I’D HAVE PLUM TORTE WITH MY MOM
Last weekend I was driving through the country with a friend, the leaves a blurry swirl of colour. It’s fall now in Montréal, the summer always expiring too quickly, and we were trying to squeeze in one last hike. Passing through Beloeil, we saw a yard with the sign “prunes à vendre” – plums for sale. We stopped the car next to the yard, and an older lady stepped out onto the porch. “Ce sont des prunes italiennes!” (they’re Italian plums!) she proudly offered, and she told me about her large plum tree and its abundant yield. We had a hurried exchange at a distance, the way that strangers do in the time of Covid. I gladly put change into a jar in exchange for a small basket of plums, and off we drove.
Upon tasting the plums and doing more research at home, I wonder if the super tart fruits I purchased were not in fact Damsons. No matter, because I knew the recipe they were going into: Marian Burros’ famous plum torte in the New York Times. The recipe was first published in 1983, and it is so popular that it has been published nearly every year since. The reviews are solid, and upon reading one from acclaimed Canadian journalist Jan Wong, I was convinced I had to make it (1).
This morning, I woke up to the sound of birds in the ruelle and I slowly made my way to the kitchen. I turned the oven on and set about making this torte. With a simple batter and straightforward method, it was in the oven before I could finish my mug of tea. I jumped on a work call while it baked, and as promised by the Jan Wong review, my house filled with the aroma of butter, sugar, and plums.
Like many of you, I’ve been looking for comfort these days, a rare currency in these tumultuous times. But today, there’s mottled sunlight in my apartment, filtered by the linden tree out front (2). The wind outside is crisp but the air inside is fragrant, and my breathing has been steadied by the meditative mixing of batter. I feel a rare moment of contentment.
It reminded me of a scene in Greta Gerwig’s Little Women, which I finally got around to watching last night. As I watched the mother character Marmee baking into the night for her girls, I was acutely aware of how much I wish I had a mom who would do the same: bake scones, hold my hand, and give me a knowing look as she said, “get up girl, put on your shoes. This world ain’t gonna stop so why should you?”
I’ve been thinking about my own mom these days. She passed away when I was 12, a lifetime ago now that I am 34. And yet I’ve never grown out of needing a mom, even as I realize how strange it is to spend more time not having someone in your life than having them in it. They can still leave an indelible mark.
In the film, Gerwig so brilliantly captures the dynamics between women, and how society then (and even today) stifles women in their ambitions and assigns them societal roles. There’s a great essay in the New Yorker about Marmee as a character in her own right, who is a foreshadow of the constraints within which her daughters find themselves living (3). When I was a child, I would resent my mom for working too much and not being a mom enough. She didn’t pick me up from school, she didn’t accompany my class on field trips, and we most certainly did not talk about boys. Essentially, she was her own woman apart from me – painful to know as a child but something that I am beginning to understand. Despite knowing her for less than half my life, I’ve absorbed so many of her traits – working all the time, having endless side projects, and owning an embarrassingly unrestrained laugh – and I cannot say that I judge her. Instead, I admire her for setting an example of being ambitious, and living for the projects and people that made her feel alive.
Unlike the Marmee in Little Women, my mother was never one to cook. I can remember precisely two occasions in which she turned on the stove: once when she was teaching me and my sister Hailey to make 出前一丁 Nissin instant noodles (“cook the noodles so that they still have their bounce, and then rinse with cold water to wash the oil off”), and another instance when she miraculously made a pumpkin and beef stew.
Sometimes when I am in an indulgent mood, I like to think of things we would do if she were still around. I like to think that we would catch an early meal in the city and go to the opera. I like to think that she and I would be into the same Chet Baker album. I like to think that she would hold my hand in moments of doubt and give me a knowing look. But I know that I’d be the one cooking, and I know what I would do on an autumn day like today: I’d have plum torte with my mom.
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1) RECIPE: For the full recipe, click here. I replaced all of the flour with spelt, and used just over half a cup of organic cane sugar. I added about 2 tsp of fresh thyme leaves into the batter, as well as a half teaspoon of cinnamon. Afterwards, I brushed the top with Dinette Nationale’s bergamot syrup and garnished with a few more thyme leaves, but I feel that a light layer of honey could be a nice substitute.
2) TREE MAP: If you live in Montréal and have wondered about the trees on your street and when they were planted, check out Quebio’s tree map of the city.
3) OMG THIS ARTICLE IN THE ATLANTIC: If you also loved Gerwig’s adaptation and the theme of love versus fulfillment, John Matteson’s review in The Atlantic is an absolute pleasure to read. Also can we please take a moment to stan Professor Bhaer?
