Pedro
There is a man named Pedro. Pedro lives alone: his living companion passed away not long ago, and he found a very large gap in his life. His companion had done all the cooking, for one. Pedro realized he didn't know how to cook anything except for a couple favorite dishes, rice and beans, plain salmon on a spinach salad with tomato and cucumber. He ate the salmon salad 5 days a week for over 3 months. Then, Pedro decided to come to a cooking class, led by Cooking Matters, an organization trying to bring healthy cooking skills to those who may not have them, or those who thought they could not afford the "healthy" foods displayed in the grocery stores. Fresh produce is expensive, and organics even more so.
I had the honor of teaching Pedro a few new recipes in the class he took. We focused on "American" foods, as many of the other students were from other places, and knew only recipes from home. Their children begged for odd dishes like "pizza" and "mac and cheese," dishes they encountered in school but had never had at home. The parents were flummoxed. They knew buying these foods from restaurants or pre-made in the store was expensive and unhealthy, but how do you make such a thing at home? And so they were all attracted to my class by the same things. The promise of something new to cook, easier solutions to healthy eating, cheaper ways of staying healthy than shopping at Whole Foods. But Pedro, especially, had a unique drive to learn. He truly wanted to be healthier, but also wanted to find something new, something exciting to add to his daily routine of meals. He always asked questions; what was healthier? How can you tell if the fish is good? Why are some foods so cheap? What if I made this with rice instead of pasta? His engagement was powerful.
On our 5th class, he told us that today, he had gotten his citizenship in the U.S. He proudly showed us pictures of the ceremony, of him holding up his certificate. I marveled at the process he worked through, so hard to achieve something that was simply handed to me at birth. Were we, as a country, deserving of his pride? Deserving of all the work he was putting in, to improve himself, to live a healthy life, to be self-sufficient in the face of hardships? Had our country done any work at all to get him to come? I felt almost sheepish in congratulating him. Congratulations didn't seem like the appropriate response. I wished I could somehow thank him for his hard work, thank him for joining our country, and thereby improving it in his own small way. But we have no word for that, no word I could think of that conveys appreciation of someone else's struggle. He then went on to show me, with equal pride, the healthy ingredients he had gathered from the grocery store, and the new recipe he had found to make with them. He was going to make himself four meals, based on this recipe, since he cooked only for himself. He would vary each portion slightly, using the same base, but substituting salmon for a fried egg here, adding tomato there, boiling potatoes instead of rice. Such imagination and ingenuity for a simple daily task. With careful thought and planning, he said, he could make all four meals for under $10. That was only $2.50 a meal, and what would he have spent going to a restaurant instead? As he explained all this to me, I wondered how often he was disregarded as a old foreigner (or worse, openly hated as some "Mexican immigrant"), based on his spotty English and his hunched back. How many of his neighbors, coworkers, even friends knew how much they could be learning from him?
All I could do was congratulate him, and give him advice on how to cook salmon. I don't know what this country did to deserve him, but I hope he feels accepted here.
I had the honor of teaching Pedro a few new recipes in the class he took. We focused on "American" foods, as many of the other students were from other places, and knew only recipes from home. Their children begged for odd dishes like "pizza" and "mac and cheese," dishes they encountered in school but had never had at home. The parents were flummoxed. They knew buying these foods from restaurants or pre-made in the store was expensive and unhealthy, but how do you make such a thing at home? And so they were all attracted to my class by the same things. The promise of something new to cook, easier solutions to healthy eating, cheaper ways of staying healthy than shopping at Whole Foods. But Pedro, especially, had a unique drive to learn. He truly wanted to be healthier, but also wanted to find something new, something exciting to add to his daily routine of meals. He always asked questions; what was healthier? How can you tell if the fish is good? Why are some foods so cheap? What if I made this with rice instead of pasta? His engagement was powerful.
On our 5th class, he told us that today, he had gotten his citizenship in the U.S. He proudly showed us pictures of the ceremony, of him holding up his certificate. I marveled at the process he worked through, so hard to achieve something that was simply handed to me at birth. Were we, as a country, deserving of his pride? Deserving of all the work he was putting in, to improve himself, to live a healthy life, to be self-sufficient in the face of hardships? Had our country done any work at all to get him to come? I felt almost sheepish in congratulating him. Congratulations didn't seem like the appropriate response. I wished I could somehow thank him for his hard work, thank him for joining our country, and thereby improving it in his own small way. But we have no word for that, no word I could think of that conveys appreciation of someone else's struggle. He then went on to show me, with equal pride, the healthy ingredients he had gathered from the grocery store, and the new recipe he had found to make with them. He was going to make himself four meals, based on this recipe, since he cooked only for himself. He would vary each portion slightly, using the same base, but substituting salmon for a fried egg here, adding tomato there, boiling potatoes instead of rice. Such imagination and ingenuity for a simple daily task. With careful thought and planning, he said, he could make all four meals for under $10. That was only $2.50 a meal, and what would he have spent going to a restaurant instead? As he explained all this to me, I wondered how often he was disregarded as a old foreigner (or worse, openly hated as some "Mexican immigrant"), based on his spotty English and his hunched back. How many of his neighbors, coworkers, even friends knew how much they could be learning from him?
All I could do was congratulate him, and give him advice on how to cook salmon. I don't know what this country did to deserve him, but I hope he feels accepted here.
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