18 Folds

She is leaning across the kitchen table, spoon in one hand, the other cupped beneath to catch any drips. Small dumplings swimming in a spice-laced sauce. The steam floats upward in curls. Comfort food is all about perspective. Her crepe-like hands, soft and spotted, shake slightly. I have time to think, “these will be my hands, too.” 30 years from now I will have my mother’s hands.

I say, “Mom, I’m in a bit of a hurry. I have to go soon.”

Just then, I could hear the gentle patter of rain starting outside. The rich sauce pooled, threatening to spill over the edge of the spoon. For all that, the smell has me caught halfway in a memory I can’t quite recapture. Something earthy, like the spices of toasted cumin and coriander, and almost an afterthought of sweetness. Cinnamon? Anise? The smells carry that half-memory like a phantom, trapped in purgatory, a story that is struggling to bubble to the surface. My brow furrows as I try to capture it. As my mind drifts like this, she leans even closer and says, “This is EXACTLY how your grandmother used to make it.” Then, in a guilty whisper, “Well, with just a little change.”

A separate pot of porridge is simmering on the stove behind her. I can spy the reused ketchup bottles on the counter with my mother’s own concoctions swimming mysteriously inside. She has jerry-rigged old tops from other condiments to fit over the rims, the telltale sign of either a madwoman or genius of liquid virtuoso. The leftover turkey carcass, bones and ham hock exhale traces of smokey comfort familiar to only a sub-set of Americans. The kind with blood and roots in other lands yet melded with Betty Crocker quick tips of 1960’s Americana.

Back at the kitchen table, I took the offered spoon into my mouth and, in an instant, felt I was back in time, eating my grandmother’s dish. I never spoke my grandmother’s language. My memories of her cooking were purely sensual. The softness of rolled wheat dough, the swoosh and pounding of mustard greens being prepared for fermentation, the warm smells of roasted peanuts and stewed lamb, the eggs sitting in buckets of salt brine in the bathtub, the kindness in her eyes. My eyelids droop now the way my grandmother’s did.

“Place the spices in the hot pan to toast and make sure you always stir it clockwise,” my mother would say back in the days when we cooked together.

“Why clockwise?” I asked once. Mom’s eyes sparkled and she laughed as she admitted, “I don’t know. Probably for good luck. Don’t jinx it.” Then she added for good measure, “And never make your dumplings with less than 18 folds. That’s the sign of a bad dumpling.”

Momo dumpling making is like a folk tune. To learn the nuances, you have to be in the room, fully invested, and willing to endure endless repetition. Often it is the tedious task of young children who would rather be playing than helping mothers with meal preparation. Still, there is a tactile pleasure in rolling out soft dough into small circles, placing a spoonful of filling in the center, and gathering the sides up to the top, gently folding along the way to make tiny, pleated purses. The number of pleated folds is what demonstrates your skill.

The rumble of thunder and car tires on wet asphalt snaps me back into the present. I now have a bowl in front of me. I take another bite and within one swallow, my mother’s interpretations of that same dish shine through. Her addition of more chile- she always liked it spicy- and the way she roasted the tomato over the coals to blister the skin, leaving traces of depth in char and smoke. A leftover remnant of a cooking style replaced with machinery and modern appliances.

Grandma grew up in a small village in Nepal. The water pipes to town hadn’t been put in yet and so her brothers would walk the long path to fill water in large jugs before making the arduous journey back home. She would wake and fry crispy rings of Sel Roti, a puree of fermented dal, sugar, cardamom, and mashed banana. Fishing the golden fritters from hot oil with a thin metal wire, she’d place them in cloth wrapping for the boys to take with them on their walk. Then, she’d set to her chores of tending to the animals, spinning butter, and making Momo Dumplings with her mother. Bubbling mudpots of curry simmered over wood coals outside.

That she eventually ended up in a Texas suburb did nothing to dull the echoes of her original mountain home. In fact, when I was a child visiting my grandmother in Texas, my chore was to pick the dark spots and pebbles from the daal. This was nothing like the chores of my schoolfriends. Carefully, I’d pour the picked through chips of bean back into the bowl and soak them with water overnight. I never thought of the food I was making. I never thought of my grandmother or my mother, except to curse them for these dreaded tasks. With the language barrier, my grandmother would simply slap my hands or call to me in strange barks to watch what she was doing. Mom would mash the potato, and grandma would pour in hot ghee scented with mustard seed, cumin, and coriander. The fermented greens would be chopped and folded in. They would speak as they worked and I would listen to the sounds, like birdsong.

As I sit at my mother’s table this night so many years later, I swim in this place between nostalgia and future. Nobody describes the present tense as it truly is. A rest stop between the past and future. A bathroom break between what has been and what will become. And someplace in that pause, my mother is feeding me and telling me a story. Have I slowed down enough to hear it?

I took another bite and the rain came down harder outside. The delicate dumplings read like a tale of family history. The stories nobody would ask about. The people remembered by their seasonings, not their words.