The food heaven-final draft

Biting splendidly succulent Teochew-style dim sums covered with fragile white rice flour was like chewing a bubble gum without its sweet flavor. I joyfully tasted the soft dumpling wrapper and the crunchy peanuts crashed together with rich-flavored pork and fresh lotus roots. The hot and mildly spicy juice of dim sum popped into my mouth and slipped down my throat and warmed my stomach. This steamy little ball-shape finger food brought a new sensation developed from overcoming obsession, confusion, and unexpected discovery.

During summer break in 11^th grade, my little brother, my parents, and I traveled to my favorite city, Hong Kong. This was how I fantasized about the city: the food heaven. Hong Kong action noir movies. Skyscrapers. Fifteen thousand restaurants. Business center of Asia. Coexistence of Chinese traditional culture and British colonialism. Tiny land crammed with people. Shopaholics’ shrine! Each country magically has its own smell at street corners, markets, buildings, restaurants, and hotels. Just everywhere. When we arrived, the strong scent of Hong Kong ran into my face, and this smell was like the comforting taste of warm and moist yellow custard.

Though my family was too tired from the late night flight, I insisted we waste no time and find the dim sum restaurant called “Serenade” in the Tsim Sha Tsui. I found this place by reading for one of the five Hong Kong guidebooks for few days. The book says: “The top ten choices for the best restaurants in Hong Kong: HK FOODS THAT YOU MUST EAT BEFORE YOU DIE”. The first and only dim sums that I had eaten was from the food court in Korea that I couldn’t find any trace of authenticity of each cultural food. These dim sums were too sticky so that they stuck on my fingers. I tasted the watery and slimy skin of dim sums that were like rotten oyster, and inside of them had dry and dull-tasted grounded beef. After this horrible eating experience, I wouldn’t want to taste them ever again. However, I changed my mind to give it another shot after seeing the pictures of carefully crafted brightly colored goldfish and hedgehog-shaped dim sums. My family was frustrated with my selfish enthusiasm and told me that they would rather go to bed because it was already 9 p.m. Since my family knew that my strong-headed desire usually needed to be accomplished or I would complain to them during the entire trip, they couldn’t go against my unreasonable and stubborn insistence. The men in my family didn’t really have much power, so they restlessly accepted my over-achieving obsession although my mom scolded me little bit. I drove my family to tour right away as soon as they put away their luggage.

            Hong Kong is indeed a city that never sleeps, so I believed that for us to get a sense of what Hong Kong is like. Therefore, I needed to be awake and try every new thing. I felt a heavy duty to lead my family in having a wonderful time while hitting all the tourist and famous places in the five Hong Kong guidebooks. Going through the street vendors who sold eggette, gai daan jai, an egg custard waffle cooked over an open flame, my mind was occupied with tasting the perfect steamed dim sum in Serenade. We overcame the hot night air of June, sweat of pedestrians, and the eggette’s smell of sweet egg batter and marched down the crowded avenue. It was the most crowded street I have ever seen– with flashy red neon signs written in Chinese that brightened the night, the buzz of foreign languages, the endless noises, a combination of old grey and new buildings, and oriental-style and western buildings all juxtaposed together. Almost no gap between buildings in this crazy city jungle made me dizzy. The street was filled with drunken young people entering the bars for the second round of their wild night, smoke floating into the polluted Hong Kong air cigarettes from office workers, and street vendors trying to get tourists’ attention to make them buy fake Prada bags and Omega wrist watches. My family and I walked for one hour, but we still could not find Serenade. I asked many natives for directions, but most of them could not speak English, so they avoided me.

My mom asked me with an exhausted voice, “Hey, kid, do you want to just go that restaurant?” She pointed to a restaurant that looked extremely old, and had some disgusting fungi attached on the front door. I wanted to resist, but I was so happy that there was actually a place to sit and eat, and I felt sorry for my family who was sacrificed their comforts for my greed. We were the only customers in the place, and there was only the sound of ticking of brown striking clock standing next to the tapestry of two giant tigers which scared me by their bulk eyes. The burning smell of cheap Chinese incense permeated in the whole restaurant. I worried about whether the food would be good and if there was dim sum. However, we found dim sum on the menu! Since the menu was written only in Cantonese with pictures of the foods, I pointed out Teochew-style dim sum dumplings. Each member of my family ordered different kinds of food for experimentation of unfamiliar food culture.

