Conjuring the spirit of both my grandmas in one big bowl of greens
A while back, Holly wrote some essays for us, a series she called In the Kitchen with Eartha & Angeles, the premise being her imagining what it would be like to cook with her Black and Filipino grandmothers, neither of whom she actually knew. Occasionally, we like to revisit older essays, and we think the piece below, which was originally published in August of 2019, was very worthy of revisiting. Good luck not heading directly to the kitchen after you read it. — Kate
The last time I saw my grandmother Eartha alive, she said my mother and I were just there because someone told us she was dying; she was right. My cousin let us know she wasn’t doing well, and if we wanted to say goodbye, we should do it sooner than later, so my mom and I planned a trip to Philadelphia. My sister, seven years my senior, refused to join us; nothing about that era of our lives sits well with her. I was only six when my parents divorced and we left Philly, so I don’t remember too much.
Memories of seeing Eartha are always a bit blurry for me. I’d only seen her twice in the 15-plus years since we left Philadelphia, and both trips sort of meld into each other. One visit was about a year after my father passed. She missed him so much that the unplugged refrigerator from his house down the street sat smack in the middle of her living room, cans of Colt 45 still inside. She pulled a tiny white envelope from a drawer and put a lock of my dead father’s hair in my hand (“…Feel how soft it is. And look, his hair was red. You see that?”). I’ve heard rumors of her force-feeding the grandchildren shots of cod liver oil with peanut butter-spoon chasers, but other than that I don’t know much about what went down in her kitchen.
She made greens, though. Eartha had to make greens — every black grandmother makes greens, right? I’m sure Angeles — my mom’s mother, who I never met — made greens in the Philippines, too. Black and Filipino cultures have so many similarities when it comes to food.
I imagine Eartha would cook down a mixture of collard and turnip greens with some kind of smoked meat — maybe ham hocks or turkey necks. She’d throw in a stick of butter at the end of cooking because, although she doesn’t know she’s finishing a sauce with a French technique, she knows the butter adds a nice mouthfeel to the potlikker.
What would it look like to see my grandmas collab on a pot of greens? Honestly, I don’t feel like Eartha would be down to put a spoonful of pink fermented shrimp paste on ANYTHING, but in my heart of hearts I know she would appreciate the depth of flavor it adds.
So, instead of using bagoong, I’m getting some of that umami flavor by adding patis, a Filipino fish sauce. Traditionally, laing has pieces of pork shoulder, and that’s exactly how Angeles would make it. Eartha’s not really trying to hear about any kind of greens cooked without some kind of smoked meat, so I’m adding a smoked turkey leg to season the cooking liquid. I’m replicating the same unctuous mouthfeel Eartha would get from a stick of butter with the addition of coconut cream at the end to bring it all together.
(*FYI, RAW taro leaves are poisonous. Do not eat them raw. They need to be cooked at least 45 minutes.)
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