Family traditions and homelessness

Imagine these three women:  A young mother who is an aspiring author, a young mother who is homeless and a Persian lady who is a recent immigrant to California.

The author is visibly troubled by the sight of the young mother sitting on a bench in the promenade next to her baby carriage for over two hours.  She approaches the mother on the bench with an offer to help.  The young mother has no job and no place to go.  So the author arranges for her to stay one night in a motel.  This small episode brings the author to write her next novel on shelters.  There are plenty of homeless shelters  in Los Angeles.

Laura Nicole Diamond:

Shelter Us book cover:

A Santa Monica shelter for homeless women-Ocean Park Community Center:

I attended the Author Talk at my local library and that is where I met the Persian lady.
(I prefer the term Persian and not Iranian which was invented by the British in the past Century.)  The Persian lady seems just as gentle and caring as the young author.  She heard us talk about different shelters across the city and she was incredulous: “Why do people have to be homeless?  How come they have nowhere to go?  Whatever happened to the parents, there must have been grandparents, aunts or uncles?  What kind of society is it when parents tell their kids: You are eighteen and you are out?” 

My extended family all came from Mashhad in the North Est part of Persia.  I understood what the Persian lady was talking about.  No one is left homeless.  The mentally ill, the physically challenged all find a home with the extended family.  They are rarely put away in any sort of institution.  The bright and able take care of the weak and feeble.  But the other side of this scenario is that sometimes young people feel trapped.  They have to follow the family structure and “orders”.  Some dominant mothers will insist on picking spouses for their children, and after the wedding there are the orders: You need to have a kid.  And it is time for another one.  Freedom and imagination can hardly flourish.  So here in the area family structure and tradition there is a fine balance.
A typical table in a Persian home: Always hot water and tea in a samovar, a bowl of fruits, nuts and cakes.  Welcoming everyone with warm hospitality:

The idea of extended family is very well established in other societies.  I have read this from one of my favorite authors, Isabel Allende who was a refugee from Chile:

http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2013/sep/13/isabel-allende-my-family-values

“I have been a foreigner all my life, first as a daughter of diplomats, then as a political refugee and now as an immigrant in the US. I have had to leave everything behind and start anew several times, and I have lost most of my extended family. Here in California, I have tried to recreate a sense of extended family with a few chosen loyal friends. I call them "my tribe". It works better than a real family because we are together by choice not obligation. My grandchildren have grown up in this little tribe and I don't think they are aware that we are not even blood-related.”

I feel strongly that churches, synagogues, mosques and monasteries by and large served their communities by taking in widows and orphans.  The universal sermon is to be kind to the poor and needy.

If we want to live in a society with all these freedoms to pursue happiness and get education and marry our heart’s desire, then I believe we should all work on a policy to prevent homelessness.  

Culinary East meets West

The main news item this past week was the 70th anniversary of the dropping the atom bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan.  There were memorials, apologies, and all signs of soul searching.  Were we right to do this?  Was it worth the life of another million soldiers?  Where do we go from here?  How do we stop Iran from building an atom bomb?

There are no simple solutions for any of these questions.  Instead of dealing with these questions I will tell you my life stories of food!  The stories of cooking and eating in my life are one example of how East meets West on this earth.  These are stories of people coming together and celebrating their differences.
We all need nutrition and anyone can read about the agricultural revolution .  How humans discovered cooking and found that cooked foods are easier to digest.  Different cooking traditions evolved around the world depending on climate and local culture.
I grew up in Israel with the traditions of the Jews of Mashad!  The basic food is rice with many variations served with a number of colorful flavorful sauces.  Every Friday night each family has Nochodav!  A soup with a variety of meat such as soup bones, chicken, meat balls and beef.  The base of the soup is white bean and crushed chick peas. These vegetables were added gradually: onion, cabbage, kohlrabi, and greens: parsley, cilantro and dill.  Every young girl had to be taught how to wash all these greens and chop them for the soup before she could be eligible for marriage.  The current flavorful sauce that is spreading around the world is a similar sauce called chorme sabzi: green stew.

Chorme sabzi served with rice and saffron rice:

Moving to California we have been celebrating holidays with my longtime friend who grew up with Ashkenazi cooking.  For the Passover Seder we had these “must haves:” Gefilte fish, kneidalach soup.  Many people were surprised to hear that I never had any of these foods growing up.  Watching my friend cook I learned all these minute details.  For the unmatched gefilte fish you show up at the fish market at 6 am and pick the best white fish or pike.  The merchant grinds it for you and sends you home with all the bones.  There are various traditions for spicing the ground fish, more onions, sometimes sugar. sometime fresh greens.  Children grow up loving this dish.  Even my own sons enjoy it when it comes in a jar.  For me, the fried fish steaks that my mother used to make still taste best.  The fish cakes are served with horse radish, another European dish.  Grind the fresh horseradish and add ground beats.  This is divine!

Gefilte fish with horseradish:

Kneidalach soup is served in any Deli along with cold cuts: roast beef, pastrami, turkey.  Rye bread is from the west.  The East offers pita bread, humus, eggplant salad. 

Matza ball soup: 

I took a three day trip to Paris with my mother and sister.  We each came from another direction and our taxi driver took us to the district offering all culinary traditions.  It was very appropriate for the occasion.  European style desserts downstairs.  Baklava and gas upstairs, served on round metal table tops from Morocco.

Gas: Candy from Iran:

Flat fried dough, dessert from Iran:

These stories of east and west food traditions make me believe that humans can get together and cooperate on any level.