When my father was home we usually ate dinner in the dining room. Puchi and I would set the table, with a table cloth, linen napkins, china and silverware.
My parents were not deeply religious, but we observed general Muslim practices. No pork products were allowed in the house, though liquor was admissible for guests, and occasionally my parents might have one drink or, in my mother’s case, one glass of wine.
When my father was not around, the dinner hour was more casual. Sometimes we’d eat at the kitchen table, laying out the food on the counters, buffet style, and grazing as we chatted with our mother about this or that.
Sometimes we ordered pizza. “What do you want on your pizza?” my mother would ask.
“Pepperoni,” I replied.
“We can’t have pepperoni,” my mother said. “It’s made with pork.”
“No it isn’t,” I lied. “They make it with beef.”
“Oh is that right? Well go ahead and order it then,” she said trusting me.
We ordered the pepperoni pizza and a mushroom pizza and maybe some other kind of pizza. Enough to feed all the people who were invariably around for the dinner hour– my sisters and brothers and any number of our friends. I don’t think my mother ever questioned my deceitful declaration that pepperoni was made with beef.
I never really understood the no pork or alcohol rule. Or the no shellfish rule for that matter. Many of the Pakistani Muslims I encountered drank alcohol. I thought it was hypocritical. Alcohol was permissible but pork was not. So, I quietly started consuming pork products as a child, mostly pepperoni and sometimes bacon. As I got older I introduced alcohol to my diet as well. Many people would say I am not a good Muslim. And I would agree with them. In addition to the pork, shellfish, and alcohol consumption there’s the issue of my lesbianism which is also frowned upon in Islam.
When I’m not lying about how pepperoni is made, I keep my pork consumption on the down low. I make bolognese with mild Italian sausage, or I might order a side of bacon or chorizo with my eggs from time to time, but I don’t make a big deal about it.
My friend Jim introduced me to grilled figs wrapped in prosciutto. Jenny and I made them for a dinner party once, and knowing that one of our guests was a devout Muslim, we made sure to grill some figs without the prosciutto. I made the mistake of putting both on the same plate, which I should have known is also frowned upon in Muslim circles. You don’t want pork products touching non-pork products.
“What are these?” our Muslim guest asked.
“They’re figs wrapped in prosciutto,” I said. “You can’t eat them. They’re pork, but this side of the plate is not pork,” I explained.
She must not have heard me clearly because she promptly popped a prosciutto wrapped fig in her mouth and declared, “These are delicious!” And then she ate another and another.
I quickly ran to Jenny and said, “If anyone asks about the prosciutto wrapped figs, tell them it’s beef prosciutto.”
“But there’s no such things as beef prosciutto,” she said.
“Doesn’t matter,” I said. “Just make sure to say it’s beef prosciutto, they’ll never know there isn’t any such thing.” Just like my mother didn’t know there wasn’t any such thing as beef pepperoni.
I did recently discover Halal pepperoni pizza. Halal is a term used to designate food seen as permissible according to Islamic law. Who knew? There is beef pepperoni after all.
Leaving Pakistan 