Roots and Wings: The Stew that Saved Us

“I’m sorry to have to tell you this, but you are unable to have children. Biologically, that is.” I stared blankly at the doctor, blinking once, twice, and then a third time before the tears slipped down my right cheek.

I turned around and left without saying a word that day. I returned home and baked two trays of focaccia, four cakes, one pie, and enough ratatouille to serve my entire neighborhood. Because that is what I do when I am upset. Or better said, this is what I do when I feel anything. My kitchen is the central gathering point within my home: my solace, the space where I can just be.

After that visit, I spent the following months, which turned into years, asking for second and third and as many next opinions as I could possibly gather. I put myself on special diets, creating known and previously unknown concoctions. After all the countless next opinions, I turned to alternative practitioners and visited acupuncturists, took IVs with infusions promising to bring fertility back into my body, and those with vitamins and minerals that would or could strengthen my body’s natural capacity to heal, create, and become pregnant.

Nothing worked.

I was infertile.

I always felt that I was meant to become a mother. Even as a young child, I knew that I wanted children; three at the very least. I saved my books and toys for when I could pass them down to my own children. I saved the first cookbook I was given at seven years old. It looks as if it should be placed behind a glass window in a museum for ancient texts with food stains sprinkled throughout and star stickers for those recipes that I consistently returned to. I also kept my stuffed toy, Birdie. The once bright yellow and orange fluff bird had become a beige and pale yellow ball. But that did not matter. It was still my special Birdie; my offering to hand over to my children. But then life happened outside of my plans and far away from my intentions, leading me to an entirely different place.

And just when I had given up on having any biological children, I conceived on my wedding night, as if we called her into being. I felt her light immediately, and I rekindled my vision of motherhood.

Who would I be as a mother? How would I raise my child?

*

As a child of academics from the Caribbean, I was raised on a heavy diet of Jane Austen, Beethoven, and Beef Bourguignon. And yet, I was always hungry. I craved something I couldn’t identify at the time, the absence of which I felt painfully and profoundly.

My grandfather’s stories, however, offered me a sense of comfort and served to quench my thirst ever so slightly. I saw him rarely, every few years in my youth, when my family traveled to Trinidad from our home across the globe in Germany. I remember that we (the grandchildren) all gathered around the table as he pointed his long, stubbled index finger at each of us, telling us about the world and serving mythical stories in his baritone voice, accented with British precision and a sprinkle of Trinidadian singsong. I savored these stories and allowed them to linger in my mind. He spoke about the mythical tales of a heroine, a princess who, he claimed, was our ancestor, and described the dangerous adventures she experienced to save her world: a world I had always assumed was made up in his head. He told us that this princess could powerfully affect people through her gift of oratory, and I often imagined that I, too, held that gift. I wanted to ask my grandfather to write these stories down one day so I could read them to my children when I grew up. But I never did, and when my grandfather passed, the stories stopped being told, and I lost the connection to the world that he created for us. I grew up and left home for university, and other things occupied my mind and heart.

*

As soon as I got pregnant, I created an intricate meal plan for me and my baby. I would consume a healthy, whole-food diet that would nourish my body, mind, and soul throughout the pregnancy. I would spend time at the farmers’ markets each week choosing fresh produce to introduce my baby to my culinary pleasures. Once she was born, I would make all of her food myself, and once she became a toddler, we would make fun things in the kitchen together. She would stand next to me, as I whisked, stirred, folded, and kneaded, sharing stories of my childhood and allowing her to taste and lick the bowl every so often. The kitchen would become our place.

After week two, my envisioned journey took a wrong turn. My morning sickness turned into full-blown hyperemesis gravidarum, which kept me bedridden and in a persistent state of nausea. I could no longer stand the sight, sound, thought, or smell of food. I couldn’t stand to be in the kitchen or stand at all, for that matter. And the bland foods that I tried to consume came right out. My already thin frame was shrinking, and by month five, I barely had a bump.

The doctors became increasingly concerned, as did I. I fell into an existential crisis, not because of my own health per se, but because I had no idea how I would become the mother that I had imagined without my passion for food. Food had been my crutch, the foundation of my identity. 

Right after the 30th week, the doctors said they would have to pull the baby out prematurely to ensure that she would survive and develop properly. I sank into a deep, dark, desperate depression. I spoke to my child within and apologized for not being able to nurture and nourish her as I had intended and asked, begged the universe, whomever, whatever for help.

Two days before the intervention, as I called it, a friend of mine called to check in. I was in such a state of depression that I stopped taking any calls. For some reason, I picked up this one. I could barely speak through my sobs and told him that my baby was much too small and was not gaining enough weight, and that they would have to intervene.

“Hmmm . . .” he replied from the other end of the phone.

Then he asked if he could pay a visit.

“I would like for you to meet my sisters, who are visiting me from Ghana. They would love to meet you and are leaving in a couple of days.”

As much as I didn’t care to welcome any visitors, I complied.

A few hours later, my friend walked into my bedroom wearing a wide smile on his face and carrying a small foldable table in his hand. Directly behind him, on either side, were his two sisters. Each of them held a serving dish in their hand.

I watched, confused. They were silent as they each took on various roles, looking as if they had practiced the choreography. One sister placed a linen tablecloth with orange, red, and yellow stripes on the table, while the other placed the white, ceramic dishes on the left side of the table. My friend then set a plate and utensils in the center and asked me to sit up.

I did as he instructed, still confused about what was going on, but curious enough not to intervene.

“They made this for you and your baby, and it will make you feel better,” he said, handing me the spoon.

I watched him and waited for my stomach to start revolting.

“You don’t understand. I can’t,” I said . . . but he insisted. “Breathe slowly as you take the first spoon.”

