Florets flourish warm memories for Queens woman
As people gather with family and friends over food during this holiday season, WNYC's Community Partnership Desk is asking New Yorkers to reflect on the dishes that hold a special place in their hearts.
Maram Adbelal lives in Jackson Heights, Queens. WNYC's Community Partnerships Desk talked with her as part of a collaboration with the Queens Memory Project.
The transcript of Maram Adbelal's story has been lightly edited for clarity.
My name is Marama Abdelal, and I am from Jackson Heights, but originally Egyptian.
When my mom cooks fried cauliflower at home, that just brings back childhood memories and her childhood memories. It's just such a comforting food. Cauliflower is so forgiving. You know, it's, it doesn't have flavor on its own, but when you fry it, you can dip it in anything. And it's just comforting because she dips it in flour and milk and eggs.
It makes a nice soft crust, but it also has like a creamy taste to it, and the cauliflower has a nice bite. And then you can dip it in anything, tahini, ketchup. I like to eat it plain because when it's nice and salty, it's it's just perfect like that. My mom would make it, you know, when we didn't have meat at home. You know, maybe she didn't have time to run to the supermarket to go buy meat because we would eat specific meat and cauliflower was always available.
Or when she wanted to apologize to us if she was a little harsh with the punishment or she felt bad or we were having a tough time at school. It's also like a comforting dish that's like an apology dish. Like, okay, I'm not going to say sorry, but I'm going to make this for you. And you know, I'm saying sorry, so leave me alone after this. That's the memory I have, you know, and just watching her making it. You know, even though it's simple to make for some reason, it it has its own complication watching it.
But I think it's more because I feel comfortable that someone's making it for me, and I just feel spoiled and relaxed. Like, okay, she's got this. You know, you break a couple eggs in a bowl, you take the flour and the milk, and you whip it hard. Then you throw those beautiful like little trees or florets in the mixture, they soak a little bit, then you take them out, and you can see the mixture oozing off of the florets, and then you just drop it in the oil, and it's just like bubbling all around those florets, and then once they come out, like, I have five brothers and sisters, so we'd all rush to the bowl that it was served in and we're like trying to like bear the heat of the floret because it's so hot and shoving it in our mouths as fast as possible.
It's just a happy time. It's a comforting time whenever I think of those fried cauliflower florets.
