Category: Cross-cultural

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Mom’s kitchen

This entry is part 12 of 28 in the series Goldfish

Mom always said that dad was very easy going with food.  It was true that dad never complained. . . until later.  When I visited him at the hospital toward the end of his life, he would say, “Your mom can’t cook.”

With her knowledge in nutrition, mom paid great attention to balanced meals.  She was into low- salt before it was a “thing.”  Everyone else had soft white rice.  We had chewy brown rice.  She didn’t like the store-bought sugary soy milk.  So, she made it at home, starting from soaking the beans overnight.  After juicing the beans, she would mix the pulps with flour to make pancakes.  Despite the lumpy texture and slightly acidy taste, we ate the pancakes obligingly because mom said they were good for us.

She didn’t like deep frying.  She had little patience for slow cooking.  Instead, mom had a system with which she could stack up various dishes in the pressure cooker and make a whole meal all at once.

Most people started their days with porridge, pickled vegetables and other small dishes. . . similar to Korean banchan.  Mom said the traditional breakfast was nothing but carbohydrates, and it wouldn’t give us enough energy.  We had toasts with jam, eggs and milk.

To save time, she always made noodle soup for lunch, most often with leftover from the night before mixed in the broth.  If she wasn’t pushed for time, she would let us make wontons—no fancy shape, just bundles with ground meat in the middle.  We loved watching the bundles float up in the boiling water.

Mom tried hard to keep us happy.  We never had allowance to buy candies or junk food.  However, there were always snacks when we get home from school.  She took cooking classes with a few friends.  Since she didn’t really follow the recipes carefully, her successful rate at reproducing the dishes was not very high.  To her credit, she did learn a few techniques that she passed on to me.

When we were old enough, she let us help rinsing rice and peeling vegetables.  She taught us how to fry eggs.  Little Cop was good at making perfectly shaped over-easy, not too runny and not too hard.

One of our cousins lived with us during his high school years.  One day he came back to visit.  Mom made three dishes for dinner.  They all had daikon radishes, carrots and peas.  One with radishes and carrots in small cubes; one with them in thin slices and one in triangles.  All three of us looked at her—speechless.

Still, I miss a few things from mom’s kitchen.  Growing up, my favorite dish was tonkatsu, Japanese style breaded pork cutlet.  I would eat so many pieces so fast that, every time mom made tonkatsu, she had to ration them.

I also liked steam cucumbers stuffed with ground pork.  Taiwanese cucumbers are large and juicy.  Peel; cut each one into large sections; remove the seeds; stuff the center with seasoned ground pork; and steam them.  Make sure to not over cook them so the cucumbers are still firm, and the meat melts in the mouth.

Every year as the weather turns cold, I would crave mom’s duck and taro root stew.  With ginger slices, soy sauce and a little bit of sugar, it is heart-warming.  And, it will not require much preparations.  (Oh, make sure your hands are dry when cleaning and peeling taro.  Otherwise, they get itchy.)  Dad was helpless in the kitchen, but he was good at peeling taro using a broken piece of glass.  He loved them as much as I did.

Mom rarely make anything that required long and detailed preparations.  But she would make a soup with pickled cabbages, fresh bamboo and pork intestines bound together with ribbons of dried gourds.  The intestines need to be cleaned inside and out multiple times and blanched in seasoned (rice wine and herbs) broth first.  The pickled cabbages need to be rinsed; and the gourds, rehydrated.  Then all the ingredients needed to be sliced into thin 2-3-inch strips and tied into bundles before being simmered for a long time.  The soup is wonderfully refreshing.

I started cooking early.  It took me a few tries to be comfortable with all the tools.  Soon I was able to mix different flavors and create my own dishes.  I did, however, follow mom’s system, stacking things up in the pressure cooker.

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梁山伯與祝英台

This entry is part 11 of 28 in the series Goldfish

I was not even four when the movie Liang Shanbo yu Zu Yingtai (English title: The Love Eterne) opened.  Romeo and Juliet met The Sound of Music, it was an instant box office sensation.  There was no video recording and no cable-on-demand. Online streaming would have been totally unthinkable.  Many people saw the film in theaters repeatedly.  The sound track was played on the radio all day long.

Zu was from a wealthy family.  Having convinced her father, she disguised as a man to pursuit scholarship.  (Women were discouraged from intellectual pursuits.)  Liang was a poor fellow student who befriended her not knowing her true identity.  Three years later she was summoned home to marry a wealthy man.  By the time he realized she was a woman, it was too late.  Heartbroken, he became ill and died.  She passed by the grave on her way to the groom’s home.  A thunder split the grave open.  She jumped in without hesitation.  According to the legend they emerged as a pair of butterflies.  In Western references, they were often called the “butterfly lovers.”  Their story inspired generations of artists and musicians.  (The Butterfly Lovers Violin Concerto is one of the most important Chinese orchestral works of the twentieth century.)

In 1963 Shaw Brothers Studio, the largest film production company in Hong Kong, adapted this tragic story in the style of Hungmei opera.  Originated from folk tunes sung by women while picking tea leaves, Hungmei is less formal than Beijing opera.  Male characters are often played by female actresses.  Because of its congenial melodies, its popularity grew rapidly in the mid-twentieth century.  In Shaw Brothers’ production, the theme songs were accompanied by western orchestra.  Elaborated costumes and sets strengthened the dramatic effects.

None of these things mattered to a three-year-old.  It, nevertheless, influenced me in many ways:

I saw the film a few times.  When the lovers were forced to be apart, the music became more and more agitated. The audience sobbed along with the actors.  I experienced the impactful power of the big screen first hand.

Not fully understand the lyrics, I was able to pick up the tune and sing along.  I could also mimic the theatrical gestures of the actors.  Too young to be intimidated and too young to know the importance of modesty, I was only too eager to show off my new tricks to visitors: neighbors, relatives and family friends alike.  Soon I would begin taking dance classes.

The actress who played Liang Shanbo in pants role, previously an unknown, gained overnight popularity.  When she visited Taiwan later, fans lined up the streets throwing flowers and gifts to her black town car.  Military guards were sent to maintain order.  I saw the photos on newspaper.  To me, she was almost as beautiful as brides—only brides would ride in black town car and only brides would be surrounded by flowers.  I wanted to be a bride.  Only years later, I realized that being a diva was a much better gig.

Many things in the movie puzzled me.  The most troublesome fact was that a girl had to pretend to be a man just to go to school.  Going to school was a good thing.  Not letting girls go to school was bad.  If she didn’t have to dress like a man, she might not have to die so tragically.  A feminist was born.

Two years later, The Sound of Music arrived in Taiwan.  Released under the Chinese title 真善美 (Truth, Goodness and Beauty), it stirred up another box office storm.  My family joined the crowd at the theater multiple times.  My dance teacher choreographed a piece based on a medley of the sound track.  Unlike The Love Eterne, this movie brought us nothing but happiness.