I was lucky in many ways that my parents were young when I was born. My mother was 19, my father 22.

Their youth meant their parents were also relatively young, as were their parents’ parents, which dropped me into a multitude of grandparents and great-grandparents at birth, a tribe of elders whose physical presence would enrich my life for many years to come.

These were not nurturing John and Olivia Walton types, mind you. These were toughened life warriors, some of whom braved to cross the ocean for a better life, all of whom lived through world wars, the Great Depression and an era when children were seen and not heard.

I don’t recall getting hugs from them, nor much intimacy at all.

What I do recall getting from them is identity.

I know who I am because of time spent in the kitchen of my great-grandmother on my mother’s side.

Big Mama, we called her, and she came to South Carolina from Lebanon at 15 with a thick accent and a singular instinct for making Mediterranean food before Americans knew what an olive was.

While her husband built a grocery empire, Big Mama spent her days preparing grape leaves, tabbouleh and kibbeh for her family and extended family in her oversized kitchen where she had two stoves, two refrigerators and a walk-in pantry from which wafted the scents of her country’s aromatic spices.

Because of Big Mama, I know firsthand why I love to cook, especially ethnic foods, and why a whiff of cumin feels like home. I know, too, about faith. Big Mama never failed to attend Catholic Mass every morning.

My other great-grandmother, Granny, also on my mother’s side, couldn’t have been more different. And yet she was the same.

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