The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Arts
Thursday, October 12, 2017 — 3B

Pass the Cake: A look at 
food, family and being 
together when you’re not

STOCK/ DAILY

Good eating

Arts writer Arya Naidu reflects on her cultural & familial 
attachment to food and her family’s incomparable cooking

Sometime about 2006, my 

family started doing these 
semi-huge 
reunions. 
I 
say 

semi-huge because we’re kind 
of an overwhelming bunch. 
What we lack in number (and 
there are quite a few of us), we 
make up for in noise and pure 
dimension. I always think I’m 
tall until I get a crick in my 
neck from hugging my cousins. 
We’d pick the Fourth of July 
or Memorial Day — some 
extended weekend — and get 
together almost every year.

As it’s the middle of Middle 

America, a regional identity 
I’ve come to take a lot of pride 
in, my hometown of St. Louis 
was always our hub. The kids 
would stay in my parents’ 
house, and the wiser folks 

would be 10 minutes away at 
my grandparents’. As time 
passed, the location sometimes 
changed, but St. Louis has 
always been our center. My 
grandparents have been there 
for 
30-plus 
years, 
moving 

there from Detroit shortly 
after immigrating from India.

It was, and is, without fail, 

my favorite weekend of the 
year. All my cousins set up 
camp in my room; the half-
dozen of us stumbling over one 
another whenever someone 
did so much as try to stand 
up. Every inch of the floor 
was covered in makeshift beds 
and old blankets. Our guest 
room was empty, but it didn’t 
really matter. This one moved 
across the world and that one 
changed professions and the 
other two found a place in 
Texas — so, it didn’t matter. 
Right now, we were all home, 
here, and we wanted nothing 
more than to kick one another 
in our sleep and trip when we 
walked to the bathroom. And, 
of course, eat.

The only time we move as 

a unit is when food beckons. 
Loading into my mom’s car 
(I’m in the trunk. Again.), 

we make the trek to Nani’s 
kitchen. I’ve been calling my 
grandma “Nani” since I was a 
tyke, and, eventually, everyone 
else started calling her “Nani,” 
too. There’s power in being 
short, chubby and wild.

We smell the food before 

we get out of the car. The 
turmeric 
and 
homemade 

ginger-garlic paste wafts out 
to the driveway, and I see Nani 
around the side of the garage, 
picking 
curry 
leaves 
from 

her karivepaku plant in the 
garden. It’s the same scene, 
every year. Heck, she finds 
something to do with that 
plant every day.

Leaving our shoes outside 

the back door, we follow her 
into the house. My grandpa’s 
in the sunroom, munching on 
chakralu and reading the St. 
Louis Post-Dispatch. Nani’s 
already 
adding 
her 
leaves 

to the chicken. We disperse 
around the various kitchen 
cookie jars, most of them 
holding boondi and decade-
old caramel calcium chews. 
My uncle is peer-pressuring 
us to eat the papaya he just 
cut. Last year, it was jackfruit. 
It’s 
chaotic, 
and 
there’s 

pomegranate in my hair and 
it’s home.

My 
family 
is 
tethered 

together by this event, this 
sensation, this food. There are 
some cousins I’m not involved 
with for months at a time, too 
busy with our own schedules 
to keep up regular contact. 
But, always, in the weeks 
leading up to these fleeting 
holiday weekends, we’re all 
talking endlessly. About the 
chili chicken from last summer 
and the lamb Nani kept telling 
us was tofu and the mess we 
consistently make trying to 
help with the chapatis.

About the fifth year we 

all got together, we were 
celebrating Nani’s birthday, 
and we got a full sheet of 
ambrosia cake from Dierberg’s 
(a St. Louis grocery store). It’s 
a vanilla base, topped with 
fresh pineapples and kiwis 
and magic. My cousins and I 
have tried to find an ambrosia 
cake as good as the one at 
Dierberg’s, but it just doesn’t 
exist. This is a fact.

The evening of the big 

birthday dinner, we walked 
into the kitchen after dessert, 
and we see this leftover cake 
being 
dumped 
into 
giant 

Tupperware containers. My 
aunt, my mom, Nani — they’re 
taking spatulas to the slab, 
shoveling it into random bins. 
I repeat: spatulas.

That is, and always will be, 

the most I have ever laughed. 
Here we were: A bunch of 
entitled, oblivious, blissfully 

stuffed 
cousins, 
watching 

the best thing that has ever 
happened to us being dumped 
into vats. Something about 
the act was so bizarre yet felt 
oddly normal.

