My mother arrives early for dinner. We’re making a roast. I’ve bought what I think might be a turnip in Dunnes but I’m actually hoping it’s a swede. I have a hankering for a dish my mother cooked every Sunday back in the day, swede and carrot mashed up together, a delicious marriage of root vegetables. I bought a rake of parsnips too for full Sunday roast nostalgia. And a big bag of Maris Pipers for roast potatoes and mash. That’s a lot of peeling and chopping, if you think about it. She sits at the table and I put her to work with the peeler.
I haven’t seen her in ages. She’s been on holiday with my sister and her family in Malaga where she got into the sea for the first time in years. The photos made me cry. My sister brings her away to Portugal or Spain every year. They play cards and Scrabble and spend hours chatting in the sunshine. Even though she’s always reluctant to go anywhere that involves leaving the island – it’s the hassle of the airport and the homebird in her – my mother had a brilliant time as usual.
It’s her big sister Joyce’s birthday the day my mother comes for dinner. Joyce is turning 98 in London. My mother turned 87 in Malaga. It’s always been my mother’s ambition to get to 100. She talks about it a lot. Now she’s 87 she’s decided that if she can just get to 90, then she reckons 100 is more than doable. If she gets to 90 she’ll just carry on, she reckons, towards the really big birthday and that letter from the president. There’s no science behind it, just a feeling she has. I don’t bother saying there is no logic to it. Dolly Parton gone at 80. Gloria Steinem at 92. Dear friends and wonderful colleagues gone much, much earlier. Still, if my mother feels if she can reach 90 then 100 is possible, I’m not going to argue with her.
“It IS a swede,” my mother declares, up to her elbows in peelings. Even with her macular degeneration she knows a swede when she sees one. I do a bit of research while she’s chopping and peeling. A swede is a hybrid of a cabbage and a turnip. In America they call it a rutabaga and in Scotland they call it neep. They have it on Burns night with potatoes. Neeps and tatties, they call it.
READ MORE
Talk about a super food. It turns out the humble and often unloved swede is a high-fibre nutritional hero that is excellent for gut health, the immune system and for lowering cholesterol. Some of the Big Swede fanatics say it might even work against cancer. As my mother chops and peels I give quiet thanks for the sulphur-containing antioxidant glucosinolate in swede which, apparently, allegedly, has been shown to reduce the growth of cancerous tumours.
This is a typical Sunday dinner I’m making but today is actually a Saturday which is confusing us all. With the roast chicken smells and the Yorkshire pudding batter resting in the fridge we keep thinking it’s Sunday. Then we remember it’s Saturday and we have a whole other day of the weekend to look forward to. It’s a revelation. Having Sunday dinner on a Saturday plays tricks with the brain and prolongs the weekend. You are very welcome.
The dinner is probably the best Sunday Dinner on a Saturday I’ve ever made. One of those dinners where every element shines. The suave swede is the real star though. After chopping chunks of carrot and swede, my mother coaches me through the cooking process. I am to cook them just enough but not too much, and when mashing them together to make sure that there are still chunks of both vegetables nestling in the mash. “Perfect,” she says and I beam.
After dinner we play cards, a game called Up To Ten And Back Again which is a family favourite. And we laugh. I couldn’t tell you what we laugh about, I just know my jaw is aching by the time the fireworks go off in Croke Park and Katie Taylor saunters slowly like a Celtic Goddess towards the boxing ring.
[ Róisín Ingle: I took my mother to London to see Joyce, her only remaining siblingOpens in new window ]
We watch the spectacle agog for a bit, then we drive my mother back to Phibsborough. It’s way past her usual bedtime. She is anxious to get back before the more than 80,000 Taylor fans are disgorged on to the streets. We’re in the car listening to the radio when the Bray woman is declared the winner. My mother is in bed before the first fan is traipsing down the North Circular Road.
I missed her when she was off in Malaga swimming in the sea and eating sardines. I realise this, on the way home, watching the happy crowds streaming out of Croker, the flags flying and the food trucks hopping. Good job she’s going to live to 100, I think. I missed her warmth, her laugh, her open heart. I didn’t tell her that earlier when she was in my house peeling swede and potatoes and carrots to beat the band. I’m not sure why. I suppose I am telling her now.
