My family eats dinner together every night. Growing up, I would hear the clinking of pots and pans, followed by sizzles and the burner fan turned up to high. My dad would then yell, “Set the table! Chi fan le! (Eat food!)” My little sister and I would run downstairs, place down napkins and utensils, pour drinks, and wait for dinner to be served.
We used to eat Chinese food about three times a week. I found myself dreading to eat at Chinese restaurants because we already ate a lot of that cuisine at home. I latched onto other cuisines, like Cajun and Italian, as my favorite meals.
Yet, when I moved across the country from San Francisco to Chicago for college, I found myself craving the food my parents often made. I found the Chinese food in the dining halls as “fake” and unauthentic. All of the Chinese restaurants nearby were either not very good or outside of my price range.
Truly, I craved a taste of home.
Certain Chinese foods bring back those memories of home, and when I miss it, those are the dishes I crave most. Not just for the flavor, but for the nostalgia. These Chinese dishes are what make me happy and proud of my heritage.
Mapo Tofu
Mapo tofu is a Sichuan dish, hailing from a region known for its spicier mala foods. Mala spice is less of a burning sensation, giving more of a numbing effect. Mapo tofu is a stir-fried dish of tofu, ground beef, spicy bean paste, Sichuan peppercorns, and more.
My mom often makes this dish for dinner, and when it’s on the table, I go ham. It’s so addictive to me. More than that, I find mapo tofu to be an all-around crowd pleaser. If I’m introducing a friend to Sichuan food or trying to get them to eat spicy food, mapo tofu will receive no complaints.
Hot Pot
A few years ago, my family started doing hot pot meals at home. My dad purchased a portable burner and two-sided pot, as well as a packet of Happy Lamb Hot Pot broth mix. Every few months, we’ll open the dining room window and have a feast of sliced meats, frozen tofu (the texture changes when frozen…you have to try it!), mushrooms, leafy vegetables, and noodles. Yes, chopsticks are flying everywhere and we are fighting over meat, but it is such a fun time.
Dim Sum
Of all foods in the world, dim sum is my favorite. Fried radish cake is to die for. But what might be even better than dim sum’s taste is the experience of eating it. Sitting around a roundabout table with carts overflowing with food swirling around you, dim sum is a loud meal full of gossip, flagging down waiters, and tasting small dishes. More than that: it’s fun.
My family often goes out to dim sum with my grandparents for holidays like Father’s Day or just to catch up. If a family member from out of town is visiting, dim sum is the go to meal. Heck, my uncle brought us to eat dim sum right after he got married. For me, dim sum is synonymous with family.
Tangyuan
Tangyuan is a traditional hot dessert consisting of glutinous rice balls in a sweet broth. Typically, the rice balls are filled with black sesame, which bursts out as a gooey lava when you bite in.
My Lao-Ye (grandpa on my mom’s side) would always make tangyuan with me for breakfast whenever he and my Lao-Lao visited from Beijing. He usually bought a rice wine soup from the Chinese supermarket as our broth, then had me mix the rice ball dough out of glutinous rice flour and water. It was a tricky task to get the dough’s texture just right, as I’d add too much water and it would be too sticky.
Together we rolled the dough out into small balls and lined them up on a pie pan. Sometimes, I made extremely large or little balls to play with Lao-Ye. Once the broth boiled, Lao-Ye dropped the balls in and waited until they floated to serve the dish. Warming, chewy, and sweet — making tangyuan with Lao-Ye was my favorite way of spending time with him, bonding over such a simple meal.
Dumplings
When Lao-Lao and Lao-Ye visited, we would form a dumpling assembly line every so often: Lao-Ye kneaded and formed the dumpling wrappers, Lao-Lao used chopsticks to portion out meat filling onto the wrappers, and the rest of us would get to wrapping. After a few hours, we’d have hundreds of dumplings ready to eat over the next weeks.
It’s been nearly a decade since Lao-Lao and Lao-Ye last visited and I last made dumplings — until earlier this week, when one of my friends hosted a dumpling making party for Lunar New Year. I still remembered what the texture of the filling should look like and had the muscle memory of how to wrap dumplings. I taught five of my friends how to wrap their first dumplings, sharing a small piece of my culture and background.
Together, we meticulously made nearly 150 dumplings and proceeded to eat them all in one sitting. Perhaps at this time of me living across the country at college and spending less time at home, Chinese food does not need to always signify my immediate family. Rather, it’s a symbol of the good company that I keep.