After random wandering for 10 minutes, by chance, we arrived to the Kowloon Park. I pulled out the precious and long-awaited take-out food boxes, once I sat down on the grass. These foods were not exactly what I had in mind, since I couldn’t order them by name, so I didn’t have high expectations for their taste. However, as soon as I opened the boxes, my mouth watered because the colors of the foods contrasted like coral reefs: brown dried pork strips over fresh bread, Pork floss and Teochew-style dim sum dumplings filled with sliced garlics, peanuts, red peppers, white and soft tofu, pork, and translucent green lotus root and chives. My family and I dug in chopsticks and spoons. While eating, we could see the lights of buildings reflected in the bay and waved back and forth. The ferry came and left from different harbors allowing tourists to take pictures of the night skyline of Hong Kong.

I ate the foods as slowly as I could to appreciate the bright city night view and a hot summer breeze off the bay. The foods awakened my taste buds. I had my bite for Bojaeban, a bowl of steamed rice served with toppings of eels without fish bones. The mix of cilantros with lime and soybean oil gave exotic tastes, and the skin of the eel was extremely soft like cotton candy and savory because of its magical sauce. Chili crab - red chili juice flowing over chubby white crab meat embedded in dry chilies – almost made me cry. This ultra-spicy crab hurt my eyes by just looking at it. It was extremely spicy but addicting, so I kept eating it. I drank a coconut juice smoothie, and coconut juice, fresh fruit, rice ball (or called bubbles), and mango jelly soothed my burning tongue. It was also refreshing to drink fruity juice and suck up and chew and glutinous balls.

Eating with the Teochew-style dim sums, wonton noodle, shrimp dumplings wrapped with delicate flour and soft noodle dipped into a heavily flavored chicken broth helped to wash away my obsession for flawless trip and paid off long walk that I unexpectedly learnt true shades of Hong Kong although it was harder and more challenging than touring with a tour guide.

Response to “The Secret Ingredients”

In “The Secret Ingredients”, Fisher tells that the old lady she worked with, Bertie Bastalizzo, a retired cook who possessed magical power over cooking the greatest pickled zucchini. Fisher’s honest and insightful writing contains humanity and humbleness in his piece. The comparison of Bertie was like a cookery witch is interesting. That reminds me of my grandmother’s special and magical power of making the best Korean kimchi pancake. No kimchi pancake has been so far better than my grandmother’s. Every Thanksgiving Day and New Year Day, our family is busy with cooking kimchi pancakes that can feed many people at once if a mix of ingredients is ready to be used. Although it’s easy to make, no one can imitate the perfect crispy end part of her kimchi pancake. Her pancake is loaded with fresh ground beefs, shreds of spinach and welsh onions, and tons of kimchi (Maybe there might be another ingredient that makes her pancake special). She gave the same recipe to everyone who asked for it; however, no one could produce same taste, smell, and crunchy texture of her kimchi pancake. The most special thing about her pancake is that her pancake has stronger kimchi flavor than other pancakes although the amount of kimchi that is used is same.

Back to “The Secret Ingredients”, Fisher says that “They [cookery witches] manage to keep to themselves whatever it is that makes their creations subtly and definitely better than any attempts to approximate them. They are even willing to make knaves and clowns of themselves to protect their recipes” (103). I don’t really know whether my grandmother has the “secret ingredient” that she never told us about to make her pancake extremely delicious. She might hide her true recipe with careful deception because she has pride of being the best cook of making kimchi pancake, also she might not want to share her recipe that consists with her timeless efforts and trials. No one is perfect in his or her first cooking experience. By using different kinds of ingredients and trying different cooking methods to create wonderful dishes, she and Bertie became a cookery witch. Therefore, it is a cook’s right to give away her true recipe or not. I also found out that it was impossible to follow my grandmother’s way of cooking kimchi pancake exactly same like strength of flipping the pancakes aren't easily controllable.

