My Ba Noi is particular about food and the way we eat it. Whenever she brought bowls brimming with broth to the table, she’d have a couple rubber bands, scrounged from the pen drawer, tucked under her fingers. Looking at my cousins and I, she’d hold them out rubber bands for us to tie our hair back. Sometimes she’d forget until after we had already started eating. Spoon halfway to my mouth, she’d gently pull my hair back with her frail hands and tie it for me.
Anytime she made fish, she’d swiftly remind us to rinse out our mouths before we’d even finished our plates. “Súc miệng,” she’d instruct us, pointing not only her finger, but her whole body towards the bathroom. Whether it was the meals at her table or the random pantry items set out for us while we lounged on the couch, Ba Noi loved us through food, and we could not refuse anything she left in front of us.
I never realized how much Ba Noi’s insistence actually meant love until my brother Jonah decided to become vegetarian.
When he made the switch, we were all confused as to how he’d be able to pull it off. My mom was astonished that her son, who used to love thit chà bông and phở bò viên, decided not to eat meat anymore. We didn’t know what to eat for family meals and my parents grew concerned that Jonah, already a scrawny, thin boy, would become even skinnier.
My mom constantly voiced her concern and exasperation with this new decision, but Ba Noi had even more impassioned opinions.
Ba Noi was our primary babysitter growing up. My siblings and my cousins are all within a few years of each other and before starting elementary school, we’d fill Ba Noi’s house, just a gaggle of crying and clingy toddlers running amuck. With any life change or accomplishment, Ba Noi is quick to recount how she held each of us in her old, frail arms. How small we used to be. Now, so grown up.
She especially remembers Jonah as a baby. He was always the smallest of us all. He was a joyful baby with the biggest smile and chubby cheeks that didn’t deflate until high school. He always looked small next to my older brother and oldest cousin, both surprisingly big guys compared to their small-framed parents. Jonah was a picky eater, liked to jump and be thrown around, and didn’t hit his growth spurt until high school. In my grandmother’s mind, Jonah was still that small, too skinny, and fragile boy.
When he decided not to eat meat anymore, she was adamant: Jonah could not be vegetarian.
She embarked on a mission to change his mind. She’d pull Jonah to the side at dinners, urging with theatrical arm motions and urgent facial expressions that he needed to eat meat so he could become less skinny. Jonah, devoid of the words to explain himself and only understanding bits of what she was saying, would simply nod and repeat “Dạ, dạ…”
When her urging didn’t seem to work, she pulled each of the siblings and cousins aside. “You need to convince Jonah that he needs to eat meat! You know how skinny he is,” she’d repeat to us in Vietnamese. We’d walk away, slightly shaking our heads, knowing Jonah’s stubbornness and his genuine desire to maintain this lifestyle change.
When the cousins and siblings couldn’t get Jonah to change his mind, Ba Noi chose her next target: my mom. While my mom tried to shift her cooking for Jonah, she’d get incessant calls from Ba Noi checking to see if Jonah decided to eat meat again. They had the same conversation over the phone day after day, my mom agreeing with Ba Noi but knowing that there wasn’t much that could bring Jonah back to the meat-eaters’ side of the world.
We had to face the facts: Jonah wanted to be vegetarian. Even Ba Noi’s insistence couldn’t change things.
One day, Ba Noi stopped by our house dressed in stretchy purple pants, a worn-in pink sweatshirt, a silky floral scarf tied over her head topped with a fuzzy purple fedora. Hobbling in, she was toting two bags, one in each hand. She was more enthusiastic that we’d seen her in a while.
She set the bags down, trying with frail fingers to untie the knots she’d secured so tightly. Finally, she pulled a styrofoam box from each bag. When she opened the top, the warm, nutty smell of chả giò immediately permeated the room. Fresh from the fryer, the crisp rolls sat neatly stacked against each other.
Jonah rounded the corner and Ba Noi quickly motioned him over. She pointed at one of the boxes, “This one’s for you. Vegetarian,” she explained in Vietnamese.
We all grabbed a chả giò, wrapping it neatly in a paper towel by instinct, back when our little fingers couldn’t handle holding the hot roll with our bare hands. Jonah bit into his spring roll, enjoying the familiar taste of the fried wrapper and soft, salty fillings now made for him without meat.
Looking around at us, my grandmother nodded in approval. “Cảm ơn!” we all exclaimed, the only phrase we seemed to know to express our love for her.
Some two years later, Jonah is still vegetarian. Ba Noi still throws in a few comments about his meatless eating habits as she loads the coffee table with burnt popcorn, pantry potato chips, and washed grape bunches. She’ll call him to ask if he’s eating enough and when he’s coming to visit her. And when he does, she’ll be prepared with a boiling pot of his Vietnamese favorites, made vegetarian for him.
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