A Recipe for the Living by Emmi Khor
A mother narrates a recipe for Cantonese Pork Trotters that is, for her, heavy with meaning.
Cantonese Pork Trotters is a tangy dish that carries the sweetness and bite of living. You ate it after bringing your baby girl into the world; after her first public tantrum; after leaving her at pre-school and walking away.
The dish is slow-cooked for the nutrition, drawing out all that's necessary to revitalize body and soul. It's a recipe for many seasons, especially when in need of a burning warmth on the darkest days.
INGREDIENTS:
1. 8 boiled eggs:
Freshly shelled and soft to the touch, so deliciously hot in your palms that one whiff will bring some small comfort to your aching heart. Close your eyes for a moment and cradle these eggs. Feel their roundness, so much like her cheeks when they were clammy and warm after chasing her friends in the playground, before throwing herself squealing and giggling into your arms.
2. 15-20 dried shitake mushrooms:
These oriental mushrooms will be flecked with dirt. It will remind you so much of children let loose in the park. Clean each piece thoroughly, rubbing off the grime like you'd done a million times, behind your daughter's ears and knees and neck. Close your eyes against the splashes and you might hear the squeaking as you rub, like she used to do between giggles in the bath. Hold on to these delightful sounds as you tuck the shitakes in a bowl of water and lay them to sleep in the fridge. Like children, they will reawaken with springiness. Unlike children, they require forty-eight hours.
3. 500g fresh pork trotters:
Wash the hocks thoroughly before chopping. The collagen that is released in the cooking process is rich in gelatine, a product that is frequently marketed for cushioning joints in aging. After an exhaustive day of scrubbing her fingerprints and pencil marks off walls, pulling her Lego from the vacuum hose, and bleaching her dirty socks, this dish will ease the soreness in your back and the aches in your knees. What the advertisements don't tell you is that gelatine cushions more than joints; it also absorbs the hard impacts of life. You'd thought those days hard back then.
4. 375g of black Chinese vinegar:
This sharp and pungent liquid is as black as her shiny hair as you ran your fingers through the silkiness, combing out all the knots. You would tie her hair into two pigtails each morning, a smile tingling your lips as you watched them flick side to side, carefree against her yellow polo-top, as she skipped out of your reach, down the stairs, and readied for school.
5. 375g of red wine:
There are many varieties to choose from. The darker the redness, the more it will remind you of how blood spills everywhere and gets into everything; like the knitted breathable-fibers of a yellow uniform, or the sky-blue polyester weave of a school bag many sizes too large for a child the size of your daughter. It will indiscriminately color it all into darkness. Stir the red wine into the Chinese vinegar, until the black as dark as her hair and the wine as red as her blood becomes one and the same.
6. 150g of ginger:
This root vegetable often arrives covered in dirt as if it has been dragged through the ground. Gently scrape until the top skin is clean, then slice thickly. An older ginger will give a sharper bite. You might wonder: will it sting as much as glass tearing smooth round cheeks when a windscreen shatters? Or burn like skin razed over asphalt? Will its pungency ever clear the acrid scent of burning rubber that haunts your nightmares? It's impossible to stop the questions but what matters most is that the bite will be sharper than the pain that ripped through your heart when the phone rang, and the hospital urged you to hurry in and see your little girl before it became too late.
7. Gula melaka:
This sweetness is derived from the weeping buds of a coconut palm, a tree that naturally knows of pain. Four large cubes are recommended for this recipe. If the day is particularly sour, as you hear the sounds of a giggling child, or catch the sight of a yellow top, add an extra cube or two. Don't let the health-conscious voice stop you, not when getting through a day is more important. The tartness of life is easier to swallow when sugared in double measure. It still won't be easy.
METHOD:
It doesn't matter if you're frazzled or in pieces on the day of cooking. What matters most is that you start. For best results, use non-reactive cookware like a ceramic or earthen pot. It is the only way to keep the dish untainted. Fry the pork trotters and ginger with a few drops of sesame oil. Let the fragrance bring forth the memory. Mix the vinegar and wine until it permanently colors the stew. If the darkness is enveloping you, add an extra cup of water. Like medicine, a milder dose is better than none at all. Settle the cooked eggs and shitake mushrooms gently in and wait until the liquid comes to boil. Turn the flame down, give the ingredients time to absorb it all, just as the memories have gone around and around while you cooked. If a few drops of tears slip in, a little saltiness is understandable. Simmer gently for forty minutes - or as long as you need; the cooking process is as important as the dish to keep you going.
Once it's ready, ladle it out. It will stain the softness of jasmine rice as easily as the memory has darkened your soul. Close your eyes, eat it with relish anyway. Let each piece remind you: freshly-boiled eggs like the softness of her cheeks rubbing warmly against yours; a reawakened shitake bouncing into your open arms; the smoothness of the sauce like the silkiness of her hair. Alongside each reminder, taste the sour, the sweet, and especially the burn in your throat. Memories of a life includes all its different flavours.
As you go to bed tonight, notice that the tang of the vinegar eases, and the bite of the ginger fades. So too, one day, will your pain ease, until what's left to keep you warm at night is a full-flavored memory that can only be savored if you keep on living.
