Spinach

My dad and mom met through a matchmaker. They fell in love and at the third or fourth date, mom went to his home to see his parents, and brother and sister. They all welcomed her with a traditional Japanese feast. The feast included ohitashi, a Japanese traditional spinach salad or boiled spinach with soy sauce on it. Mom had a problem. Until then she had never had such ohitashi. At her home, ohitashi was boiled spinach with Worcestershire sauce. My maternal grandma was born in San Paulo and grew there until coming back to Japan when she was eight. She liked ham, cheese, bread and coffee, and preferred Worcestershire sauce to soy sauce. It was a historic change for my mom, but she couldn't say so and has adopted the Japanese way since marriage. And more than ten years later, she talked about that cultural shock for the first time to me. I was ten years old. My mom has never complained about it but I suspect that she may sometimes want to have boiled spinach in grandma's way. My grandmothers both died more than five years ago. They were born in different places, one in Japan and the other in Brazil, but both worked hard and loved their children and grandchildren. They lived the prewar and postwar periods. I sometimes remember them these days. I don't know why.