I think that physical ingredients aren't the only factors that make dishes amazing. Inside of dishes of Bertie and my grandmother, there is passion that they went through by so many trials to make best dishes. Fisher says that “If at times they protected their secrets to the point of knavery, at least they had the courage to stay passionate about it. Perhaps that was the Secret Ingredient: the blind strength of timeless passion” (108). Bertie was particular for not only her process of cooking but also serving her dish and preparing ingredients which requires so much passion than just making food without careful thoughts.

At the end of “The Secret Ingredients”, Fisher says that these days people don’t really seek for secret ingredients or magical power of cooking great dishes, but they depend on packaged-box foods. I agree to it, and I think that these great foods created because of true flavor and changeless quality within these foods. Passion is indeed the key to make flavor that no one can make and makes the best food accompanied with truthfulness and endeavor. Whenever I ate my grandmother’s kimchi pancake, I could receive her kindness toward our family. I could feel and taste her wish for us to eat her dishes happily. This kind of food nourishes our body but also comforts our mind. I wish I can be that kind of grandmother who uses magical power or secret ingredients to make the dish that gives happiness to people who I love.

The food heaven - memoir

            During my summer break in June when I was in 11^th grade in high school, my family (my little brother and my parents) and I traveled to my favorite city, Hong Kong: The food heaven. Fifteen thousands of restaurants. Business center of Asia. Coexistence of Chinese traditional culture and British culture from colonial period. Tiny land with people after people. Shopaholics’ shrine!

Even after I boarded on the plane, I anxiously read through the five Hong Kong guidebooks because I had this obsession of I should know everything about the country before I travel there. I was not a perfectionist, yet somehow I wanted to have a flawless trip in Hong Kong which was my first time traveling without a tour guide. I especially fantasized about Hong Kong as having same scenery of Hong Kong noir movies, skyscrapers, and all the people around the world, and they can speak English because Hong Kong is the one of the main globalized cities.

After flying for four hours, my family and I arrived to the Hong Kong International airport. Each country has its distinct smell. Whenever I traveled to different countries, I could magically experience certain smell existing everywhere in each country: same smell at corner of the streets, markets, buildings, restaurants, and hotels. Just everywhere. Started from the customs at the airport, the strong scent of Hong Kong ran into my face, and this smell was like warm and moisture yellow custard with comforting taste. On the way to catch a cab, my family and I walked by the sign saying “WELCOME TO HONG KONG: 欢迎huānyíng”. And that was when I definitely realized I was not in my own country.

I counted money for taxi fare in HK currency and held this money tightly due to my excitement and nervousness. Our cab took us to “Four Seasons Hotel Hong Kong” in Central district. My mind was caught up with two facts: Only Chinese I know is how to say Hi (ni hao), and no one in our family, except me, knows anything about Hong Kong. I felt like I got a heavy duty to lead my family to have wonderful time while accomplishing to go all the tourist and famous places in Hong Kong’s guidebooks.

I brought all of the five tour guidebooks in my giant backpack, so my mom was yelling at me for me being an extreme “tourist”. My families were too tired from the flight that arrived at night. Contrasting to their lethargy, I was pumped up with all the fun facts about Hong Kong and told them, “Let’s grab some dim sums!” I picked the dim sum restaurant called “Serenade” in Tsim Sha Tsui district from a “The top ten choices for the best restaurants in Hong Kong: HK FOODS THAT YOU MUST EAT BEFORE YOU DIE”. That place was one hour away from our hotel by a bus. My family was frustrated with my selfish enthusiasm and told me that they would rather go to the bed because it was already 9 p.m. However, I didn’t care because I was a nerdy child in traveling, not being nerdy for actual school study. My over-achieving obsession drove my family to tour right away as soon as they put away their luggage.

