1Dish4TheRoad
"1 Dish 4 The Road".. Fusing food writing with whatever else I find on the road – fiction, history, poetry, humour, diversity, family stories & London.

‘A Tale of Two Fish Balls’ – Trini Saltfish Fritters & Grandma’s Gefilte

A plate of Trinidadian fish fritters, alongside Jewish gefilte fish.

Brixton has an energy, a palpable energy, that I love. From the stalls that line Electric Avenue and Atlantic Road, to the shop frontages that spill out onto the streets, there’s often a buzz as the traders go about their business, hollering out the specials, or just casually chit-chatting under the tarpaulin.

This neighbourhood may be attracting the unsavoury attention of developers and landlords, who prefer to see it in terms of profit and turnover, rather than communities and livelihoods. But for now, the markets keep on going, nourishing and sustaining the various communities that call Brixton home: West African, Caribbean, Latin American, and many others besides.

And then there are the outsiders like me, who come for a few hours at a time. Like I am today – making the most of a glorious summer’s day, and a momentary lull in the global pandemic.

So after months where home has been both a haven and a fortress, I’m venturing out of my hibernation, stretching out stiff limbs, breathing in air that seems unusually fresh, and reconnecting with the outside world.

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Grandma Beryl’s Chicken Soup

Chicken Soup, reminding me of the ones the Grandma Beryl used to make. Hers was of course the best.

In so many ways, Grandma Beryl was the matriarch of our family and a wise dignified figurehead. She was almost always immaculately turned out, her hair a halo of wispy-white cotton-candy with not a strand out of place. Her elocution was invariably poised and precise, graced with a slight Mancunian lilt, and as mellifluous as any a Radio 4 presenter.

Through the best part of ninety years, us children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren would congregate at Grandma’s each week, her home bursting alive with the sighs and squeals of newborn babies, the pitter-patter of toddler feet, children trampolining on the sofa, kids taking penalty kicks in the lounge, and grown-ups sporadically crying out “Mind the ornaments!”, all accompanied by the constant clang and clatter of cutlery and plates as they materialised on and off the dining-room table.

Of course she loved all this, the hubbub of family coming together. And ultimately she yearned for nothing more than her family to be happy and well. To that end, she connected deeply with each and every one of us, like the gravitational pull of a warm radiating sun round which all our lives orbited.

And when it came to my Grandpa Reuben, well she was beyond devoted. He’d been her rock, and she his; a husband she’d lovingly served in an old-fashioned way, a couple and a home steeped in Jewish tradition. (“Call me old-fashioned” was in fact her favourite refrain.) But even after he died, the family would continue to come, week after week, and she remained the constant, the glue, the fabric, by which our family were reassuringly held.

On second thoughts, ‘matriarch’ isn’t quite right. The word conjures up images of haughtiness and detachment which couldn’t be further from the truth when it came to Grandma Beryl. She was a warm, loving, generous soul, totally unassuming, always smiling, gentle in her humility, yet strong in her own way.

A real ‘people person’, she loved snatching a conversation here and there, with everyone and anyone, from taxi-drivers to Big Issue sellers. And she was naturally gifted with a wonderful sense of humour, somehow both knowingly cheeky and yet brilliantly bone-dry, radiant even until her very last days.

For 10th October 2016 was her very last day, when her life was no more and she was finally at peace.  View Post