THE SMELLS OF CHILDHOOD
I cook with a lot of spices. I’m not sure if it is because the smell of specific spices brings back memories of the different countries where I spent my school holidays as a child, or because I’m just accustomed to eating spicy food. Until the age of twelve, I went to school mostly in the Netherlands and the U.K. and spent my holidays in whatever country my father happened to be living at the time. Among others, there were several summers in Turkey in the late fifties and several in Iran – Persia, as my father called it – in the early sixties. For me the smells and aromas of those two countries were the most memorable ones. The smells of Turkey were familiar from the start because many of them were similar to those in Greece where I had spent some time before; there was shish kebab, borek (warm filled savory pastries), koftes (small roasted meat balls), and, of course Turkish fruit. But the smells of Iran were different; pungent, varied and mysterious. I spent quite a bit of time with the cook in the kitchen of the large, walled house where we lived because my brother and I were not allowed to leave the grounds and riding a bike in the street was absolutely unheard of. The spices were kept in small cloth bags and the cook would repeat their names to me over and over and shake her head at my ignorance of such basic knowledge. She would often give me a glass of abdug - a yoghurt drink - a small plate, a fork, and a spoon and make me try the different dishes she was preparing for the evening meal. I have forgotten most of them though there are some that I remember vividly as soon as I smell the spices: cumin, thyme, saffron, mint, sumac…
I have a big wood spice rack my father made for me on my request when I first got married. It hangs on the wall in my kitchen and houses some fifty small bottles with cork tops of a large variety of spices. I have collected the little bottles over time and most of them have no labels; you have to open them and smell the contents to know what is in them. Some smell like northern Europe, some smell like the Middle East, some smell like the Caribbean, some smell like Turkey and Iran.
Thursday, January 27, 2011
AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL WRITING: Hunting by JM
HUNTING by JM
I am against hunting even if it is for food. After all, it is not as if we couldn’t go to the supermarket and buy our meat there (but I’m a big hypocrite, as you’ll see below). Today, and for most of my life now, the thought of pointing a rifle at a deer, a hare, a pheasant, a duck, or whatever and pulling the trigger makes me cringe even though, believe it or not, I had been trained (as my father called it) to do so by the time I was twelve. At age twelve I was a sharpshooter with a light rifle, a 22. I could pick off pigeons and ducks in the air, shoot a running hare without any problem, and effortlessly kill a partridge flying erratically above. It’s not that I’m proud of it, it’s just a fact.
My father was an avid hunter. The shooting I was “trained” to do took place in northern Europe mostly in the winter time, which is hunting season. Before my brother and I were taught to shoot, we were taught to be “beaters”. That meant that we walked, or trotted, ahead of the hunters beating the brush with sticks to make the potential game take flight or start running. It was cold, wet, dirty, exhausting, and sometimes painful work. Much of the brush was thorny and sharp and I usually felt I was no better than the six or eight hunting dogs - German Pointers – that went and fetched the killed game. Even though my brother, cousins, and sons of my father’s friends seemed to enjoy being beaters, I hated it but never questioned it nor refused to do it; that just wasn’t an option. Once we were old enough to handle a light rifle, my father taught us the rules of gun safety and how to shoot. To my own great surprise, and that of my brother, my father, and the other hunters, I learned faster and better than any of the other kids – almost all boys - and was soon allowed to shoot small animals such as pigeons, ducks, rabbits, and hare. However, little by little I began to realize that I did not like hunting and that shooting an animal for fun was no fun for me. I told my father that I did not want to hunt anymore and that I could not understand why he and his friends considered hunting a sport. I’ll never forget the lecture this produced and even though I disagree with the actual shooting of the animals, the lecture had its merits and is a reminder of my father and his love of hunting. It goes something like this: “True hunters love to eat the game that they kill. When hunting season comes along, there is nothing better than shooting a hare, a duck, or a pheasant, cleaning it perfectly, having it prepared by your mother in the traditional way, going down to the cellar to select a fine bottle of wine, and enjoying the taste of fresh game with family and friends. Marvelous! Game contains the flavor of the fields and the woods; it is a gift from Mother Earth and we have the right to enjoy it. But hunting must be done correctly; it’s just like the berries you kids pick in the woods; you take the berries but you leave the bush. And what is more; meat has always been good for humans. Humans are carnivores too, why else would we have teeth that are incisors?”