I did.

I breathed into it, as my friend guided me. And while I took deep breaths in and out, he opened each of the dishes, which released ribbons of swirling steam into the air. I was enveloped by an aroma—spicy and nutty, and something else I could not quite identify.

The three of them watched my face attentively, while my friend took out a spoonful of one of the stews and held it up to my mouth.

“Eat this and allow your child to taste it.”

I held the stew between my cheeks for a while and allowed it to slide down my throat, slowly and steadily, and then into my body. It tasted slightly sweet initially, and then nutty with a spicy kick that hit the back of my tongue. It was something that I couldn’t locate within my culinary palette.

There was a long pause when we all waited to see what would happen, and when nothing did, I smiled.

Confused.

Curious.

My friend put another spoonful into my mouth. This time, I allowed the flavors to linger a bit more before I swallowed. I detected hints of ginger, garlic, a slight umami note that I still could not place, something tangy, and something nutty that could have been either coconut or peanut. I had never tasted this combination of flavors before. 

I swallowed, and again, nothing happened.

“What is this?” I asked in disbelief. This was the first time in the past eight-plus months that anything had remained in my stomach without an argument. After the third spoonful, I felt ravenous, as if I hadn’t eaten for my entire life. I finished everything.

The baby inside my belly moved more than ever, and I wondered if she might have been dancing a happy dance inside.

Two days later, when I returned to the doctors for the planned intervention, my baby had gained just over a pound, which seemed completely unbelievable to the doctors and nurses. They re-assessed, asking me what I had done. One doctor assumed that they had incorrectly read the weight beforehand.

We would postpone the surgical birth and keep me on close watch. I spent the remainder of my pregnancy eating the stew that the sisters had cooked for me. They left bags of it in the freezer for me.

“What is this stew? What is in it?” I repeatedly asked, and the response was always:

“Come to Ghana, and I will show you,” as if it were a long-held secret that I was not yet privy to.

While I was still too weak to do much outside my bed, I was hopeful and felt incredibly nourished by the stews that kept me going and my baby growing. And each time I ate the stews, my baby moved her body within mine, and I knew that she was happy.

On Sunday morning, October 26, I felt the contractions at 4:16 a.m. The doctors appeared baffled four hours later as they handed me my baby girl, weighing just over 10.3 pounds. We had done it!

While her delivery was relatively smooth and quick, it took nearly a decade before we made the trip to Ghana. When my daughter turned eight years old, I was invited to attend a seminar there.

I was welcomed at the airport by my friend’s sister, the same one who had cooked the healing stews for me. I felt as if I was returning home when I entered her large three-story home, the tall walls decorated with Ghanaian art, bold strokes of bright green and yellows, depicting lush landscapes of the northern plains, and others that depicted city market scenes with people gathered around baskets filled with tropical fruits and vegetables. I felt my body sway as I looked at one painting that depicted three ladies dancing. Each dancer wore a long, flowing dress that swirled in washes of color across the canvas. Their different hand gestures, accompanied by rings of pastel colors, transported me into their dance.

We walked towards the kitchen, and the air filled with the aroma that I remembered from her visit to Berlin, eight years earlier. She gestured for us to sit around the table in her dining room, and just as she had done nearly a decade before, she placed two casserole dishes on the table. She lifted the tops from each dish, allowing the steam to escape and travel throughout the room and directly into my heart. They were the same dishes she had prepared for me nearly a decade before: the green spinach stew studded with red peppers and the sweet, nutty and spicy peanut stew, bubbling away.

She served my daughter first with a generous portion, and I interjected, saying, “She doesn’t like spicy things and probably won’t eat it—certainly not that amount . . .”

But before I could complete my sentence, I couldn’t believe what I was witnessing.

My daughter, who up until that moment had never liked anything remotely spicy, was taking spoonful after spoonful of the stew, licking her lips and taking another, swinging her feet back and forth, back and forth. Blissfully.

We all looked at her, staring, with a knowing smile.

“She feels at home,” the sister said.

“She is home,” I agreed.

“And so are you,” she added. “So are you.”

My daughter and I traveled to the Northern part of the country, where we visited the typical tourist spots. In one of the museums, the guide related a story that sounded so very familiar. It was my story. It was my grandfather’s story. The story of the princess who held the gift of oratory to inspire people to create great acts of goodness.

My body tickled with goosebumps, and the hairs on my arms stood up, as I cried happy tears. This was it, the origin of my grandfather’s stories. The place where it all began. I realized then that my grandfather’s stories were not merely mythical musings, but true stories of my ancestors; of my roots; of where I came from.

And in that moment, I felt my feet sink deeply into the soil of my ancestry. I stood so firmly, so proudly, and slightly taller than before I had arrived.

“This is where our story begins.” I turned to my daughter, who smiled proudly back at me. After the tour, I asked the guard to share as many stories as he could, as I recorded them. They were the exact stories my grandfather told us, with slight embellishments here and there, and others that I had never heard. I transcribed the stories in my grandfather’s style and got a local artist to illustrate them, to create picture books.

Since my trip to Ghana, I’ve been raising my daughter on a diet that is rich in stories that come from all regions around the globe and those from our ancestral home. She often asks me to retell my grandfather’s stories, and I do with great pride. I’ve expanded my culinary repertoire to include foods from Ghana, and the stews that nourished us during my pregnancy have become our household favorites: the Groundnut stew and Kontumire stew.

They ground us.

And now, at 10 years old, my daughter and I spend much of our time in the kitchen, sharing stories, laughing, cooking, and baking. It is our space. I am no longer hungry, and when I have a craving, I know exactly where to go.