My Chinese Mother and Her Pantry

My mom and I have very little in common besides our mutual love for cooking and food—and even there we find our disagreements.

Though she’s lived in the U.S. for more than 30 years, she has never been able to let go of her Chinese tastes. For example, whenever we visit a new place, we have to find the nearest Chinese restaurant just to see if the Chinese food is good there. And if that one restaurant isn’t up to her standard, we’ll try another, just to see if it’ll be any better. Whenever we go out to eat, even in our hometown, it’s almost a given that we’ll be going out to a Chinese restaurant—or else we’ll step a tad bit out of our comfort zone to eat Japanese or Korean cuisine. And if you come over to my house to watch television, you’ll most likely be watching the Chinese channel. It’s not that my mom has never eaten out at any other restaurants or has never made dishes other than Chinese, but her preference always sides with her roots—those dishes that remind her of home.

But I, though having grown up on her cooking, have always been a sucker for cooking shows (English ones, mind you…though I’ve watched the Chinese ones as well). Food Network is pretty much the only television I watch, that is, when I’m not watching Chinese soap operas. And I love searching out any kind of recipe other than Chinese. My actual ability to cook well, however, is a completely different story.

So going back to where my mom and I find a crossroad of interests: the kitchen. The kitchen, in my house, is the place for mother-daughter bonding. Holiday parties always get me so excited because my mom and I will actually sit down together to figure out a menu and go out to different grocery stores to find whatever rarities we’ll need. We’ll stop by the nearest grocery store for small ingredients, drive over to Costco for the big ingredients, and then drive at least a half-hour away just to stop by the closest Chinese market. The Chinese market is an adventure all on its own, which I’ll leave for another entry for another day. I love the time we get to spend together and the way we balance each other out to make a fusion feast.

For example, every Thanksgiving, instead of using bread stuffing, we stuff our turkey with sticky rice mixed with black mushrooms, dried shrimp, pork, and scallions. We use the leftover turkey for porridge the next day, adding in dried scallops and thousand-year-old egg (a dark-colored preserved egg, not really for a thousand years old). For Christmas, my mom and I made this thick beef stew which we poured over rice. And on New Year’s, I insisted on making candied yams amidst a table full of Chinese dishes.

But these days, I’ve started to become fascinated by Chinese cuisine. I’ve been actually searching out Chinese recipes and attempting them on my own. Some of the recipes called for ingredients I had never heard of before—Job’s tears, wolfberries, burdock root. I thought to myself, “Shoot, I have to drive all the way to the Chinese market to buy these ingredients.” But yesterday morning, I began exploring my kitchen and I actually found some of these things! I also found a lot of other weird things in my pantry:

Dried Lily Flowers. My mom actually used this in a chicken dish the other night with black mushrooms and jujubes.

Dried Tangerine Skins. These are actually eaten as candy by many Chinese folks.

Dried Bamboo Leaves. We wrap sticky rice in these, the kind you eat at dim sum.

Sophora Japonica. Some type of herbal tea.

Black Dates. And last but not least…

Dried Black Moss. I’ve actually seen this used in many Chinese dishes, but never realized I was eating black moss…to be honest, it doesn’t really taste like anything. Growing up, I actually thought it was pasta.

Anyway, I’m learning that most Chinese ingredients aren’t used for the taste but rather their medicinal value, which I’m just now starting to appreciate. Authentic Chinese cooking is much more concerned with whether a dish is good for you rather than whether it tastes good. Meditating on this, I think I’ve come to understand my mom better and even the way she has raised me. She understands that we often have to eat what's bitter in order to live better. It's a good lesson that I'm still in the process of learning.

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