Lemon, Love & Olive Oil by Mina Stone

Author:Mina Stone
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Harper Wave
Published: 2021-07-21T00:00:00+00:00

Rice

My mother and I call each other often. My favorite time to talk to her is when I’m driving, stuck in NYC traffic and alone in the car. She’s on speaker, full blast. She wishes I’d call her even more than I already do, but I guess that’s a mother-daughter dynamic most women can relate to.

During one of my favorite recent phone calls, we talked about rice, and she mentioned that her standout memory of rice was something called lapa, a traditional Greek way of cooking rice when someone is sick.

Lapa translates to “mushy,” and consists of short-grain rice cooked in chicken broth or water until it is very, very soft and falling apart. Then, lots of lemon juice is mixed in and it’s served as a soothing and healing antidote usually for stomach upset or fever.

The rice dish that my mother remembers as a child is very different from mine. I remember often asking her to make me soutzoukakia, cumin and garlic–scented meatballs swimming in tomato sauce. I loved when she made this dish for me because alongside it came a special treat: a beautiful, perfect dome of rice. It was all I saw on the plate as a child.

My mom would press the rice into a teacup and then unmold it on my plate. She would spoon the meatballs and sauce on the side, and I ate it with pure joy and reverence, amazed she could perform such magic.

The charm in that dome of rice has more history to it than I once thought. I imagined it only as my mother’s clever invention, but rice, until recent history, was a food of luxury in Greece. You’ll find that lingering awe in the way it is used today. Rice was often served in a molded shape throughout Greece and the Middle East to designate it as a very special food—hence how my mother served it, molded in a teacup, like my grandmother taught her.

Rice still suggests celebration and opulence on special occasions in Greece. In everyday life, rice has been integrated to enrich a variety of traditional recipes. It holds that spiritual duality as a part of its identity—something that can be very special, yet also everyday and comforting. Pretty similar to the phone calls I have with my mom.

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