Alcohol: The Elixir of Teen Downfall

Art by Ricky Riley and Mooni Abdus-Salam | VOX Staff

By Mooni Abdus-Salam | VOX Staff

All my life I’ve considered myself bilingual and multicultural. I grew up half African American, half Dominican and 100% Muslim. Over the years, I’ve come to realize how much of a privilege it is to be exposed to so much diversity in my life.

My diverse background has exposed me to a variety of foods from around the world. Having a whole home-cooked meal almost every night has always been something solid in my life. Even through the most drastic changes, like when my dad passed away or when my sister moved out for college, our family dinnertime has kept us stable. We bond over food like other families bond over camping trips or family reunions.

Tasty Ties
Over the years, as my family became accustomed to bonding over the food my mother cooks, people in my community have been drawn to her cooking too. Whenever she cooks certain recipes from her country, like pastelitos, she sometimes saves some for her friends or a few of mine as well. Sharing these meals with our friends and others in our community makes me feel like they’re a part of my family too.

My mom told me that cooking for her family has always been more of a pleasure than an obligation. Since she was born and raised in the Dominican Republic, she feels right at home cooking her native meals. She didn’t know how to cook any food outside of the Dominican Republic (except fried chicken) until my dad, who was both African-American and Muslim, visited the Dominican Republic and met her. After they were married and she moved with him to America, she was introduced to cooking soul food and, later, some Arab dishes.

Familiar Flavors
After years of making all the different dishes, it’s not uncommon for my family to have a variety of meals in one week: One night my mother would cook an assortment of soul food, like macaroni and cheese, fried chicken, sweet potatoes and collard greens. The next night would be different: We’d have arroz con abichuelas (rice and beans), bacalao (a type of dried cod) and platanos fritos (fried plantains).

It would be a perfect way of traveling to my mother’s homeland without leaving the comfort of our own home. While we’re there, we taste the recipes her grandmother always cooked for her throughout her childhood. She tells us how she used to come home from school in the afternoons and sit with all her cousins and aunts to eat whatever big meal my great-grandmother had prepared.

Then after staying in the Dominican Republic for one night, we’d travel to an Arab nation afterward to eat hummus tahini, decorated with olive oil and pine nuts, with baklava for dessert. Since my mother learned to cook these recipes from her best friend Nawwal, who is Jordanian, sometimes we are immersed in the sound of the Arabic language and customs that Nawwal’s family practices. Nawwal is like an aunt to me, and it’s as if we were sharing pieces of her childhood, too.

Through these culinary travels I’ve learned even though Dominican and Arabic recipes are different, it’s always important to keep these flavors alive and share them with the ones I love. That way I can give everyone a piece of where I come from. I now have tremendous appreciation for all international foods and recipes. I feel like eating different things gives me a small taste of what other people’s daily lives are like and what their experiences are, and it drives me to try even more new things