Wearing a bright pink visor cap to protect her head from the sun, Mamie Thornton stands in the middle of a lush vegetable garden that grows a stone`s throw from the elevated tracks.
She points with pride to the water plants–a green somewhat similar to spinach–grown by a Thai woman. She watches as two Laotian women carefully tend their flourishing greens, including lemon grass. Beautiful heads of red cabbage planted by Thornton grow regally in another section of the garden.
A few blocks away, in an empty North Side lot nestled between two brick buildings, a lifesize scarecrow stands guard over peppers, tomatoes, lettuce, corn, cabbages and cilantro grown by Angelo Garcia from Cuba and Julio Suarez from Puerto Rico.
Garlic and zucchini are two of the crops that grow abundantly behind the garage of Will and Dena Petito`s Hillside home. ”Twenty-four years we`ve been growing these vegetables . . . you can`t get more Italian than zucchini,”
Dena says.
”Garlic, basil, parsley, fennel and oregano, those are the herbs you need to cook Italian,” says Marcia Capone, of Riverside, who learned her Italian gardening from her father. Her backyard garden also is rich with zucchini, Swiss chard, mild peppers and Italian plum tomatoes.
Ethnic gardens abound in Chicago and its suburbs. They`re tucked alongside alleys, reclaimed from garbage-strewn empty lots and thrive behind garages and apartment buildings.
Some, like the one coordinated by Mamie Thornton of the pink hat, are community gardens where many gardeners represent many cultures. Others are individual gardens, carefully tended in back yards.
In all of them, the gardeners are preserving their heritage through the soil.
”It`s very natural that people express their ethnicity through their garden,” says Charles A. Lewis, horticulturalist for the Morton Arboretum in Lisle.
”And the community gardens . . . there`s an enhanced sense of neighborliness. Socio-economic and racial distinctions are erased. If you grow the best tomato, everyone wants to know how you do it, regardless of your language or color.”
That enhanced sense of neighborliness can come through even when the gardens are private.
During a recent garden walk through Chicago`s East Andersonville neighborhood, residents pointed with pride to the edible gow gee bush that grows in front of Tak Yin Ng`s home; when the Ng family is ready for dinner, they can simply go out the front door and pick part of their hedge (usually put in soups or stews as a thickener).
The same sense of pride and community is evident as Pilsen residents show off their Hispanic gardens. ”When we started (the community gardens), people said, `oh, they`ll be destroyed,` says Teresa Medina, a resident and one of the garden organizers. ”That hasn`t happened; a lot of people help take care of these gardens.”
Roses and lilies are intermingled with corn and peppers on a corner lot in the Pilsen area that has been dubbed Garden of Eden. Helen and Steve Michalec, who own the lot, helped turn it into a community project several years ago and about eight families now participate in the garden.
A few blocks away, Pedro Ortiz and several of his neighbors are hard at work in their garden while his wife, Carmen, cooks stuffed peppers and zucchini inside the house. She brings a large plate of them outside, still sizzling hot from the stove.
”Try them, try them,” she urges. ”They are so easy to make. . .with these banana peppers, it is so good to stuff them with cheese. You take out the seeds, put in cheese, dip them in a batter and fry.”
Jennifer Smith, a chef at Cafe Ba-Ba-Reeba!, had an empty lot behind her Rogers Park home that was flourishing with unsightly weeds. ”A Mexican family down the street came last year and asked if they could garden it, and I said sure. Now instead of weeds, we`ve got cilantro, jalapenos, cabbage, tomatoes, just about everything.”
Four Hispanic families, plus Smith, now garden the once weed-choked lot.
”We had gardens like this in Mexico. . .we`re all becoming friends and we help each other plant,” says Francisco Moreno, as his father, Juan, and several others who are working and talking on a hot, muggy evening nod and smile. ”Some of the seeds we get from Mexican stores.”
Collards, turnips, black-eyed peas, okra, broccoli, cabbage and tomatoes are some of the crops that Joann McInnis grows in her section of the community garden on the north side of the city where Angelo and Julio have their peppers and cilantro.
”When you see this food you grow, it gives you such a rush,” she says.
”It`s like being on a high. There`s nothing like eating vegetables in their virgin state. And it`s so inexpensive; you get a lot of groceries doing this,” she says.
Growing the foods of one`s heritage or childhood also helps keep memories alive.
”My parents were sharecroppers and, as a little boy, I helped. We had our own garden with eggplant, okra, beans, all these things,” says Arthur Ben, a full-blood Choctaw Indian who grew up in Mississippi and now grows the produce he remembers from his boyhood.
Marcia Capone`s background is Italian rather than Indian, but her Riverside garden also brings back strong memories. ”My dad used to grow all the vegetables; he lived in Berwyn. When he died 10 years ago, I took over,” she says. ”He would bring cucumber seeds from Italy, they were the best
(cucumbers) I`ve ever eaten. Now I have (a nurseryman) looking for those seeds.”
There`s another important part of gardening, and that`s just sitting back and relaxing, maybe gossiping a little, and watching the things grow.
Mamie and her fellow gardeners on the Far North Side do it right. Underneath a couple of trees, they have a few old chairs, a table and a little piece of green carpeting. They sit there, drinking water from jugs on the table and talking idly about the garden.
”Is this dill or cilantro?” Mamie asks, idly pulling a plant from the ground and smelling it. ”Cilantro,” she concludes. Another woman points to the Thai plot, filled with water plant. ”We call her Fast Mama, that lady from Thailand,” she says. ”She comes and goes so fast, she`s always in a hurry.”
On one of the trees they have a sign. One of the women found it, and they nailed it up. It applies to all cultures. It says: ”Oh Lord, help my words to be gracious and tender for tomorrow I may have to eat them.”
One of the wonderful traits of most gardeners, regardless of their heritage, is the desire to share. Visiting a vegetable garden usually means not only taking home a bag of tomatoes, peppers or zucchini–given in great pride–but also carrying along some recipes.
The following recipes are from Carmen Ortiz, who deftly stuffs with cheese many of the peppers and zucchini that grow in the community garden coordinated by her husband, Pedro.
STUFFED HOT BANANA PEPPERS
Eight servings
Preparation time: 40 minutes
Roasting time: 15 to 20 minutes
Frying time: 2 to 3 minutes
8 banana peppers
1 package (8 ounces) cream cheese
1/2 cup flour
3 eggs, separated
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup cooking oil
1. Roast peppers on a griddle or under the broiler until skin is lightly charred. Let cool slightly and then peel off charred skin.
2. Slice peppers open lengthwise (but do not cut through peppers) and remove core and seeds. Pat dry.
3. Cut the cream cheese into 8 equal pieces. Put 1 piece inside each pepper. Press on pepper to distribute cream cheese evenly. Press cut edge of pepper closed. Roll the peppers in flour to coat them evenly.
4. Beat egg whites and salt in medium bowl until stiff but not dry. Fold in beaten egg yolks.
5. Heat vegetable oil in frying pan until very hot. Dip a pepper in egg mixture. Carefully place in oil. Fry, a few at a time, turning until golden brown on all sides. Remove from pan with slotted spoon and put on paper towels to absorb extra oil. Repeat to fry all peppers.
6. Carmen recommends serving these peppers with rice, salad and beans.
