There is nothing more sacred to an expat than the taste of food from home, although this is the kind of truth we only understand when it is too late. In my case, the “too late” moment came when I moved to Nevşehir, AKA Cappadocia.
As I watched, mortified, a little Turkish boy bite into a coxinha, frown, express his disgust, grab a sigara börek and walk away; the “too late” moment of the day turned to fury.
Börek: fried filo pastry with cheese filling. A Turkish thing. The kind of thing that is even sold frozen in bags at the supermarket, appears at grandmothers’ afternoon tea tables, expresses the host’s lack of time to properly cook something and has the personality of a bag of wind: empty.
Now, the coxinha is different. A handmade dough, filled with delicious chicken, herbs and special cream cheese, deep fried, crispy on the outside, soft and juicy on the inside. Just perfect… and obviously biased since it is a Brazilian dish described by a Brazilian.
For the past week I had spent most nights preparing coxinhas and my expectations were high. It was 2017, my brother’s birthday approached and like every immigrant family, the boy’s first birthday at school required our traditional birthday snack: coxinha.
We were officially on a mission to prepare two hundred units of something that doesn’t exist in Turkey and it is hard to cook, while also having full time jobs and a busy schedule. Family first.
Although many Brazilians choose to restart their lives abroad, there is a crucial difference between life in countries that are culturally “closer” to us and countries where our culture is almost unknown. In the USA, France, Spain? Go to a Brazilian grocery store, grab your goodies and go be happy at home.
In Türkiye? First you need a lot of positive thinking, maybe pray to God for someone who is coming from Brazil with empty space in their suitcase. Expand your contact list to increase your chances by having more friends, try to coordinate the weight of what you requested so as not to be inconvenient to the suitcase owner, pray that security don’t confiscate the tea herbs at the airport thinking it’s “something else” and even then, if the products arrive, use it slowly so you don’t run out of it.
What a pain!
For the boy’s birthday, we made condensed milk from scratch. An almost medieval task that, throughout the process, made me think of all the times I walked down the avenue back in Brazil, wearing flip-flops, without a care in the world, bought two cans of condensed milk, went home, prepared my favorite dessert and ate a whole plate while watching a movie. Times were different.
Now I apparently needed a complete biceps workout to stir milk and sugar for hours and, who knows, maybe, get some condensed milk and not burn a pan.
Three days later everything was finally ready. Two hundred coxinhas, one hundred chocolate truffles and a Spiderman cake. At least superheroes are international, so I was spared the artistic humiliation of having to decorate a cake and fail.
The Turkish version of the birthday song is more sincere, in my opinion. Although the melody of “Happy Birthday” is universal, in Turkish they say “iyiki doğdun” or “I’m glad you were born”. It fits the song just like the Brazilian “parabens para voce”, but let’s be honest: the motivation of knowing that someone is happy because you were born and continue to exist, sounds much more affectionate than the idea of “congratulations, you survived another year, here’s your cake”.
We sang, my little brother smiled through the entire ordeal. After the mini-clapping of mini-hands ended, his teacher came asking: “what are we going to serve?”
I showed the coxinha boxes as if I had just opened a treasure trunk full of diamonds right on the face of an unfortunate person, expecting the most incredible and grateful reaction. She was quick to trample my expectations and reply with “is there anything else?”.
By divine law, every family of delusional immigrants always has a more realistic member. My stepfather, the Turkish guy, realizing that the coxinhas would probably be rejected, ordered sigara börek. The teacher and her assistants prepared the disposable plates with a slice of cake, coxinha, börek and a chocolate truffle each.
My brother, like any normal Brazilian / Turkish child, grew up with the constant influence of Brazilian food at home. Everything we prepared was always made from scratch, since there were no (and still aren’t) places to buy our traditional ingredients in Nevşehir. He loved it, so in our heads it made sense to believe that other children would have the same reaction. They didn’t.
That day my mother and I watched the massacre of our coxinhas, so perfectly shaped, stuffed and fried; only to be bitten once and left in the limbo of disposable plates while the börek was devoured.
“How can anyone not like our food?” – I asked. My Turkish stepfather replied: “They don’t know it. They like the things they know from home… and so do you.”
Ouch! He was unfortunately right. In the last few years in Türkiye, although I had adapted pretty well, I avoided eating at the office or in places that weren’t a perfect representation of the West: fast food or pizza. I avoided the börek, criticized it and countered every argument with the theory that nothing compares to a coxinha. When given the chance, I was the ambassador of Brazilian food to any and every Türk who would listen to me.
My emotional denial was as huge as my frustration. I was born and raised in a small town, with very dedicated grandparents, incredible uncles and loving parents. Yes, I was spoiled to the max and, like a good girl who spent a lot of time with her grandmother, I only ate what I wanted and eating became a coping mechanism.
When I moved at the age of twenty to such a unique country, I kept my coping mechanism as active as ever, just to be able to function. Most of my days were spent rowing against the tide of new experiences. The language I didn’t speak, the bus signs I couldn’t read yet, the routine I didn’t assimilate, the cold weather, the handsome men I didn’t comprehend, the new friends who shared with me age but not my interests.
At the end of every evening, all I wanted was to eat. I craved the taste, texture and smell of something that would transport me to my hometown. A place of certainties and zero doubts. Those children did not hate the coxinhas, they just loved the börek. Not because it is more delicious, but probably because it is a palatable memory of their homes and at this point we were the same.
While my brother’s friends celebrated his seven years of age, laughing with their mouths full of Börek and using that little break to distance themselves from the whirlwind of new rules, the alphabet, numbers and the adaptation period at a new school; I found myself as childish as they.
Leaving home hurts. Just like a little girl cheered by her parents for being a genius, who suddenly goes to school and realizes that she is not so smart compared to the whole classroom; the story was repeating itself in my adult life.
Me, such an independent woman who once was able to do anything and everything; now needed to relearn how to speak, dress, take the bus, eat and even behave.
With the trash bag of the party already full of deflated balloons, the disfigured image of Spider Man on a cake and an empty classroom; we turned off the lights and left.
On our way home, I asked my little brother if he had enjoyed his first birthday party at school. While holding my hand he said: “Sometimes it makes me mad, but I guess I like school.”
I understand him well… because so do I.
