2025-2026, Borgesian Fiction

"Culinary Cuts" – Anonymous '26

After traveling through the snow storm from his downtown Manhattan office, Mr. Greenwald arrived home to his brownstone in Brooklyn. Exhausted, he avoided his usual greetings to his two daughters, Harper, (Halima) and Robin (Rosaire), his son Alexei (Affendi), and his wife Felicity (Fikria). After placing his pristine loafers neatly on the mat in the doorway entrance, he headed straight to his private Library composed of ancient family recipes, cook books and a few heirlooms. Mr. Greenwald rarely entered this room ashamed of what it represented. However, today he thought about his mother, griefing her stronger than yesterday. Once he scrambled through old journals and diaries, he landed on the recipes section where he wandered through old cook books from his generations of ancestors. Mr. Greenwald would look through the recipes in hopes to find a way to combine the various diverse foods like a game, but he never did. To his knowledge, his ancestors came up with an infinite number of food combinations, and he once believed that somewhere in the margins of these cook books there could remain a combination that had not been imagined. After years of studying them, he failed to create a new one. He scavenged through the Korv recipes from his Swedish father, Bigos from Poland aunts and uncles, Liboke from his Congolese cousins, Roti Canai from his Malaysian great grandparents and grandparents, Yuca Frita from his El Salvadoran sisters and brothers, and Cuñape from his Bolivian mom. Mr. Greenwald, overtaken by emotion suddenly thought, “Why must my wife persuade my children to argue against my ancestors?, why do I let her?”. He sometimes dared to ponder upon the idea that his new life was a punishment from God for leaving the past in the past. While diving through the cook books, he landed on his first combination dish he made when he competed in his first chef contest. 

James Arnold Greenwald, formally known as Jalis Lingala Nikodem Choque grew up in rural Lesotho, South Africa on his families farm in the mid-late 1960s where experimenting with food was not accepted, though his ancestors did. His father left when he was just four years old, leaving him, his brother, Manuel, and his mother, Puteri Jannah alone, though leaving behind copies of his ancestors recipes and cookbooks. After herding sheep and cattle, Jalis would play his lesiba before bed and study his ancestors cookbooks and the combinations of foods his father would design from each culture into a culinary breakthrough, hoping to come up with new ones, and never being able to. 

Though Jalis and his mother would not speak of his father often, the one key detail he knew about his father was that his dream was to unify people through food. Jalis wanted to achieve this dream now more than ever, as he was becoming a stronger cook and grew hungrier to know more about his father. Despite his young memory, he remembered the strong hold of his fathers enormous and rugged hands holding his tiny fingers when he would get scared and reading an excerpt from his father’s Bible: “Fear not, for I am with you” Isaiah 41:10. He always felt much more secure and comfortable knowing his father was there for him. He kept his bible close to his heart for the entirety of his life, being the only thing keeping his memory of his father alive. 

Continuing to teach himself intricate skills of cooking and being efficient in fast paced environments, he began to obsess and fixate over his culinary work. Day and night, Jalis spent tiresome years trying to come up with eclectic combinations of foods from his families cookbooks just as his father did, but struggled to accept all his creations were rearrangements of combinations created by his ancestors. 

His mother, having unwavering support and belief in his dream, believed in the power he could hold to become a professional chef and unify the world. After seeing advertisements of junior chef in the United States, Puteri believed that this was the opportunity for Jalis to shine, like he desperately wanted to in hopes of finding some satisfaction or answer about his father. 

Puteri kept Jali’s father, Mpho’s story a secret. Mpho had a passion to cook and share all of his familial recipes with the world, and he was willing to do anything to achieve this. After leaving his family for the United States, Mpho was killed in a robbery while he was cooking Yuca Frita in his kitchen. Puteri when asked about her husband by Jalis or Manuel would often say, “His passion lives forever in you”. She felt that nothing was more important than a dream, and she stayed optimistic but deep down she believed that how you get to a dream relies solely on luck. 

