M y mother had arrived in the US in 1963. She was homesick, but also excited about exploring this dramatically different state, with nothing familiar she had heard of. My parents describe professors who were warm and friendly, who shared a haunch of venison or a string of trout (both terrifying to a South Indian woman who barely knew how to cook and had to mail order spices from New York). She consulted an Indian professor's wife, Mrs. Ali, who was an expert with the cooking of meats, and learned what to do to make such foreign ingredients edible to her tastes.