purslane

at the mobile food pantry

Authors note: Hi subscribers. If you’re wondering why you’re seeing this again, I had issues sending this out to my entire subscriber list. Apologies! - Stephanie

Photo by Aaron Doucett on Unsplash

Across the lobby a mans eyes lock on the box in front of me. He ambles into the building with an older woman, likely his mother, beside him. Despite his eyes lingering a bit longer than the average passerby, the pair carry on to enter the clinic.

Many others also pass by the table of produce- a mobile food pantry composed of an assortment of vegetables gleaned by local farms and urban gardens. Some glance. Others linger. Some folks take the time to pause upon our offering, filling up their bags with produce and gratitude. And although we’re successful at getting the attention of most passerby, most of our participants arrive before we do. Every Friday, they organize themselves into a line on the opposite end of the lobby, patiently waiting as we carry in produce crates. Some, typically gray-haired women donning surgical face masks and a plastic bag around one wrist, insist on helping me unfold a table without saying a word. They take the table cloth from my hands, open it onto the table, just to step back in line and wait to be served.

As the hour of the mobile food pantry passes by, folks pass through the community clinic lobby, filling up paper or plastic bags with produce. Most of them pick up what they’re familiar with - potatoes, collards, broccoli, green onion. But today, many pause at the end of the table, shy to ask about the only box that seems to be untouched. It’s filled with purslane - a common weed with waxy petals and a reddish-brown stem. You’ve probably had your hands on the succulent before in your yard or garden. You might even find it in the cracks of a sidewalk. Their ability to withstand dry conditions and poor soil allows it to grow all over. Because of such, we typically rip it out of the soil to spare our crops or spray it with pesticides.

With our encouragement and education, some feel brave enough to pick it up. One woman even recognizes the weed, telling us she chops it in salad. But many leave it behind, not wanting to take what they may not use. As our produce dwindles, the man and his mother amble out of the clinic doors. As they exit into the lobby, the mans face opens like a flower to the sun, and he quickens his pace to the table. He walks over to the box, his mother just behind him and says a word I don’t recognize.

“Where did you get this?”

I explain that we’re a mobile food pantry and the produce is gleaned from a range of farms and urban gardens in the city.

His mother also looks in the box and starts speaking to me in a language I do not recognize. Despite her voice being soft and worn, it presses with excitement.

They love the succulent. They rarely ever see it in America. The man is so excited I can no longer tell if he’s translating for his mother or speaking for himself. He shares how they cook it. Where to buy it in their country. How much it costs to buy there vs. here. It is lemony. Simple to sauté in a pan. Great fresh or cooked. You can mash them and cook them with spices into a stew. He is brimming, turning between his mother and the table. He’s eager and floating and opening himself to me. All over a crate full of weed.

We offer him and his mother a paper bag to take some home. They ask how much, we say, as much as you want. There are no limits on the purslane - it’s been so hard to get rid of. They only take a couple bunches and debate putting one back. I insist on taking more. They are so excited they forget the rest of the table. The potatoes, green onion, cabbage, collards, tomatoes. I redirect them to the rest of the table, filling up my own hands with potatoes to place in their bag.

The mans smile breaks through the mist outside. Through the sterile white walls. It breaks through the words he uses that I can’t quite understand. He says thank you several times, in several directions, with several nods and walks off with a piece of home tucked under one arm in a paper bag and his mother wrapped in the other.