Mothers cook through their grief

When mourning a loved one, sometimes preparing a favorite food offers a way to help slowly emerge from the cocoon of sorrow.

A group of bereaved mothers from OneFamily, an organization dedicated to the rehabilitation of victims of terror attacks and their families, has been compiling a book of recipes that had fallen out of favor due to trauma — often dishes that were particularly preferred by family members who were killed.

Last week, they tried out some of the recipes on a group of visitors, fellow mothers from South Africa and New Jersey who wanted to learn more about the victims through their favorite dishes.

“I know from experience that it’s much easier to help memorialize the deceased by having an activity with the bereaved,” said Rachel Moore, the OneFamily spokesperson. “It breaks down the boundaries and allows the mothers to talk about cooking for their children.”

The workshop had the different groups of mothers cooking and eating lunch together, said Moore, with the menu including latkes (the Israeli moms taught the visitors to parboil the potatoes first, an essential step), challah (baked in different shapes), bulgur salad (a grain the visiting mothers not very familiar with), and possibly the most popular dish among the visitors, mejadra, a traditional dish of rice and lentils topped with fried onions.

“They found that mejadra is such a basic food here, but the American women hadn’t heard of it, and loved it,” said Moore. “There were those kinds of cultural differences, and it helped them find common ground.”