Broccoli Rising and Finding the Mother Tree
Mother’s Day, celebrating the matriarchs in our lives, should be joyful, but it can be hard. Some of us don’t have our mothers anymore. Some mothers and children are estranged. The rest of us are just strange. But we’re all family. Family are like tree roots. They hold us up.
My mother loved a party. Cooking, not so much. Later in life, she collected Ina Garten cookbooks, which she may or may not have used. After she and my father died and I was cleaning out their house, I was surprised to find a recipe box, vintage ‘60s aqua, to match her nesting mixing bowls.
Also vintage, the recipes in the box, some dutifully clipped from ‘60s-era newspapers or white women’s magazines (Gelatin mold salads? Really?), others written out by hand. Most fell into the aspirational camp, recipes she’d seen and thought to make sometime or other, but didn’t.
A few, like this one, were heirloom recipes given to her by. . . well, I don’t know who. That info and history has vanished along with the actual hamentashen recipe.
Your family’s cooking traditions may be vanishing too. Save them while you can.
No one needs more gelatin mold salads, but recipes, especially heirloom family recipes, are a way we communicate without language. They tell us about our identity, our culture, our past, the things we value. Perhaps that’s why I’ve kept my mother’s box of recipes I have no intention of cooking ever. They’re a way I can still hold on to her.
Trees communicate without language, too. In her book Finding the Mother Tree, forest ecologist Suzanne Simard, just named one of Time’s 100 Most Influential People, shows how trees communicate silently, through their roots and the nutrients in the fungal-rich soil. Maybe trees can be blasé about it, but to me, trees communicating is a miracle happening right beneath our feet.
Forest systems, like families, have matriarchs. Simard calls them Mother Trees. They carry within them the knowledge of past generations, bestowing it to younger trees, ensuring they, too, will have the means to endure, evolve, and thrive. Not that we humans make it easy.
We’ve challenged our forest systems by clearing trees for roads, housing, and other urban development, by climate change, and by loss of biodiversity. It all impacts how our forests live, and how we live too. Planting new saplings to make up for rampant deforestation may be heartfelt, but a hundred newly-planted saplings can’t equal the wisdom in one Mother Tree any more than what you knew at 10 doesn’t touch what you know now.
Trees are trying to tell us how to survive and evolve too. We need to listen. We need to listen to trees where they are. Outside. A hundred and fifty studies confirm the thing you know and feel in your heart — nature can heal us, lowering cortisol levels, reducing stress, lifting our spirits, helping us focus. It’s our job to return the favor and heal nature.
My wild space is populated by leggy mangroves, rocky pinelands, and sawgrass prairie, not the tall Douglas fir or toothy-leafed alder of Simand’s British Columbia. Doesn’t matter. Mother Trees exist everywhere and they love us equally. They don’t play favorites. Even if you’re an urban creature like me, there’s always ways to connect with nature, from a dot of city green space to a a potted plant. Still counts.
Nature’s been a source of wisdom, hope, and connection for me since I was a kid. It, too, has mothered me. Let it mother you too. If Mother’s Day is challenging for you, celebrate Mother Trees. They probably won’t teach you how to cook, but they can teach you how to live, and I wouldn’t be surprised if like my mom, they love a good party.
Thoughts for a Mother’s Day Menu
Palak Patel’s new cookbook, Food is Love is full of exuberant Indian-inspired recipes including this one from her mother, for stuffed okra.
It’d pair nicely with my red lentil dal.
Plate up the dal and okra with fragrant basmati rice (preferably brown) and you’ve got a lovely, rosy Mother’s Day meal.
Rice is also the right bolster for another mom-worthy dish — mushroom étouffée, a New Orleans classic, also known s(mothered) mushrooms.
While we’re in New Orleans, here’s a new one for you — tempeh Creole. You’ve maybe heard of shrimp Creole, another New Orleans classic, but I say let the crustaceans swim free. Let’s go classic and compassionate with tempeh, the versatile, protein-rich, fermented bean cake you need in your life. It’s firm and satisfying, without any tofu jiggle, and totally soaks up this luscious Creole sauce. Learn more about what you’ve been missing, and about my fabulous friend of many years, Betsy Shipley, mother of tempeh.
Both the mushrooms étouffee and tempeh Creole call for the Creole holy trinity of onion, celery and pepper. Together, these simple vegetables are the flavor-building aromatic threesome for many Creole recipes. They’re the Creole version of mirepoix.
Cajun and Creole get used interchangeably, but they’re not the same. Cajun comes from the word Acadian, French colonists who settled in New Orleans in the 19th century. Creole is the delicious mix of New Orleans’s French, African, Caribbean, Spanish and Native American cultures and cuisines. It’s a delicious difference you can taste. Chances are if the sauce is cream-based, it’s Cajun. If it’s tomato-based, as it is here, it’s Creole.
Broccoli Confidential subscribers can find the recipe for Tempeh Creole at the end of the newsletter. If you haven’t upgraded your subscription yet you can do it now!
And for dessert, there’s Jessica Porter’s vegan chocolate chip rice treats for all you hot mamas out there,
or this doll-sized vegan cheesecake.
For someone who didn’t much enjoy cooking, my mother had a kitchen Ina Garten would appreciate, and a lot of gear, like a 5-inch springform pan. What — if anything — she did with it is a mystery I’ll never be able to solve. But I used it to make this vegan cheesecake, which my husband devoured and pronounced a success. Yeah, but who, other than my mother, has toy-sized springforms? I want to scale up the recipe to make a proper full-sized cheesecake. When I’m happy with the results, I’ll share the recipe. But here’s where you can help me. I’ve tried various brands of vegan cream cheese and have yet to fall in love with any in terms of flavor and performance. What’s your go-to brand?
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