the way home is through food
In 2020, I briefly moved back home, where I started translating and documenting Sichuan family recipes to preserve my mother's cooking. As a poor immigrant in a new country (continent! hemisphere!) where nothing tasted like home—and you couldn't find the right ingredients to DIY if you tried—Ma filled entire suitcases with kitchen pots, tools, spices and preserves to recreate the only flavors she knew and, frankly, cared for. On her own, where there were always other Chinese families but rarely Sichuan ones, she pickled, kneaded, folded, steamed, cured, cooked, grew(!) and otherwise learned to make everything she ever missed.
What started as honoring the age-old feat of migrant homemaking evolved into sharing generational tips and cooking wisdom with every recipe. We have the Internet now: we don't need to learn everything on our own. And yet there exists a dearth of English language explanations for the millenium-old knowledge in every Chinese kitchen, particularly niche regions like Sichuan.
Since late 2020, I've been sharing a little of that (and much, much more) over at The Mala Market. Links below for samples of my food writing and process photography.
渣辣椒, Pickled Chili Crisp (zhālàjiāo)
Mala Mama last tasted this traditionally Indigenous dish in 1988, when my dad’s aunt brought a batch to her in Chengdu all the way from Nanchong, 143 miles away.
For rural farming folk and poor families, homemade zhalajiao—along with 豆瓣酱 (dòubànjiàng)—was a historical staple because it stretched the chili harvest and pantry rations when food was scarce. My dad was born into the Great Famine and often recalls having nothing to eat with his rice but a little zhalajiao or douban, which made the slightest bites taste like luxury.... read more
蚂蚁上树, Ants Climbing a Tree (mǎyǐ shàngshù)
In the anthology of childhood tastes, 蚂蚁上树 (mǎyǐ shàngshù) was long buried for me beneath louder crowdpleasers like 红烧排骨 (hóngshāo páigǔ) or 红油抄手 (hóngyóu chāoshǒu). “Ants climbing a tree,” its literal translation, are so named for the way finely minced accoutrements cling to the 粉丝 (fěnsī), gelatinous tendrils of mung bean starch noodles imitating tree limbs. Yet mayi shangshu took me years to miss, or even think about. It’s only now that its discreetness amid redder, oilier, spicier stalwarts appeals to me so highly.
This is the home cooking you don’t see on most restaurant menus—someone has to go through the trouble of feeding (which is to say, loving) you personally for mǎyǐ shàngshù to appear on your radar.... read more
炖鸡汤, Clarified Old Hen Soup (dùnjītāng)
And then there is my mother, who will always—and only—make soup. It could be fancy 三黄鸡 (sānhuángjī), three-yellow chicken (alive that morning until the Chinese farm in Pennsylvania slaughtered it for a highly anticipated WeChat group delivery across state lines), or TCM delicacy 乌鸡 (wūjī), black-boned Silkie chicken (straight from a Chinatown butcher in NYC, frozen the night before to survive my impending 3-hour grocery concierge trip home)—all suburban luxuries for Ma. Entire years go by without such chickens. And still, no matter the rarity, it’s always reserved for soup.
In fact, the more precious the chicken, the holier the dùnjītāng. But the holiest of all dùnjītāng is not that starring beautiful yellow sānhuángjī or Yin-tonifying Silkie chicken.... read more
年糕, Baked Sticky Rice Cake (niángāo)
Baked niángāo: king of kings, the rice cake to end all rice cakes. O blonde mochi brownie, symbol of growth and prosperity, equalizer among Asian aunties. This is no lifeless Quaker rice cracker, nor even the stir-fried Chinese sticky rice cake by the same name. Baked niángāo is traditional steamed 年糕 (niángāo)—soft, springy, sweet glutinous rice flour dessert—restyled. An auspicious Lunar New Year specialty and year-round treat now prepared with a fraction of the effort thanks to that staple of Western kitchens, the oven.... read more
Make it the night before your flight to Chengdu and serve it straight out of the Tupperware 36 hours later, as I did last year, and even your mainland relatives will marvel in its sweet, chewy goodness.
二姐兔丁, Second Sister Rabbit Cubes (èrjiě tùdīng)
This dish has bones. Rabbit is such a lean, compact meat that deboning the whole animal becomes more process than it’s worth. Outside of diasporic Asian and African cuisines, many people tend to view bones as a nuisance instead of an inherent part of meat dishes—so if you don’t like to 啃骨头 (kěn gútóu) or “chew on bones,” you might not appreciate this dish at first. That’s okay. It’s an acquired pastime: Enjoying bone-in dishes like rabbit is not about how quickly or easily something can be eaten.
When you kěn gútóu, you are literally sucking the marrow out of the bones. It’s a direct metaphor for sucking the marrow of life and the way Chinese people view food and commensality. Eating is an occasion to be savored, each component of a life-giving dish important, with nothing going to waste. In this way, even a small rabbit provides a humble meal—not unlike the Jade Rabbit itself.... read more
Homestyle 蒜泥白肉 (suànní báiròu):
Take note when we publish these “homestyle” dishes. Banquet flavors and secretive fly restaurant recipes have the benefits of mass production and an entire kitchen staff on their side to perfect local, time-honored tastes. But the beauty of 家常菜 (jiācháng cài), homestyle food, belongs to a homemaker’s instinctive practicality. Without professional kitchen instruments and long prep times, home cooks make the same old flavors and nostalgic spirit accessible for a single dish on one night only.... read more
Classic Sichuan suànní báiròu, thinly sliced pork (báiròu, “white meat”) smothered in a red-oil garlic-paste concoction.