A Taste of Childhood: White Bean Stew
It is a grey spring day, the kind of day when one just wishes to stay home, feeling housewifely, sipping a cup of tea, listening to classical music, and wrapping oneself in domestication. This morning I looked into my pantry for inspiration on what to cook. Snuggled in a corner, I spied a container of dried white beans. My mind flew back to the winters of my long-gone childhood. In those days, fresh fruits and vegetables did not zip back and forth across the globe as they do these days. We did not have the convenience of fresh vegetables flown in from distant lands. We ate what was available where we lived. In the depths of winter, one of my favorite dishes was white bean stew. Looking at the jar of dried white beans snuggled in the corner, I remembered that dish. My nostrils quivered agreeably in memory of its aroma. I shut my eyes and smiled as I envisioned the huge kitchen with the white tiled walls and sideboards with storage space nestled deep beneath them. I remembered Cook, with a huge white lawn scarf tied tightly around her hennaed hair and firmly pinned underneath her chin. I remember the tiny blue-dot beauty mark tattooed between her eyebrows. She had a kind face shaped like a heart. In my mind, I picture her busily concentrating on stirring the pot over the fire. She hums contentedly as she does so. A young girl, about seven or eight years of age, stands by her side in case she needs help. “Does she need salt or pepper?” the girl asks timidly. I cannot recall the girl’s name now. What I do remember is that her parents were very poor and sent her off to service. Mama had hired her to alleviate her destitution. She was not living in a cold mud hovel anymore. She no longer had an anxious look about her. Her cheeks were beginning to fill up and were becoming rosy. She now lived in a home where it was warm in winter and comfortable in summer. She no longer experienced hunger. Her main duties were to do light work and keep an eye on and play with my baby brother and my little sister.
But I digress. Back to Cook making the white bean stew. The memory is so very vivid that I decided to imitate it today. I haven’t had it since my youth. I looked through my various recipe books but could not find any such recipe. It must have been a family recipe. I was completely bewildered as to its ingredients, but I was now determined to replicate it. I went on the internet and typed, “Persian Dried White Bean Stew.” I did not find it, but I did find a recipe for Dried White Bean and Spinach dish. It was a vegetarian dish. I recognize the ingredients; they are similar to what my Pakistani friend Shama uses. I decided to replicate the dish. I invited my grandson and his girlfriend, since she is vegetarian.
I began to prepare the dish. The pot simmered gently. The aroma perfumed the kitchen. The pot on the stove hummed and gurgled as it cooked. The climbing rose outside the kitchen window rubs itself anxiously against the house, as if in protection from the wind blowing and the rain lashing out angrily outside. As I sit at the table, my mind wanders back and forth between the distant past and present. How far I have traveled in time! The aroma of that stew draws the past and the present together. As the skies darken in that angry weather, I peer into the past. I picture my parents, my siblings, and myself gathered around the dining table, sharing that meal. As I look out of my kitchen window, I do not see a rainy spring day but a winter day with snowflakes hurrying down from the heavens. I do not see the round table where I sit at present, but I see my dear loving parents sitting at each end of the large, heavy table in the dining room. On each side of the table, two children sit side by side. Papa’s classical music mingles with the sound of the family’s chatter and laughter. Music and food… It is a dreamy tableau of days that are long past, all because of a container of dried white beans nestled in the corner of a pantry shelf.