            Hong Kong is indeed a city that never sleeps, so I thought as a tourist to feel a real sense of what is Hong Kong like, I believed that I should be awake and try every new thing. Going through the street vendors who sold eggette, gai daan jai, an egg custard waffle cooked over an open flame, my mind was occupied with my family and I tasting the perfect steamed dim sum consisted with roasted beef and soft texture of skin in Serenade restaurant. Hot night air of June, sweat of pedestrians, and this eggette’s smell of sweet egg batter in bite-sized mixed together. We had to overcome this sweet smell of street food and marched down the crowded avenue. It was the most crowded street I have ever seen– flashy red neon signs written in Chinese brightened the night, combination of old grey and new buildings, and oriental-style and western buildings juxtaposed together. Almost no gap between city jungle of buildings made me dizzy. After found a way to the bus stop for twenty minutes, we finally got on the bus, and it ran across Cross Harbor Tunnel that is in the middle of Kowloon Bay.

After few minutes in the tunnel, we got out from the bus and had to face with confusion of finding the way to the “perfect four stars dim sum restaurant, Serenade”. We went through the crowded street again, and this street was busier and crazier with more cars, beggars, people, and street vendors. The street filled with drunken young people entering the bars for the second round of their wild night, smoke floating into the polluted Hong Kong air cigarettes from office workers, and street vendors trying to get tourists’ attention to make them buy fake Prada bags and Omega wrist watches. I started to get nauseous after encountering all these flashing lights from neon signs, few palm trees on the road, listening to foreign language, and endless noises of this crazy city. My family and I walked for one hour, but we still could not find Serenade. I asked many natives about what is the direction for our destination, but most of them could not speak English – which was against my fantasy, so they avoided me as soon as I spoke English.

My mom asked me with exhausted voice, “hey, kid do you want to just go that restaurant?” while she pointed out the restaurant. I looked around my surroundings and saw numerous authentic Hong Kong take-out restaurants, but she picked one that looked like it was about to collapse. The restaurant looked extremely old, and some fungi attached on the front door was disgusting. I would resist to even get into this place if I were in the normal state; however, I wasn’t, so I said, “Sure! I cannot walk anymore!” Actually, I was so happy that there is actually a place to sit and eat finally, and I felt sorry for my family who was sacrificed from my greed. In the restaurant, there was no one except us and the old lady (who cooks and serves). I was worried about what if the foods here are not delicious and what if there is no dim sum. Looking through menu, we found dim sums (I realized almost all the restaurants in Hong Kong sell dim sums anyway since Hong Kong people eat it daily). I did not even have choice to select which kind of dim sum I wanted because I did not know any food in the menu because the menu was written only in Cantonese with pictures of foods. Without any hesitation, I pointed out Teochew-style dim sum dumplings. Our family each ordered different kinds of food for experimentation of unfamiliar food culture.

Our family walked down to the Kowloon Park which was easily found due to its elongated and large size of the place. I pulled out the take-out boxes, precious foods because these took a while to get once I sat down on grass. These foods were not exactly what I wanted, so I didn’t have that much expectation for good taste of them. However, as soon as I opened these boxes, my mouth watered because of the color of the foods were contrasting like coral reefs: brown dried pork strips over fresh bread, Pork floss and Teochew-style dim sum dumplings – consisting with grated garlics, peanuts, red peppers, white and soft tofu, pork, and translucent green lotus root and chives wrapped with chewy but transparent rice flour. My family and I started to dig into this breath-taking cuisine with chopsticks and spoons. We were exactly facing the Island of Hong Kong, central district while eating. The lights of buildings smeared onto the water of bay and waved back and forth. The ferry came and left from different harbors and gave tourists to take pictures of the night skyline of Hong Kong.

I tasted my Teochew-style dim sum. It was the splendid moment of my food journey. I joyfully chewed soft cover of dim sum and crunchy peanuts crashing together with rich-flavored pork and fresh lotus roots. I ate slowly because I didn’t want to waste my mix senses of tasting this food, seeing bright city night view and feeling hot breeze from summer bay current. Wonton noodle, shrimp dumplings wrapped with delicate flour and soft noodle dipped into a heavily flavored chicken broth also came down to my throat and warmed my stomach. Bojaeban, a bowl of steamed rice served with toppings of eels without fish bones and cilantro with lime and soybean oil. The skin of the eel was extremely soft like a cotton candy and savory because of its magical sauce. These foods had adequate amount of seasonings to awake my taste buds.

