It Is the Inside that Counts

Every time I come home on a Sunday afternoon, I can hear the sizzling of my mom’s pan. A delicious smell enters my nose as I breathe in. Home. Not a place, but the food I have been savoring a lot lately: my mom’s meat patties.

Almost every week, she grinds up the beef and morphs them like a sculpture into tiny balls, which are then squished to make the circular shape. She makes them even when she’s feeling unwell, always determined to bring joy to the family with her food. After her ridiculously packed week, she still places her apron above her head and oils up the pan. Every time she makes a batch, it melts in my mouth with every single bite.

That is not what is most impressive, though. It is always the inside of the patty that makes me want to melt into the ground, the carrots. Lately, my mom has been going through a phase of eating healthy, and I have gone along the journey with her. When she urged me to eat a new, healthier version of the dish, I stared at the lumpy piece of meat, moving it on my plate back and forth with my fork. Disgusted, I heard my stomach grumble and yell for food. I finally gave in and soon devoured the entire batch, still wondering what those lumps were.

I found out that the lumps were actually carrots, nutritious and mouth-watering. This baffled me. How could something that tasted so good be made out of the one vegetable I hate? Fast forward to now, this dish is a family favorite and my mom makes it every Sunday. Once the familiar smell hits my nose, I am at the dinner table with my fork and a hungry stomach, ready to eat as much as I can. I always wondered what her secret to make such delicious food was.

This was my mom’s own take on the unhealthy, oily, hamburger meat of the United States. She took something of her new culture and made it her own, adding and improving along the way. My mom bakes her meat with love, and that is what makes it taste so wonderful. It is when you bite into it, and it melts into your mouth. It is when it occurs to you that she took so long to prepare this dish just so you could have a satisfactory meal. That is when you realize she works so hard to do everything for you.