In spite of the merits of the lecture, I refused to eat game for many, many years. As a teenager, I joined demonstrations against the use of furs, against bullfighting, and other such noble causes both in Europe and in Latin America. Today, I am still against hunting for “sport” but am hypocritically eating game again. I go to Europe twice a year to visit my 95 year old mother and my brother and his family and we often eat game, in very good restaurants or masterfully prepared by my brother at his home. Last Christmas we had duck, rabbit, deer, and boar and we all thoroughly enjoyed it, including my husband who is incapable of killing as much as a roach preferring to catch it and let it loose in the garden.
Eating game means there has to be hunting, without hunting there will be no game on the table. This is a truth that not everyone can understand. Of course, they do understand and they do eat game, but sometimes it is not politically correct to understand something. In Europe, the demand for game and free range animals is growing rapidly; more and more consumers prefer a piece of organic meat direct from the field to a piece of meat from a production line. The different meat crises that have occurred over the last few years have only increased this trend. Eating game also fits perfectly into today’s demand for organic food which is easily digested. We may not think about food safety all the time but we are concerned about it and the main supermarkets in northern Europe understand that: they carry a wide range of organic products which include game; that’s just good business.
Game is a top free range, organic product. It has had plenty of movement and has found and eaten its own food; whatever was not good was not eaten, and all food was selected by the animal itself. Because the animal has run around free in nature, the meat has received the proper blood supply which gives it its unique taste. This taste also depends on the food the particular animal has eaten. A rabbit that lives in the dunes of Holland and Germany tastes different from a rabbit that lives in the woods, a pheasant that has fed on berries tastes different (and is darker in color) from one that has found its food in the beet fields. Game produces its own taste by means of the particular diet which comes from nature and which makes it both authentic and unique. These particular flavors are in high demand, both at restaurants and at home.
I have no idea if hunters in Europe were a big deal before, but they certainly are now. They come home with freshly killed game. What more could you want? They prepare it themselves or ask the neighborhood butcher to do it for them. Of course, my father would have cut off his arm before asking a butcher to prepare his game. In our family, game was prepared with love and dedication and savored with the appropriate side dishes, the perfect wine, extended family, and lots of friends. To my father, game deserved not only respect but also required a number of precise steps in its preparation before any plates appeared. As I said before, I now eat game again but can’t help feeling an ever so slight twinge of guilt every time I do.
I am against hunting even if it is for food. After all, it is not as if we couldn’t go to the supermarket and buy our meat there (but I’m a big hypocrite, as you’ll see below). Today, and for most of my life now, the thought of pointing a rifle at a deer, a hare, a pheasant, a duck, or whatever and pulling the trigger makes me cringe even though, believe it or not, I had been trained (as my father called it) to do so by the time I was twelve. At age twelve I was a sharpshooter with a light rifle, a 22. I could pick off pigeons and ducks in the air, shoot a running hare without any problem, and effortlessly kill a partridge flying erratically above. It’s not that I’m proud of it, it’s just a fact.