Then I said, “I guess the guidebooks do not matter to find best foods. I don’t know why I was so obsessed with planned trip. I thought everything will be perfect if I follow the perfect guideline for traveling.”      

My mom replied, “After all, all is well. See, I told you. You don’t need to be anxious about anything. The tip for having a great trip is that don’t plan. Be stupid and random. Unexpected things are more joyful than expected ones. Just go with the flow.”

Practice of eating with humble mind

Our family’s car drove up to middle of Baegunsan Mountain in Gwangyang to visit two women monks living there at their small Buddhist temple. Those two monks are my mom’s one of the closest friends after my mom had interviewed them for her magazine article. Surrounded by the range of mountains and gorges looking like folding screens were spread widely, there was one little temple that we would visit. That temple was so tiny so that it almost looked like a dot in the green canvas.

We finally reached to their temple, and those two monks greeted us from the narrow drive way. Wearing grey and modest-looking clothing covering almost entire skin and having no hair, two women monks smiled gently and kindly at me and my family. They folded their hands together and bowed to us for welcoming. In the serene and motionless temple, I bowed to golden Buddha statue standing in front of me. After bowing down three times, I was allowed to get up and look around the temple. This place was made of traditional Korean style of architecture that can be seen as houses built from old dynasty. As I approached near to the kitchen, I could smell warm white rice along with hot August breeze. I was suddenly awakened completely because of mixture of fragrant of colorful burning candles that praises Buddha and strong smell of soy paste. My family and I helped out two monks for cooking lunch. I cut tofu into small pieces and mingled them with shredded red and green peppers. The strands of oyster mushrooms swirl into hearty soup of soy bean paste. After helping them for five minutes, they asked us to just sit down on the floor and wait for foods. For another ten minute of waiting for food, it was like the worst torture that I had in my life because the smell and sound of making foods made my mouth watered.

            The platters started to come out from the kitchen. On the table after setting up all plates and a pot with food, we started to dig our chopsticks and spoons into food. These foods were all vegetarian foods since monks are the strict vegetarians, and they are not even allowed to eat fish and eggs according to their laws of Buddha. I thought the foods would taste dull and unflavored because there is no meat or condiments that smeared onto each food. However, it was opposite of that as soon as I had the first bite. These foods have adequate amount of seasonings to awake my taste buds joyfully. The color of all these foods were contrasting together: translucent green lotus root to wrap rice with purple eggplants or mushrooms, red kimchi that monks made with town people in last fall, hot soy bean paste soup with grated garlics, white and soft tofu, peppers, and mushrooms, and yellow ginger with little bit of salted green beans. These were side dishes for this whole meal. When I put the spicy soup, the hot liquid quickly came down and warmed my stomach. Every food went into my mouth was amazingly soft, crunchy, and fresh. I’ve never thought that I would be satisfied with solely vegetarian foods since I was so used to the cities’ aggressive and overly flavored with excessive condiments of texture and flavor of foods. I could see and taste more lively ingredients in these dishes because of these ingredients were free from culture of continuous adding more and more condiments to dishes.

My family and I were amazed by those wonderful dishes and asked the monks for tips for cooking. And then they told us that more you add, it is showing more greed of humans, and it will not contain essence of truth taste of food. They continued, “Foods loaded with greasiness, non-nutrient junk ingredients, and overly fried and cooked make people unhealthy and unhappy since these foods control their pure minds to be corrupted souls.”

I learnt the lesson that day. It was my first food to change my view of perceiving world of consuming food. It changed my life to be less consumptive and suggested me that vegetarian foods can be more delicious than omnivore’s style of food. I realized that I was not privileged for being omnivore to taste every kind of food without feeling guilt or thankful to ingredients that compose my body and soul. The monks told us this, “Eating should be the act of not only fattening our bodies but also fattening our soul.”