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| Image generated with OpenAI |
The dish is slow-cooked for the nutrition, drawing out all that's necessary to revitalize body and soul. It's a recipe for many seasons, especially when in need of a burning warmth on the darkest days.
INGREDIENTS:
1. 8 boiled eggs:
Freshly shelled and soft to the touch, so deliciously hot in your palms that one whiff will bring some small comfort to your aching heart. Close your eyes for a moment and cradle these eggs. Feel their roundness, so much like her cheeks when they were clammy and warm after chasing her friends in the playground, before throwing herself squealing and giggling into your arms.
2. 15-20 dried shitake mushrooms:
These oriental mushrooms will be flecked with dirt. It will remind you so much of children let loose in the park. Clean each piece thoroughly, rubbing off the grime like you'd done a million times, behind your daughter's ears and knees and neck. Close your eyes against the splashes and you might hear the squeaking as you rub, like she used to do between giggles in the bath. Hold on to these delightful sounds as you tuck the shitakes in a bowl of water and lay them to sleep in the fridge. Like children, they will reawaken with springiness. Unlike children, they require forty-eight hours.
3. 500g fresh pork trotters:
Wash the hocks thoroughly before chopping. The collagen that is released in the cooking process is rich in gelatine, a product that is frequently marketed for cushioning joints in aging. After an exhaustive day of scrubbing her fingerprints and pencil marks off walls, pulling her Lego from the vacuum hose, and bleaching her dirty socks, this dish will ease the soreness in your back and the aches in your knees. What the advertisements don't tell you is that gelatine cushions more than joints; it also absorbs the hard impacts of life. You'd thought those days hard back then.
4. 375g of black Chinese vinegar:
This sharp and pungent liquid is as black as her shiny hair as you ran your fingers through the silkiness, combing out all the knots. You would tie her hair into two pigtails each morning, a smile tingling your lips as you watched them flick side to side, carefree against her yellow polo-top, as she skipped out of your reach, down the stairs, and readied for school.
5. 375g of red wine:
There are many varieties to choose from. The darker the redness, the more it will remind you of how blood spills everywhere and gets into everything; like the knitted breathable-fibers of a yellow uniform, or the sky-blue polyester weave of a school bag many sizes too large for a child the size of your daughter. It will indiscriminately color it all into darkness. Stir the red wine into the Chinese vinegar, until the black as dark as her hair and the wine as red as her blood becomes one and the same.
6. 150g of ginger:
This root vegetable often arrives covered in dirt as if it has been dragged through the ground. Gently scrape until the top skin is clean, then slice thickly. An older ginger will give a sharper bite. You might wonder: will it sting as much as glass tearing smooth round cheeks when a windscreen shatters? Or burn like skin razed over asphalt? Will its pungency ever clear the acrid scent of burning rubber that haunts your nightmares? It's impossible to stop the questions but what matters most is that the bite will be sharper than the pain that ripped through your heart when the phone rang, and the hospital urged you to hurry in and see your little girl before it became too late.
7. Gula melaka:
This sweetness is derived from the weeping buds of a coconut palm, a tree that naturally knows of pain. Four large cubes are recommended for this recipe. If the day is particularly sour, as you hear the sounds of a giggling child, or catch the sight of a yellow top, add an extra cube or two. Don't let the health-conscious voice stop you, not when getting through a day is more important. The tartness of life is easier to swallow when sugared in double measure. It still won't be easy.
METHOD:
It doesn't matter if you're frazzled or in pieces on the day of cooking. What matters most is that you start. For best results, use non-reactive cookware like a ceramic or earthen pot. It is the only way to keep the dish untainted. Fry the pork trotters and ginger with a few drops of sesame oil. Let the fragrance bring forth the memory. Mix the vinegar and wine until it permanently colors the stew. If the darkness is enveloping you, add an extra cup of water. Like medicine, a milder dose is better than none at all. Settle the cooked eggs and shitake mushrooms gently in and wait until the liquid comes to boil. Turn the flame down, give the ingredients time to absorb it all, just as the memories have gone around and around while you cooked. If a few drops of tears slip in, a little saltiness is understandable. Simmer gently for forty minutes - or as long as you need; the cooking process is as important as the dish to keep you going.
Once it's ready, ladle it out. It will stain the softness of jasmine rice as easily as the memory has darkened your soul. Close your eyes, eat it with relish anyway. Let each piece remind you: freshly-boiled eggs like the softness of her cheeks rubbing warmly against yours; a reawakened shitake bouncing into your open arms; the smoothness of the sauce like the silkiness of her hair. Alongside each reminder, taste the sour, the sweet, and especially the burn in your throat. Memories of a life includes all its different flavours.
As you go to bed tonight, notice that the tang of the vinegar eases, and the bite of the ginger fades. So too, one day, will your pain ease, until what's left to keep you warm at night is a full-flavored memory that can only be savored if you keep on living.
from FICTION on the WEB short stories https://ift.tt/gp1Z3ae
via IFTTT
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