Taste From Memory

     When I hear people talk about China, the first thing that comes to my mind is their food culture. China has 2000 years of food culture, and there is a variety of food. I was born in Guangdong, a southern coastal province, famous for its fresh-caught seafood from the sea. Many Cantonese people agree that the taste of Cantonese cuisine puts emphasis on freshness so the taste is clear, light and crisp. In Guangdong, many people usually have five meals a day which are called breakfast, lunch, afternoon tea, dinner, and late-night snack. Although I have moved to Chicago and have been living in a neighborhood which is close to Chinatown, I still miss the home-cook meal, street food and herbal tea of Guangdong. These tastes are the irreplaceable memory from my childhood. 

     Cantonese cuisine is perhaps the most wildly available Chinese regional cuisine in the United States, but many dishes require specific ingredients and cookware. There is a famous dish called Braised Five-Spice Goose in my hometown, and we usually eat it when we had major festivals and events, such as Chinese New Year, Winter Solstice Festival, and family reunions. It is sweet and slightly salty; the meat is tender, and I usually dip it with its brown sauce. The process of preparation and cooking is complicated. Although I don’t know the recipe, I heard that the dish takes about four hours to make. Since it requires fresh Chinese goose and a large cast iron wok, I might never have a chance to eat it in Chicago. The slow-cooked soup that often appeared on my dining table when I was in China is not on my dining table in the United States. It requires fresh pork bones or free-range chicken, and it usually takes hours to make. Since moving to Chicago, my life rhythm has gotten faster, and I hardly have free time to make it even though I can find the ingredients in Chinatown. Slow-cooked soup often appears at some Chinese restaurants, and I sometimes order it when I eat at these restaurants. Although it tastes great, it is not better than the one I had from my mother in China. The soup I taste in Chinese restaurants is lighter and less flavorful while my mother put more ingredients and cooked it for a longer time than the ones I have in the restaurant. 

     When I was in China, I didn’t just eat at home, but I also eat out. Street food was one of my favorite places to hang out with friends during the weekends in my hometown in Southern China. Cantonese people usually call it as the fifth meal of the day. In my memory, the smell of the street food was full of mouth-watering curry fish balls, spicy stinky tofu and barbecue skewers. It made me feel hungry. There are many varieties of snacks and they usually come with small portions. I loved to hang out with my friends on the food street. In my memory, we talked and laughed, and then we gave a bite on our favorite snack. When we felt thirsty, we would buy a cup of iced bubble tea. When we got tired or wanted to sit down, we would go to a dessert place. Global food chains such as McDonald’s and KFC, have restaurants on food streets, and they are also great places for sitting down and ordering an ice cream or a bucket of fried chicken. The concept of street food is very similar to the Taste of Chicago food festival. The Taste of Chicago neither sells Chinese snacks, nor is it open seven days a week. I also noticed the menus of McDonald’s, and KFC in the United States are quite different. In Chicago, I can’t find fried dough stick with congee at KFC, and I can’t find taro pie at McDonald’s, either. 

     In accordance with Guangdong’s weather and environment condition, Cantonese herbal tea is very common in my province and it is a major part of the Chinese national heritage. Cantonese herbal tea is made from pure Chinese medicinal herb, and it has antipyretic and antitoxic effects. After staying up late, or eating spicy junk food, or being sick, Cantonese have many reasons for drinking their traditional herbal tea. There are bunch of different herbal tea formulas and their functions are different as well. My mother sometimes made it at home, or I bought it at an herbal tea shop. Herbal tea has a horrible smell and it tastes bitter. I didn’t like it at all when I was a child. However, now that I am grown up, I realized the importance of the herbal tea. It cleanses my body after eating unhealthy food and heals my cold when I am ill. Herbal tea is a kind of Chinese medicine. I can only find a few shops that sell herbal tea leaves in Chicago’s Chinatown. Since making herbal tea at home is just like making slow-cooked soup, it can be only cooked in large portions, it takes a lot of time to make and it’s not healthy to drink it overnight. I always feel bad wasting the leftovers, so I haven’t had the motivation to make it. 

     In my memory, the taste from my hometown is such like a delicious dream. The food was fantastic, and I could eat different kind of delicious food from morning to midnight. Herbal tea keeps me having a healthy body, so I don’t need to worry about getting sick or making me breakout. When the alarm clock rings in my Chicago home, everything goes back on track. The taste in my memory is also like a piece of newspaper exposed under the sun, per gradually loses the text and contents and I am worried that it may remain plain one day. I think it is about time to pick up the newspaper, so I can take it to my hometown and fill up the faded parts.