This was my first time thinking that I should be thankful to the lives that sacrificed for my foods, sunlight, air, water, and earth, all the things on this earth. I criticized my own food habit: being hungry and seeking for only delicious and large amount for food without throwing out my greed.

I know the answer. Eat moderately and be humble to the living things. What a blissful joy that I haven’t known for seventeen years!

A Cook’s Tour: dynamic interpretation of cultures relating to appreciating food!

A Cook’s Tour by Anthony Bourdain leads readers to think about the essence of foods beyond the food itself by challenging different kinds of food other than just western food. Bourdain describes diverse dishes of food from different cultures based on his travels. By evoking readers’ various senses: seeing, tasting, feeling, smelling, and hearing created from the process of cooking and eating.

The first place he traveled was Portugal, and it is interesting how as a chief, Bourdain thought deeply about killing something for his cooking. This thought questions where food comes from, and to me, I thought about origin of the sacrificed ingredients for my appetite. I saw a clip from Food Inc. showing chicks’ beaks cutting off to fit in the environment of industrial chicken farm, and I felt disgusted by that. After watching it, I was more conscious about what I am eating. Bourdain says that while the children of Portuguese town that he visited watching pigs getting slaughtered, they had no emotional change on their little faces. Bourdain illustrates that “They were farm kids who’d seen this before many times. They were used to the ebb and flow of life, its at-times-bloody passing” (22). I think that these kids will rather have less respect toward brutal killing for foods as they grow up they will get used to this process before rethinking about cruelty of killing animals. Although they know foods cannot be wasted due to its intensive process of getting ingredients.

Also, he describes another Portuguese food culture: large groups of people eating together. I am impressed by this continuous eating tradition because this kind of tradition is gone in many cultures due to transformation of cultures through westernization and industrialization, so I raised these questions: What if all the societies of different cultures continue this kind of tradition of eating together as a family? Would there be less unhappiness and suicides because there are more conversations among family members that can have emotional cures? I personally think that it is wonderful to eat together as a family or as friends because it is a social gathering of joy and fulfills satisfaction through eating and talking at the same time.

I like how he vividly and intensively describes each food from various cultures by sensory effects because this book itself does not contain every picture of every food that is mentioned, and it is hard for readers to imagine what exactly foods are like unless they taste them. In the part when he was in Vietnam, his description of pho led my mind yearned for a perfect bowl of pho. “A bowl of clear hot liquid, loaded with shreds of fresh, white, and pink crabmeat … garnished with bean sprouts and chopped fresh cilantro” (57). I could totally imagine the colorfulness and lovely smell of pho. He continues to portray spring roll, nuoc mam, and when he describes Vietnamese coffee, I automatically shouted, “Yum…” Not only having excellent descriptions of food, Bourdain captures the places where he encountered authentic food that he usually cannot see back in his hometown, New York City. As reading the depiction of the Vietnamese food market, it makes me feel like I am perusing that market filled with people, smell of pho, Vietnamese languages, fresh vegetables, and poultries hanging on the hook.

“How to drink Vodka” chapter introduces the way of drinking vodka properly in a real Russian way which was interesting. I, as a young immature student, usually thought that the best way of drinking alcohol is just chugging it down, but it was actually fascinating to know of a better way of enjoying alcohol consumption. The Russian way of drinking vodka is that food must be present while drinking, especially bread.

Although this book is called “A cook’s tour”, and it is supposed to mainly focus on food traveling, one part I found that is out of context, yet I love his astray insight about humanity. He talks about how he felt horrible when he saw this Vietnamese guy who has been burned in the past probably from the Vietnam War, and he has no nose, eyebrows, and lips. This apparent physical scar made Bourdain sad and made him think about why he is even writing a book about food which is considered as trivial to this injured man’s pain. He continues to criticize Western tourism culture that contains no real appreciation and ignorance toward native people and culture. Bourdain shows true appreciation toward culture of each country he visited through honest comments about authentic foods that he tasted. Providing detailed descriptions of preparation, cooking, and eating of food reveals dynamic food culture and tradition. He takes readers to join his food travel to find “perfect food” supported with his humorous and blatant opinions about reading different cultures through different foods.