as my parents once did, lost in our own little world. It’s funny how life and food come full circle.