My father was an avid hunter. The shooting I was “trained” to do took place in northern Europe mostly in the winter time, which is hunting season. Before my brother and I were taught to shoot, we were taught to be “beaters”. That meant that we walked, or trotted, ahead of the hunters beating the brush with sticks to make the potential game take flight or start running. It was cold, wet, dirty, exhausting, and sometimes painful work. Much of the brush was thorny and sharp and I usually felt I was no better than the six or eight hunting dogs - German Pointers – that went and fetched the killed game. Even though my brother, cousins, and sons of my father’s friends seemed to enjoy being beaters, I hated it but never questioned it nor refused to do it; that just wasn’t an option. Once we were old enough to handle a light rifle, my father taught us the rules of gun safety and how to shoot. To my own great surprise, and that of my brother, my father, and the other hunters, I learned faster and better than any of the other kids – almost all boys - and was soon allowed to shoot small animals such as pigeons, ducks, rabbits, and hare. However, little by little I began to realize that I did not like hunting and that shooting an animal for fun was no fun for me. I told my father that I did not want to hunt anymore and that I could not understand why he and his friends considered hunting a sport. I’ll never forget the lecture this produced and even though I disagree with the actual shooting of the animals, the lecture had its merits and is a reminder of my father and his love of hunting. It goes something like this: “True hunters love to eat the game that they kill. When hunting season comes along, there is nothing better than shooting a hare, a duck, or a pheasant, cleaning it perfectly, having it prepared by your mother in the traditional way, going down to the cellar to select a fine bottle of wine, and enjoying the taste of fresh game with family and friends. Marvelous! Game contains the flavor of the fields and the woods; it is a gift from Mother Earth and we have the right to enjoy it. But hunting must be done correctly; it’s just like the berries you kids pick in the woods; you take the berries but you leave the bush. And what is more; meat has always been good for humans. Humans are carnivores too, why else would we have teeth that are incisors?”
In spite of the merits of the lecture, I refused to eat game for many, many years. As a teenager, I joined demonstrations against the use of furs, against bullfighting, and other such noble causes both in Europe and in Latin America. Today, I am still against hunting for “sport” but am hypocritically eating game again. I go to Europe twice a year to visit my 95 year old mother and my brother and his family and we often eat game, in very good restaurants or masterfully prepared by my brother at his home. Last Christmas we had duck, rabbit, deer, and boar and we all thoroughly enjoyed it, including my husband who is incapable of killing as much as a roach preferring to catch it and let it loose in the garden.
Eating game means there has to be hunting, without hunting there will be no game on the table. This is a truth that not everyone can understand. Of course, they do understand and they do eat game, but sometimes it is not politically correct to understand something. In Europe, the demand for game and free range animals is growing rapidly; more and more consumers prefer a piece of organic meat direct from the field to a piece of meat from a production line. The different meat crises that have occurred over the last few years have only increased this trend. Eating game also fits perfectly into today’s demand for organic food which is easily digested. We may not think about food safety all the time but we are concerned about it and the main supermarkets in northern Europe understand that: they carry a wide range of organic products which include game; that’s just good business.
Game is a top free range, organic product. It has had plenty of movement and has found and eaten its own food; whatever was not good was not eaten, and all food was selected by the animal itself. Because the animal has run around free in nature, the meat has received the proper blood supply which gives it its unique taste. This taste also depends on the food the particular animal has eaten. A rabbit that lives in the dunes of Holland and Germany tastes different from a rabbit that lives in the woods, a pheasant that has fed on berries tastes different (and is darker in color) from one that has found its food in the beet fields. Game produces its own taste by means of the particular diet which comes from nature and which makes it both authentic and unique. These particular flavors are in high demand, both at restaurants and at home.
I have no idea if hunters in Europe were a big deal before, but they certainly are now. They come home with freshly killed game. What more could you want? They prepare it themselves or ask the neighborhood butcher to do it for them. Of course, my father would have cut off his arm before asking a butcher to prepare his game. In our family, game was prepared with love and dedication and savored with the appropriate side dishes, the perfect wine, extended family, and lots of friends. To my father, game deserved not only respect but also required a number of precise steps in its preparation before any plates appeared. As I said before, I now eat game again but can’t help feeling an ever so slight twinge of guilt every time I do.
AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL WRITING: Bergeijk, the Netherlands by JM
This is another example of autobiographical writing (Remembering Events) written by JM.
Bergeijk, the Netherlands, Early Nineteen Forties.
It was over almost before it started. Germany managed to take a major part of Europe by means of the Blitzkrieg and, of course, Holland was a rich country and that was what Hitler was after. He also knew that the Dutch population wouldn’t put up too much resistance because their ties with Germany had always been close. So, in a matter of a few days, the Dutch resistance was no more, in some measure because the new Waterline, a defense line constructed to stop invasions, was no match for the bombers, but also because the Dutch army lacked the latest gadgets in warfare. The last war they were involved in had been just over a hundred years earlier and, exacerbating the sorry state of the army, there had been widespread pacifism during the two previous decades.
In order to get as much gain as possible out of Holland, Hitler decided that the Dutch population should be treated fairly well: everything would be as before but the Nazis would be in power. The Queen and her ministers had gone to England at the beginning of the war for safety reasons and so, for quite some time, that was how things were; everyone went about their business and for many people the changes in the power structure were hardly noticeable. This state of affairs continued until the Germans began to discriminate against the Jews and the deportations and concentration camps became common knowledge. The Dutch protested vehemently and started to strike. This of course was not tolerated by the Germans and resulted in swift and cruel punishment; it quickly became clear not only that they had absolute power but also that their intentions were anything but charitable. Things took a quick turn for the worse.
When the allies started moving up from the south and Holland had been partly liberated, the British government called for a rail strike. As a reaction to the strike, the Germans hermetically closed the part of the country that had not been liberated yet. The supply of food to the cities was cut off and a terrible hunger winter ensued during which many citizens lost their lives.
My grandparents, my mother, and her six brothers and sisters were living in Bergeijk in the south of Holland very close to the Belgian border. My grandfather had a considerable amount of inherited land which he rented out to farmers as well as a large house on a large estate with orchards, chicken coops and the like in the town of Bergeijk where the family lived - they were quite self-sufficient and my grandmother ruled the spread with an iron hand. My grandfather never worked a day in his life instead spending his time checking on his land tenants and collecting rents in his horse drawn carriage and playing the organ in the church. One day, at around four o’clock in the afternoon, they heard the front door being kicked and when they did not immediately open the door, shots rang out. My grandfather went to the door with a feeling of dread. There stood a small group of German officers, obviously drunk. “We had to be out of the house within an hour; otherwise, we would be shot,” my mother says as she tells me the story. They were allowed to go upstairs to collect some clothing and personal small items but everything else was to be left in the house; the officers had decided to take possession of the house and make it their temporary headquarters. My mother ran to the garden to open the rabbit and chicken coops so that the animals would not be killed by the Germans. With tears in their eyes, the family walked out of their house and down the street, not without first seeing how the Germans, young, power-hungry boys, stormed in and started ransacking the cabinets and armoires pulling out whatever caught their fancy, laughing at the stricken-looking family members. My mother and her family went to stay with neighbors.
When the war was over and the family returned to the house, the place was a shambles. The grand piano, my grandfather’s pride and joy, had been completely destroyed and his sheet music had been burned in the fire place. All the antique paintings were gone and so were the coffee and tea sets, my grandmother’s prized silver samovars, all the rest of the silverware, and all the antique furniture. The feather mattresses had been slashed – the Germans must have been looking for cash – and all my grandmother’s inherited cookware had also been taken. But they were the lucky ones; many of their friends and acquaintances had not fared as well, some had died from starvation, others had been shot because they had tried to resist, and many others had no house to return to.
Today, my mother is ninety-five years old. Two of her brothers and one of her sisters are still alive, all over ninety years old. Some of their short-term memory may be failing, but they all remember vividly what happened during those days of the war and there is not much variation in the story they tell about the loss of their house and their possessions. My parents lived in the United States for some years after my father retired and in that country my mother was often mistaken for a German because of her Dutch accent. It really annoyed her.
