My mother's uncle was the first in his family to come to America. He came by way of Chicago, but he ended up in Southern California, and when he had a house with a backyard, he put down roots. Specifically, guava tree roots, cherimoya, pomegranate. Whatever could grow he grew. When the rest of his family followed him here, he brought them fruit from his garden, but he hated (still hates) being trapped in conversation, so he left it in grocery bags piled on their doorsteps and drove back home before anyone could come out and talk to him.
In kindergarten we were asked to list something we admired about our family members, and I said: I love the way my grandfather cuts fruit. No one knew what to make of that, but even then I knew that the way he cut fruit was spectacular. In his hands he would slice an apple the size of a softball into neat segments, decoring it cleanly, not a single bite of flesh wasted, not a seed left where it should not be. He had an eye for fruit. Pears, watermelon, lychee, cherries, strawberries, oranges, persimmon, papaya, honeydew, grapes.
He loved mangoes most of all. In Pakistan, he used to visit the orchards himself, bringing home every kind of variety as soon as they were in season. In California, vastly limited, he would still bring home crates of Kent from the Indian grocery store as soon as they came in, would menace us into eating at least three slices before we got sick of it. No one else was allowed to cut fruit in the house, or use his knife. This was his realm, and his alone. He was a painter, and a musician, and to this day I still think his greatest art was cutting fruit.
My father's parents lived in our house, and I rarely saw them show each other affection. That was how it was. They hardly knew each other when they were married. They were together for more than sixty years, and I only saw their love if one of them was hurt, and when they cut fruit together together at the dining table. My grandmother didn't cut the fruit, but she made things out of the fruit my grandfather cut for her. She pickled the lemons, made lassi and balai out of the mangoes, and in Ramadan she made fruit chaat.
Fruit chaat is just fancy fruit salad. After a day of fasts, especially in the heat of summer (which Ramadan always was in when I was growing up) it was the perfect thing to eat. Cold, and sweet, and sour, and spicy. A feast of textures and colors. At its simplest form, it's fruit dowsed liberally with lemon juice and sugar, some salt. The chaat part comes from the chaat masala, which can vary in components. My mom makes hers herself, and we treat it like gold. It has roasted cumin, dried red chili, black pepper, and most importantly black salt. My grandmother had her own particular way of making it, but my sister and I like to improvise.
I honor my ancestors by eating fruit. Any fruit will do, and when you live in Massachusetts and not California, you can't often afford to be picky. I'm still not a big fan of mangoes, the kind you can get here at least, but I've fallen in love with tomatoes, with cabbage, with blackberries and apples. When I dream about my grandfathers, they're both walking through gardens. I hope, there, there's something good to eat.