Food memoirs recalling lost relatives and disappearing food traditions are some of my favorite essays. An article in the WSJ (linked to Tara Parker-Pope's Well blog) talks of one woman's memory of her Ah-Ma's pineapple tarts prepared for Chinese New Year. Her grandmother died before she could impart the technique and the granddaughter has never found a tart quite like it . . . until she spends a day with some aunts and cousins, making the specialty just as her Ah-Ma had.
What strikes me about this poignant essay is how similar I think it must be to my kids' own Ar-Ma's (and Gong's too) memories of foods from her homeland which are difficult if not impossible to make or get here. Every meal at Ar-Ma and Ar-Gong's house includes tales of foods that were--what their mothers served at feasts, what fish or desserts they can only get in Bangkok, how Flushing's bakeries' buns just aren't as good, or how the one place that made noodles almost like home has just closed. It's bittersweet to hear these, knowing how good it must have been, how hard to let it go. My own food nostalgia--for things in Texas that are best there (BBQ and Chicken Fried Steak), or that I can't get up here (mainly, Ranch Style Beans), or that my mom will always make better than I can (or, well, just more mom- or home-like)--is minimal in comparison but allows me to empathize even more. I know Mama experiences her own losses when she can't even easily procure the ingredients here in Connecticut that her mom gets in the city or doesn't know how to make a particular dish from her childhood. She has tried to gather recipes from her mom but it is a work-in-progress, mainly because no recipes exist and so the cooking of the foods must be observed and recorded, which is more difficult than it sounds. But still, they try, knowing it is worth the effort, for Mama and now for the kiddos.
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A Few New Year's Recipes From Mama's Family Cookbook
Abalone and Mushroom Sauce
Ma and Gong would make this for Chinese New Year’s, but didn’t for a while because it was too expensive and not very good. It’s better now, though, and we really enjoyed this for 2003.
Abalone: smaller pieces better, cooked, Chinese label from Mexico: eg: ‘Pacific Brand’
Thinly slice abalone; reserve juice in can. Heat oil, add garlic and soaked/sliced shitake mushrooms (*place dried mushrooms in cold water and let soak for a few hours or overnight; soaking water can be saved and used. Warm water can be used if in a hurry). Add abalone juice and corn starch (dissolved in water), boil. Add touch of black soy sauce for color and taste if desired. Toss abalone in sauce to heat. Serve with rice.
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Dad’s Taro Paste
Cut taro into inch pieces. Place in pot, water to cover. Boil slowly with sugar and pinch of salt. When cooked, remove from heat, let cool. Add touch of oil (or coconut milk), mash in water. Freezes well. Serve with sticky rice, ice cream, ginko nuts (below).
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Ginko Nuts
Choose ginko nuts that are white, medium sized, with no spots. Crack open with a nutcracker. Peel off skin if the nuts are larger than a thumbnail. Rinse quickly to retain flavor. Add to cold water, heat to boiling, add sugar to taste. Cooked when the nuts are a sallow yellow color. Turns harder/chewier the longer they are cooked.
For a ginko drink, use more water. For a ginko dessert, add taro paste or red dates. This was Mom and Dad’s wedding dessert.
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Seven Vegetable Soup
Traditional soup for the seventh day of the Chinese New Year. Very subtle and refreshing. Be careful, if you cook them too long, the veggies get mushy.
Seven vegetables (celery, mustard greens, leek, radish, spinach . . .).
Cut veggies, separating top leaves from bottom branches. Cut radish into rings, cut into 6 pieces. Heat chicken or pork broth. Heat oil, add sliced/soaked black mushrooms and garlic. Stir-fry turnip and branches, except leeks, celery, spinach, when soft, remove to broth. Add rest of vegetables, soften and add to broth. Flavor with a touch of dark soy sauce and Maggi if necessary. If sour, add fish sauce to compensate.
I have the same thing but have come to the conclusion that one's tasts buds change as we mature. One of nature's kindnesses because we can never return to our childhood except, possibly, when ga-ga.
ReplyDelete'Nuts' to those people who do not allow a luvey, they were unlucky enough to suffer a deprived childhood, their mothers read the wrong book. If they want something to attach to, let them, but quietly encourage them to grow out and away from it. As a young officer I had the job ofinspecting some of the women's quarters...I was amazed, these young women of 18-22 all had a cuddly bedfellow. Later I was shown round a friends house, a woman of nearly 50, she had one too. Two or three years later she met a man on a plane..., love at first sight.