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"I'm going to make the latkes now," I tell my mother. It was sometime around Hanukah—maybe in December or maybe, this time of year, January or February. Dementia had made it so that, for her, calendar time had little meaning and, by proxy, had little meaning for me.
"I'll help," she says, wobbling across the floor, her legs chubby and stump-like, seemingly sturdy like trees, but unable to bear the strength it takes to balance her flaccid body. She teeters, and before she might bump against the counter piled with shredded potatoes and onion, I push a chair beneath her, and she sits.
"Thanks," she says, with a firm nod of the head, and her platinum hair bounces toward her face. She brushes it away, with a shaky hand. It's all very formal—so unlike her.
"You're welcome."
"I'm ready," she says, and practically salutes me, albeit shakily. The shaking is from the Parkinson's. The gold Tiffany bracelet with the engraved heart that we kids gave her, swings backs and forth on her wrist.
So, I melt the butter, and we listen to it sizzle and pop. "It smells good," she tells me. "Sounds hot." There is a little edge to her voice, but she's smiling. "Start, already." Now she is losing patience. I take the starchy potato-onion mash sitting in the bowl on the counter and pour it in circles in the butter, which, with her Brooklyn accent sounds like, "budda" when she says it.
We watch, her sitting, me standing. She takes a handful of the raw onion that sits in a bowl on the countertop and pops it in her mouth, as though we're at the movies and she's eating popcorn, enthralled with the action on the screen. She's always liked a strong onion. "It smells good," she says, pointing to the raw onion with a fingernail that was once painted a shiny red. Big smile. "Onion puts hair on your chest but I don't need hair on my chest, but who cares."
More crunching.
The oil sizzles as I flip the latkes, then add more batter. The smell fills the room and I remember as a child the way my mother and father took turns flipping the latkes in the electric frying pan. Now I am crying—it happens that fast!—and turn from her so she cannot see. I'm crying because I have had this feeling like I should make latkes before she dies, so she can see me making latkes before she dies, so she can know she passed down a tradition (few of which our family had to begin with). But actually, it probably matters little to her, at this point in time, that I'm making latkes before she dies in the sense of creating new memories and showing her the traditions I've inherited. Rather, it matters to her that I am making latkes because this is the food that jogs her long-term memory, evokes fond times in a life that was filled with not-so-fond times, a taste that brings her back to her childhood, before I was even born or, as the saying goes—a glimmer in anyone's eye.
So, as I write about this memory now, of food and my mother, I am glad I have done it. I can't call it a fond memory in the sense of warm and fuzzy, but I can call it a dear one, in that tender, meaningful way memories can be.
I asked chef and food writer Monica Bhide, who is a contributor to NPR and writes a food column for the Washington Post, about memories around food. I've interviewed her before about the topic in the piece, "The Moveable Feast of Memory." But this time I asked about food and comfort...of the comfort it brings in old age?
Monica told me: "I have been thinking about this a lot since my mom is extremely ill and barely able to eat on most days. I think when people get old and having difficulty eating, comfort comes from familiar ingredients and familiar foods. My mom takes a lot of comfort in eating her favorite soft lentils and her enjoying some gently prepared vegetables and rice. The key is cooking it with the tastes she remembers from her better health days. She doesn't like being introduced to new things at this time in her life. I am sure people are different but I can only share what I have learned first hand."
And then, I also asked Elizabeth Hanes, a registered nurse and writer specializing in caregiving issues, and author of the blog, Nourish the Caregiver. Elizabeth told me: "Eating gives people perhaps more pleasure than any of life's other activities. Sadly, as we age our senses of smell and taste may deteriorate, along with our ability to chew. Those developments certainly can take the pleasure out of food and eating!
"But that doesn't mean using food as a comfort has to go away in old age. For instance, carbohydrates, when eaten without an accompanying protein, can boost serotonin levels in the brain. Serotonin is the "soothing" chemical. Well-cooked brown rice, oatmeal, and whole wheat pasta (to name just a few examples) can be chewed easily even by people with poor dentition. And when our loved one is feeling and acting calm, then we as caregivers feel less anxious, too."
How about you? What is your take, and how does food play a part?
Image: Public domain photos.