Bergeijk, the Netherlands, Early Nineteen Forties.
It was over almost before it started. Germany managed to take a major part of Europe by means of the Blitzkrieg and, of course, Holland was a rich country and that was what Hitler was after. He also knew that the Dutch population wouldn’t put up too much resistance because their ties with Germany had always been close. So, in a matter of a few days, the Dutch resistance was no more, in some measure because the new Waterline, a defense line constructed to stop invasions, was no match for the bombers, but also because the Dutch army lacked the latest gadgets in warfare. The last war they were involved in had been just over a hundred years earlier and, exacerbating the sorry state of the army, there had been widespread pacifism during the two previous decades.
In order to get as much gain as possible out of Holland, Hitler decided that the Dutch population should be treated fairly well: everything would be as before but the Nazis would be in power. The Queen and her ministers had gone to England at the beginning of the war for safety reasons and so, for quite some time, that was how things were; everyone went about their business and for many people the changes in the power structure were hardly noticeable. This state of affairs continued until the Germans began to discriminate against the Jews and the deportations and concentration camps became common knowledge. The Dutch protested vehemently and started to strike. This of course was not tolerated by the Germans and resulted in swift and cruel punishment; it quickly became clear not only that they had absolute power but also that their intentions were anything but charitable. Things took a quick turn for the worse.
When the allies started moving up from the south and Holland had been partly liberated, the British government called for a rail strike. As a reaction to the strike, the Germans hermetically closed the part of the country that had not been liberated yet. The supply of food to the cities was cut off and a terrible hunger winter ensued during which many citizens lost their lives.
My grandparents, my mother, and her six brothers and sisters were living in Bergeijk in the south of Holland very close to the Belgian border. My grandfather had a considerable amount of inherited land which he rented out to farmers as well as a large house on a large estate with orchards, chicken coops and the like in the town of Bergeijk where the family lived - they were quite self-sufficient and my grandmother ruled the spread with an iron hand. My grandfather never worked a day in his life instead spending his time checking on his land tenants and collecting rents in his horse drawn carriage and playing the organ in the church. One day, at around four o’clock in the afternoon, they heard the front door being kicked and when they did not immediately open the door, shots rang out. My grandfather went to the door with a feeling of dread. There stood a small group of German officers, obviously drunk. “We had to be out of the house within an hour; otherwise, we would be shot,” my mother says as she tells me the story. They were allowed to go upstairs to collect some clothing and personal small items but everything else was to be left in the house; the officers had decided to take possession of the house and make it their temporary headquarters. My mother ran to the garden to open the rabbit and chicken coops so that the animals would not be killed by the Germans. With tears in their eyes, the family walked out of their house and down the street, not without first seeing how the Germans, young, power-hungry boys, stormed in and started ransacking the cabinets and armoires pulling out whatever caught their fancy, laughing at the stricken-looking family members. My mother and her family went to stay with neighbors.
When the war was over and the family returned to the house, the place was a shambles. The grand piano, my grandfather’s pride and joy, had been completely destroyed and his sheet music had been burned in the fire place. All the antique paintings were gone and so were the coffee and tea sets, my grandmother’s prized silver samovars, all the rest of the silverware, and all the antique furniture. The feather mattresses had been slashed – the Germans must have been looking for cash – and all my grandmother’s inherited cookware had also been taken. But they were the lucky ones; many of their friends and acquaintances had not fared as well, some had died from starvation, others had been shot because they had tried to resist, and many others had no house to return to.
Today, my mother is ninety-five years old. Two of her brothers and one of her sisters are still alive, all over ninety years old. Some of their short-term memory may be failing, but they all remember vividly what happened during those days of the war and there is not much variation in the story they tell about the loss of their house and their possessions. My parents lived in the United States for some years after my father retired and in that country my mother was often mistaken for a German because of her Dutch accent. It really annoyed her.
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