Home Cookin'

People always ask me what I eat at home. I usually reply with "just Chinese food," but I think that most people have a very weird relationship with or idea of what Chinese food is. To the uninitiated, Chinese food is the stuff that comes in those cute little take-out boxes, or Panda Express 3 entrees for $8 type of thing. Sweet and sour pork. Kungpao chicken. Chop suey.

That's not what I eat at home. My grandmother laughs when we talk about Americanized Chinese food. There's this saying in Chinese, when referring to Americanized Chinese food, which translates roughly to, "Oh, it's for the purpose of tricking foreigners." For those who read Chinese characters, it's pretty much "騙外國人." What she means by this is pretty elitist, actually. It entails the assumption that "we" are in the know when it comes to food, and that the uninitiated aren't privy to our secrets so we can make a profit off the "ignorance" of "foreigners." Every culture and people has its quirks and its prejudices, and this is just another example. I find it funny, appropriate, and even justified, albeit not quite PC. Isn't the idea ironic, though? Chinese families baaaallin' off the ignorance of the MAN. Haha! I suppose it's a way to work the system, yeah? You beat us down, so we find our ways to fight back!

Why am I writing this? Too many family secrets are being revealed...

Anyway, back to home foods. Everyone in my family cooks. Cooking is not a gendered activity in my house; whoever is home and available will do the cooking, which means my mom cooks when she's home, or my dad cooks when he's home. Cooking is something everyone should know how to do, my parents believe. In this respect, I am still incompetent and have much to learn.

So, usually we always have a bowl of rice. Medium-grained Kokuho Rose variety. None of that long-grained trash. I'm serious. Once you've had short- or medium-grained rice, you won't want to go back to that long-grained stuff. It's not versatile enough.















In addition to a bowl of rice, we'll have several side dishes. Usually one meat dish and three or so vegetable dishes. This is a story in itself which I will entertain you with later. Chinese people have a different definition of what is "meat," which makes it difficult for some older Chinese people to understand what exactly vegetarianism is. That's another story for another time, and I promise I'll entertain you with it because it's pretty funny. But here's a very small sampling of some typical foods and side dishes I eat at home:















This is "red-cooked" eggs and pork, with all the delicious fat still attached on the pork. It's also got this vegetable that's scattered around it called, well, I don't know right now, but I'll find out later. Red-cooking is basically stewing with a lot of soy sauce and sugar. In general, Shanghainese food uses a ton of sugar and soy sauce. This is a typical dish that uses this method of cooking very well. The egg and the pork soak up the flavor very well, making each mouthful a burst of tasty yum.















Snow peas. Very tasty and crunchy. I like them for the crunch. Loud munch! Can you hear it?















This is red-cooked chicken sitting on a bed of snow peas. This is my favorite way of eating chicken legs. Oh, wait. I like fried chicken too. Hmm, this is hard. Well, I'll make a compromise and say that this is my favorite way of eating chicken at home. Soy-sauced and slightly sweet, and the meat just falls off the bones. Oh, but the plating usually isn't this nice. My family doesn't really care for beautiful plating arrangements; I just decided to randomly do this for this one picture, but this is a rarity. We're all about the taste and flavor and less about presentation. No frills eating.

This means we'd probably lose in the presentation category on Iron Chef. Oh wells.

I need to take more pictures for the home-cooking sections, but this is it for now. We usually end our dinners with a bowl of soup, but I don't have any pictures or any soup on hand, so that's for another day.

So, yes. Lessons learned in this post:

1. Lots of soy sauce and sugar
   
2. Meat and vegetables and rice
   
3. A bowl of soup
4. Chinese people have a different definition of meat
5. We don't care about food presentation
6. We are tricky and like to fight the MAN
   

For next time, a brief entry on my family's ideas on what "meat" is, and a step-by-step lesson on how to make soymilk in your home. My family recently got into this health-conscious fix for various reasons, and making organic soymilk by hand (literally! literally squeezing beans!) has become a weekly activity.

Eat up!

Peace, love, and grilled-cheese wontons!