I had ‘a moment’ in the fruit & veg shop this weekend. (It was actually sparked by an exercise on ‘remembering’ from a writing workshop earlier in the day.)
I picked up the green gourd, poetically labelled ‘Buddha’s paw’ (佛手瓜), and sniffed. It had no fragrance. In fact, as far as I could remember, it had no flavour either.
There, in front of the chokos, I was whisked a thousand kilometres north and four decades back.
1981
Dad was in the kitchen, a knife in his hand and a grin on his face.
It was choko season. In fact, it seemed that it was always choko season.
What would he come up with this time?
Mum was the sensible cook. She was the one who kept us fed and clothed. Dad, however, was adventurous.
Adventurous in journeys … what could we see or do on the way?
Adventurous in relationships … his friendships with sea captains from around the world, to whom he taught first aid, led to dinner table tales which were almost as enthralling to us kids as the fish-flavoured chewing gum they gave him.
Adventurous in life was my dad, boarding a ship in far-off England as a young man. Later he would move to Papua New Guinea, before convincing his fiancee to follow him up there and join him on his adventure.
Even in the kitchen, Dad was adventurous. As kids, we both loved and dreaded the evenings Dad would cook. All Bran in scrambled eggs … why not? Doughnuts in the deep fryer … oh yes.
(Mind you, the doughnuts were always a bit fishy, given that the oil in the deep fryer was mostly used for fish’n’chips.)
That particular day, it was to be chokos masquerading as apples, mixed with spices and encased in pastry.
2021
I look back on those childhood adventures with gratitude. Not gratitude for the chokos, of course. In all these years, I have never once missed those slimy, tasteless paws. No, I am grateful for the one who made even chokos seem adventurous.
Which is why, in the fruit & veg shop, I found myself acting like a modern 21st century woman, searching online for choko recipes. Dad would have been surprised that I actually paid for one of those despised childhood vegetables. But I did.
I turned it into muffins.
After all, why not?