Memory and table
Once, I believed in being vegan.
And a chicken taught me what grief tastes like...
You’re living in a village. You find yourself wondering what the mist rising between the massive Ilgar mountains looks like. As the wind plays with the trees, the rustling of leaves carries the sound of the river. Ripened apples fall now and then, and the birds sleeping silently in the corner begin to stir. Up to this point, everything feels like a scene from a romantic film.
Then suddenly, a scream pierces the air.
You jump to your feet and freeze the scene.
When you run outside, you see a fox attacking a chicken. Your heart pounds so hard it feels like it might burst as you press your face against the cold iron railing of the balcony. Your grandmother rushes in and scares the fox away. The chicken, limping and exhausted, hides in a corner. It’s in pain. A decision is made.
Dinner: chicken.
You run to your room, cover your ears. Sobbing, you promise yourself again and again you will never eat meat again. And in that grief, you fall asleep.
As the breeze cools the room, you wake around evening.
Vegan, and tired.
Your pillow soaked in tears, salty and still damp.
The saltiest pillow in the world, you think.
Maybe it was all a dream, you wonder.
You walk out of the room, heading toward the kitchen, and a beautiful scent greets you.
You walk over to your mother, who’s setting the table, and you see the rice cooked in chicken broth.
You look at the grains of rice glistening with pure butter.
The dark meat has been set aside, the breast meat gently shredded and placed to the side.
As you eat dinner, you realize, though you wouldn’t even admit it to yourself, that this might be the most delicious, most humble meal you’ve ever had.
You murmur, “That fox had good taste.”
Since chicken breasts, lean and dry, weren’t favored back then (after all, muscly gym-goers didn’t yet exist in the village), you help pull the strands apart, one by one.
You pound soaked broken rice, and the starch tickles between your fingers.
You add the sübye, the ancestor of rice starch, into boiling, sugary, fatty milk.
Once the pudding thickens, you pour it into a tray and let the bottom brown just slightly.
You mix in the shredded chicken and place the rest of the pudding into the fridge to cool.
Later, as you adjust your pillow and rest your head again, your eyes find the old painting in the corner of the ceiling.
The weight of the day still lingers inside you: The fox’s scream, the chicken’s limping arrival, the silent dinner.
But then, that strange dessert, the strands of meat, the thick milk, the golden-burnt crust…
Somehow, everything feels like it was meant to be.
You wonder: maybe every recipe is born from a memory.
Maybe the real magic of cooking begins with milk accidentally burnt, or meat no one wanted refusing to be wasted.
Perhaps, somewhere deep in the back kitchens of the Ottoman palace, a sleepy apprentice who nodded off beside a simmering pot was the very first R&D chef in history.
As your eyes gently close again, the wind rustles the trees once more.
A dog barks in the distance, but this time, everything is still.
A day that began with a scream is now etched into your memory with a single plate of chicken and rice.
And in that moment, you understand: Every recipe is a memory.
Every dish, a story.
In the village, at the foot of the mountain, among wind-tossed leaves, you are growing quietly.
Slowly, but deeply.
Bitter and sweet.
But certainly, not a vegan.
Sincerely
Nesrin Eren