When the competition came closer to the date, Puteri urging Jalis to participate reminded him of his dream and how he would unify the world if he did not share his unique talents with the world. Jalis felt quite nervous to indulge in such an activity he had never considered to be a competition, something he could fail at. He had not realized that being a cook was now something he had dreamt of, but that it was nessecary to provide his diverse culinary cuisines with everyone to unite people. Jalis in this moment, always remembered his mothers words as,“If you want to unite everyone in the world with your cooking, you will have to immerse yourself in the Western world as well. No matter the cost.” Jalis did not hate the United States, but he had heard horror stories of friends and family that moved there in hopes of living the “American Dream”, and while some had sought comfort and stability, many were murdered from hate crimes and other violence. He did not fear much, but moving somewhere he questioned his worth, especially somewhere to his knowledge thought his father had never been to. Hesitantly, he agreed, and continuously practiced his favorite combination day and night. In placing his faith in God, he believed Jesus would send him down the most righteous path of success for this future that waited upon him. He believed it was in God’s will, but most importantly in his fathers to do this as well.

 Jalis decided to copy an American food staple, but use his father’s combination recipe.  Deciding to design a multi-cultural egg mcmuffin, he began taking ingredients and dishes from his Congo, Bolivian, Honduran, Polish, and Swedish heritage. He believed that taking an original American dish and turning it into a combination of cuisines could bring his dream closer to accomplishment. He used Congolese Chikwanga bread as the mcmuffin portion, holding marinated citrus carne asada from the Honduras, and an egg smeared with Skagenröra from Sweden, finished with Kapusta Zasmażana, Polish and a side of yuca fritas from Bolivia. This combination though he took after his father, Jalis realized that just being able to make the dish meant more to him than coming up with an original. 

After a few weeks of fundraising for plane tickets and gathering their customs and passports, their trip was soon arriving. Before leaving, he told Manuel, “Fear not, for I am with you” Isaiah 41:10, just like his father did and Jalis believed his father kept his promise. “I am forever with you, Manuel”. Jalis made it his mission to never disappoint his family and this cooking dream was never going to force him to choose it over his family. He knew his father was doing what he needed to achieve his dream, and Jalis knew he had to do the same. 

After arriving to the competition, his mother bravely watching from the crowd, he had taken his combination of foods to make this perfect egg mcmuffin. His mother sitting bravely in the crowd gave Jalis the courage and hope to be confident in his fight. After finishing this concoction, the intensity of the room roamed the air. Sweat dripping down to his chin, impatiently waiting for them to announce the winner. As all the contestants stared at each other, the judge began to call his name, and proudly announced Jalis as the winner of the chef competition. As investors swarmed his dish, his mother happy for him, suddenly had an urge to tell him the truth of his father, but could not bring herself to be transparent with him. Jalis, excited for his future, still planned to return to Botswana in a few days. 

Then, over the course of the days of the trip, devils as investors promised Jalis a booming restaurant, stability, and an astounding American dream life. When his had to depart from the United States, she worried for her son in the Western world, but had hope in him and his dream. Jalis grappled with the idea of having this stability or returning home, and ultimately decided that in order to achieve his dream and to one day find a new combination, he needed to stay. However, the devils as investors began to demand he change his name, as it sounded, “too foreign” and would not attract the right consumers. He would do anything for his dream, and for his dream to work, he had to comply, changing his name to James Greenwald.

As time passed, becoming involved with the elites, he began not responding to his family, meeting his wife and having three young children and settling in New York City, where he gave up his culinary dream after his restaurant crashed. His restaurant lost its purpose and meaning to unify cultures around the world and instead tried to satisfy the American man and even then struggled to do so. 

Years later, as Jalis drove home, he wondered what he should make for dinner. He was sick of making the same concoctions of steak and mashed potatoes, hamburgers, and chicken sandwiches. However, the thoughts of his family came back and the feeling, that rush he once had as a teenager to cook unique foods came back, and he shut those feelings down to the bottom. Finally arriving home, he could not help but go into a dedicated space he had for family heirlooms and recipes. There he got lost within the recipes. Then, when he hit the final page of his Congolese recipes, he found an old letter from Manuel. 

“Mother has passed from tuberculosis. Her dying wish was to see you, but of course you don't dare to have any sympathy. Jalis, your father passed away from being attacked in his kitchen that he opened when you were four. He left us such as the coward he is, much like you. You both broke promises you did not even wish to keep. I hope you realize your mistakes some day and that your God will show you.” -- Manuel.

Angrily shutting the letter back into the cookbook, Jalis shed a single tear. Looking once more for a new combination of food, he hoped to be able to have the courage to share it with his family, but ultimately realizing he would never be able to create a new combination. Failing to do so, he walked out from the Library, made his way to the kitchen, and proceeded to cook steak and dinner for his family.