A Voices from the FOLD: Year 6 original essay.
TWO DISHES BY AGATA ANTONOW
One of my earliest memories is me in a kitchen, on
the pickles too soon, and I’d ask and ask to open a
a small step stool in my godmother’s tiny Soviet-era
jar. Cutting in, I’d see where the outside was pickled,
Polish apartment. Her hands are a floury blur, shap-
turning a deeper emerald and the inside of the veg-
ing paper-thin dough into tiny crescents. I’m trying to
etable still pale.
help, but my jam-sticky fingers are too small at the
In our adopted land, no one knew my father
ripe age of four and I realize now I must have pes-
knew how to cook. He worked in a factory in Canada
tered more than helped.
and my mother took over duties in the kitchen. Eating
My family has always been known for food, may-
food here was like having the volume turned down
be because my paternal grandfather grew up on a
to static. Everything like paper, beige and white, tast-
farm. When others starved, hunted pigeons in the
ing plain, but this is what I wanted. It was what was
rafters of the city cathedral during the war, my father
served on TV shows, what others brought to school
ate cabbages from the field and plums from the gar-
in lunch boxes and brown paper bags. Plain peanut
den. I climbed the same cherry tree that sheltered
butter and bread sandwiches. I never did understand
him, crawling along the thin branches, my four-year-
why the crusts had to be cut off. Casseroles. Barbe-
old hands too soft for the rough bark. They kept a pig,
cue. Buffets. The words like nothing I heard at home.
and cows, fat hens that chased me around the yard, a
Immigrant food is serious, and we start learn-
loud dog and hissing geese that I was afraid of.
24
ing with the verbs and the nouns of the vocabulary
My first dishes were all Polish. Pierogis, little
lists we were handed on printed paper in the church
ears, floating in a broth of beets. Meat and potatoes.
basement where we took English classes. We bought
My father wrapped translucent herring around pick-
TV dinners, marveled at the thin layer of foil, every-
les and carrots, layering them in a big white bucket,
thing on one small tray. Mashed potatoes, chicken,
covering it with brine. Four sisters, all younger, and
pale peas, a square of red dessert. It was my job to
he was the one known for cooking. The thick cucum-
read the instructions in English, to make sure the foil
bers on the kitchen counter, fat white garlic cloves
over the apple crumble was pierced with a fork. We
like dragon’s teeth, the long, lacy yellow of dill. All of
were familiar with all the tastes. Meat. Vegetables.
it placed in thick jars, saved up from purchases at the
But this did not taste like food.
store. Salty water like the ocean poured over it and
I begged and begged for candy. Thin ropes of
everything lined up on the counter. I always wanted
red fruit, like plastic wrap. I would wrap the sticki-