As a first-generation child, 

I’ve grown up with a little (a 
lot of) spice in my life. Seeing 
the 
Dierberg’s 
masterpiece 

turned into mushy mountains 
was the first time I think I 
realized just how much I took 
my culture for granted. This 
brazenness and warmth are 
pieces of my everyday life 
because 
they’re 
entwined 

with my vibrant, brash, South 
Indian family. This was almost 
four years ago, and we’re still 
giggling about it.

My 
family. 
They’re 
my 

favorite people in the world, 
and 
I 
say 
that 
without 

hesitation. That night with 

the cake, we stayed up until 
2 or 3 a.m., just gossiping and 
belly-laughing out of our food 
comas. And when we woke 
up, we went straight for our 
tubs of ambrosia. We’ve made 
the cake a staple at each get-
together since.

Almost every year turned 

into almost every other year, 
which 
turned 
into 
family 

weddings, or as often as we 
could. But I know that if, 
right now, at 11:29 p.m. on this 
rainy weekend night, I needed 
someone, anyone, from my 
family, they would get here 
as fast as they could. Even the 
ones a plane ride away.

We’re not just a bunch of 

hungry relatives. I mean, we 
are, but food is a currency of 
love for us. It’s what we’ve 
used to bring us back to one 
another. When words aren’t 
enough or time gaps get too big 
or some trivial kinfolk drama 
clouds our judgment, the food 
roots us. We share it with one 
another and create it for one 
another because it’s a way for 

ARYA NAIDU
Daily Arts Writer

B-SIDE SECONDARY

us to be together, even when 
we’re not.

My grandmother’s cooking 

has become such a routine; it’s 
always there for us, whether 
that be in the form of dinner 
every night or the tea she brews 
at 3 p.m., every day. When 
something is so familiar, so 
normal, it’s easy to lose sight 
of what a blessing it is. I’ve 
lived 10 minutes away from 
my grandparents since I was 8, 
and now that I don’t anymore, 
I miss it. I miss them. So, I put 
on a pot of rice every now and 
then. I drink a cup of tea each 
afternoon.

Food 
has 
this 
incredible 

capacity to just let you be 
there, wherever “there” is for 
you. Eating is such a habitual 
practice. Eventually, concrete 
images and specific moments 
start attaching themselves to 
each meal. Every time I’m on 
my bed, curled up with a cup 
of Darjeeling, or I order a chai 

from Espresso, I’m with Nani, 
watching her do cryptograms 
and 
dip 
biscotti 
into 
her 

steaming mug. I’m helping my 
mom grate fresh ginger into the 
boiling milk on the stove. I’m 
532 miles away, but I’m there.

No matter where I am or 

what I’m eating, food always, 
always, always makes me think 
of my family. I think of what 
Nani cultivated for us in all her 
whizzing around the kitchen. 
Without her cardamom or chili 
peppers or whatever it is she 
does that makes everything 
taste so good, I don’t know what 
our relationships would be like. 
I don’t want to know.

I can’t tell Nani I’ve gone 

to a South Indian restaurant 
without her coyly asking, “You 
know mine is better, isn’t it?”

I always say yes, and it’s 

always true. I have a hunch 
that everyone in the family 
would agree because we’re 
always getting more than just a 

meal with Nani. We’re finding 
vignettes of her life in India 
and creating traditions and 
plunging into this feeling of 
home being able to exist inside 
of everyone.

If there’s one snapshot I’ll 

hold in my heart until the world 
stops 
spinning, 
it’s 
sitting 

around the wobbly wooden 
table in my mom’s sunroom, 
the morning after one of Nani’s 
feasts, and eating ambrosia 
cake for breakfast. It’s a scene 
we’ve set multiple times now, 
and it never gets old. We pull up 
extra chairs from the kitchen 
and dining room. There’s a 
pot of coffee brewing, which 
has already been emptied and 
restarted two or three times 
that morning. A dozen donuts 
from Dunkin’ are sitting on 
the kitchen table, because we 
obviously haven’t had enough 
sugar. In all its hectic glory, 
it’s warm and peaceful and 
dependable. It’s home.

