Interpreting Potlucks

“Ma, what is this?” I winced at the sharpness in my tone. I shouldn’t be raising my voice to my mother on the day Jesus rose from the dead.

“What do you mean?”

“What is this? What have you cooked here?”

“You know, the usual. Gravy, peas – ”

“Mom, I thought we discussed this. Tonight is potluck. We asked families to bring food.”

“What?” My mother tilted her head curiously, her lips pursed in a question.

“You were supposed to make a turkey.”

“Yes. It’s in the oven.”

“So – what’s this?”

“Well, I just thought some rutabega would be nice.”

“And the peas?”

“The girls don’t like some kinds of vegetables, so I cooked them peas.”

“And the stuffing?”

“The stuffing goes with the turkey. It’s really the same thing.” Not quite, but I let that one go. Turkey without stuffing did seem strange.

“And the rice?”

“Some people don’t like potatos.”

“You cooked the potatos?” I took a deep breath. “The plan was for me to come over and make the mashed potatos. The point of a potluck, Mom, is so that you don’t do too much work and get sick again. You always over do it.”

“Well,” she looked away now and moved to the sink, realizing I had caught on. “You’re so busy these days and you’re coughing. Anyway, they’re ready to be mashed. You can mash them. I’ll watch.”

“I don’t like it when you watch.”

“Why not?”

“Because you criticize how I cook.”

“No, I’m just watching.” She smiled prettily at me.

“Why is there asparagus out?”

“I thought …”

“No, Ma. No. No asparagus. Put the asparagus back. Chris is cooking eggplant, Irene is bringing noodles, Ian is bringing spring rolls. We don’t need asparagus.”

My eye caught something glistening in the toaster oven. “Oh, Lord. Ma – is that a ham in the oven? You cooked a ham?”

“We won’t serve it. It’s just in case.”

“Just in case what?”

“Just in case we run out of food. Your Daddy said to cook it.”

“When have we ever run out of food?”

She furrowed her eyebrows together. “It’s not nice to run out of food, honey.” Despite her words, her tone implied we were talking about the apocalypse.

I looked around helplessly. “Do they have potlucks in the Philippines? I mean, is there a word for potluck in Filipino?”

“We do potlucks.” She shrugged her shoulders. “Not really.” It was my mother’s typical way of answering questions.

“They don’t do potlucks? Is that what you’re saying?”

“Sure, you can.” She made it sound like I had just asked her if Filipinos liked jumping into a pit of hot fire. “But, you shouldn’t ask people to come over and then ask them to bring food with them.”

Even though my Mom had lived in Canada for over forty years, I still sometimes found myself amidst cultural negotiation. “It’s okay Mom. People do potlucks here in Canada. It’s normal. It’s polite. Just like it’s normal and polite to serve pizza at birthday parties.”

She looked at me in disgust.

“It’s not polite to cook so much for potlucks.” I tried to lay it out as clear as I could. “It makes the people bringing food wonder why they took the time to cook. You don’t want people to feel like they wasted their time.”

My words were met with a chilly silence.

I sighed. “I know, Mom. I know. You show love through your cooking.”

She frowned at me. “That’s not the only way I show love.”

“But it’s your favorite way.” She shook her head at me, as if I was being disrespectful. In her eyes, I probably was. Telling her that she cooked too much was like telling her she loved too much.

Suddenly, the front door opened and my sister and brother-in-law swept in, their three kids trailing noisily behind them.

My sister surveyed the kitchen and said, “Mom, what is this?”

I walked over and pulled my sister aside before she could take it all in. “Next year, let’s have Easter at your house.” I paused and watched my mother’s delight at the kids ooh-ing and aah-ing over the spread of food before them. “Mom can keep Christmas dinner. She’ll be heartbroken if she can’t overfeed us at least once a year.”