My family is 

tethered together 
by this event, this 

sensation, this 

food

That night with 

the cake, we 
stayed up until 
2 or 3 a.m., just 
gossiping and 

belly-laughing out 
of our food comas

FILM NOTEBOOK

Me, Myself & Mel Brooks

A personal reflection on the significance of not just Mel 
but most Jewish cinema and actors in a Jewish girl’s life

I am like, really Jewish. At 

least that is what my friends 
tell me. I don’t know if it is 
my sizably Semitic nose or 
my affinity for bagels and lox 
or maybe just the everything 
about me. Setting stereotypical 
truths 
aside 
for 
now, 
my 

Jewishness has been endlessly 
present in my life. I have 
constantly been the resident 
Jew 
on 
matters 
regarding 

everything from the Israeli-
Palestinian conflict to Woody 
Allen’s credibility.

Every summer, for as long 

as I can remember, I went to 
my grandma’s little, ranch-
style house in Dayton, Ohio. 
On those sweltering August 
days, once we had gone to the 
Air Force museum one too 
many times or played all the 
Nintendo 64 our little thumbs 
could handle, we were left 
with limited options in terms 
of entertainment. Sitting on 
that shag orange carpet stained 
with memories and coffee, I was 
transported to a world where 
cowboys farted and Schwartz 
was not my best friend’s last 
name, 
but 
an 
all-powerful 

force. From “Spaceballs” to 
“Blazing 
Saddles” 
summers 

with Grandma proved to be 
a 
comedic 
adventure 
into 

the hilarious, Jewish world 
of Mel Brooks. Even before I 
knew what “Star Wars” was, 
I was watching my brothers 
watch that guy from “Honey 
I Shrunk the Kids” wearing a 
humorously large helmet and 
a small golden guru named 
Yogurt caring a whole awful lot 
about merchandising.

When 
we 
got 
sick 
of 

rewinding “Robin Hood: Men 
in Tights” and completed our 

own renditions of the self-
aware 
masterpiece, 
we 
set 

our sights on the pantheon of 
Jewish film, the holy grail of 
Semitic Cinema, the one, the 
only “The Frisco Kid.” If you 
haven’t seen it, you’re tacky 
and I hate you. For reference, 
the film stars Han Solo as a 
rough and tough cowboy and 
Willy Wonka as a Yiddish-
speaking Rabbi on a Western 

adventure of Clint Eastwood 
proportions; 
it 
doesn’t 
get 

any better than that. The film 
approached complex themes 
of the fish out of water and 
immigrant experience while 
creating 
dynamic 
character 

relationships with the perfect 
dose of good, old Jewish humor. 
When I think of “The Frisco 
Kid,” I think of my childhood, 
of those long, summer days at 

Grandma’s house and watching 
those classic movies on an 
ancient television screen while 
eating Spaghetti-O’s.

I am like, really Jewish. If 

that means I get excited about 
Yiddish-isms in “Seinfeld” or 
references to Jewish law in 
“Transparent” or the simple 
utterance of an “oy” from 
an exasperated goy, so be it. 
Sometimes it was little things, 
like when John Goodman’s 
Walter Sobchak in “The Big 
Lebowski” claims he doesn’t 
role on Shabbos or anytime a 
Yiddish phrase was uttered in 
“A Serious Man” (pretty much 
anything the Coen brothers 
do thrills me). But it was more 
than understanding what the 
filmmakers were trying to 
communicate about their own 
stories, but seeing my personal 
narrative within it.

I think I was six the first 

time I saw Tommy Pickles 
put on a yarmulke. Granted, it 
was the “Rugrats” Hanukkah 
special, but still, something 
about it made me see myself 
in that wise baby. I saw him 
as an extension of my life, my 
family, my experience. Perhaps 
that is why I am so drawn to 
Jewish film, it reminds me that 
I am not alone. If there was 
Jewish content projected onto 
the movie screen, there was no 
reason for me to be ashamed or 
embarrassed. It was almost like 
I was in on some inside joke 
that no one else understood. As 
if the filmmakers were telling a 
joke just to me in a secret kind 
of Jewish code.

Now I know why Jewish 

film is so important to me. 
That feeling of belonging I felt 
watching Mel Brooks and Gene 
Wilder and Barbara Streisand 
is no longer a mystery. It 
reminds me why I am proud of 
my identity, my heritage, my 
tradition, my Jewishness.

BECKY PORTMAN

Daily Arts Writer

WARNER BROS.

I have constantly 
been the resident 
Jew on matters 

regarding 
everything 

from the Israeli-

Palestinian 

conflict to Woody 
Allen’s credibility

