by Leslie Li
In fact, Da Mama so enjoyed eating at French restaurants that she devised a game — a game within a game — to induce her family to take her on these gastronomic “foreign expeditions.” The game she taught to her youngest son, Solin, his English wife, Emma, her youngest daughter, Yifu, and her daughter-in-law, my grandmother, was mahjong, but with this rule: quarreling or losing one’s temper was strictly forbidden. The penalty: the violator of this regulation must treat all the other players to a meal at a French restaurant. Most of Da Mama’s mahjong parties were peaceful affairs, but occasionally one of the players, feeling a craving for coq au vin perhaps, or moules marinières, might contest a certain move or speak out of turn. Then all of them, my father included, would hop into the roadster and head down Mead Mountain to one of Hong Kong’s French restaurants at the invitation of the penalized party.
The first time, Nai-nai, her coevals, and my father sat down to a French meal, they discovered that not only was the cuisine entirely different from Chinese food but that the two styles of eating varied widely as well Bread was served instead of rice. Meat, whether white or red, appeared at table not in bite-sized morsels but in a crude slab, which had to be cut into pieces with metal instruments before one could eat it. A dish, called a course, wasn’t accompanied by others, family-style, but was sequential, banquet-style, served only after the preceding one had been consumed and cleared away And the clattering abundance of porcelain! Plates of different sizes for bread, soup, appetizer, and dessert; platters for meat and fish. The near-blinding array of lead crystal and blown glass: tumblers for iced drinks and water, goblets for aperitifs, wines, digestifs. The armaments of silver plate and silverware: the huge domed tray for the roasted carnivore or herbivore; different knives to butter one’s bread, to slice one’s meat or fish; different spoons for sipping soup, plunging into pudding, or stirring sugar into one’s coffee or tea; different forks for hors d’oeuvre, entrée, first course, second course, and dessert. To make matters even worse, each piece of the seeming arsenal of silverware had to be set at a specific location around one’s place setting. Compared to the Chinese single porcelain bowl and single pair of ivory chopsticks, eating Western-style was complicated and inefficient to an extreme. It was not without a certain theatrical charm, my grandmother admitted when her first Western meal came to an end, the finale a crystal bowl of warm water in which a single slice of lemon floated, and she sighed as much in emotional relief as in physical satisfaction. Here was the cue for Dashao to help me advance what was quickly becoming Nai-nai’s biography.
“An adequate meal,” Nai-nai informed Dashao when they arrived home, “but nothing compared to your Chinese home cooking.”
“I knew that,” Dashao replied, displaying her gold-rimmed, overlapping teeth in a smile. “Did you think I doubted it? My concern wasn’t which cuisine is better — Chinese or French — but the state of your stomachs and your bowels following your ‘foreign expedition.’”
The Li foreign expeditions to Hong Kong’s Western restaurants, once occasional, became frequent when Emma became a member of the family. Chopsticks proved too unwieldy She replaced them with knife and fork, then suggested the replacement of Chinese food altogether. She wanted to eat strictly Continental fare, which meant dining out. Which meant that Solin was forced to ask Da Mama for an increase in his allowance. Her home cooking summarily rejected, Dashao retaliated by informing her young master: “Our household budget doesn’t include so many meals at expensive restaurants.”
“But Emma can’t eat Chinese food,” Solin replied, addressing his remarks to Da Mama. “It doesn’t agree with her.”
“How does she know?” Dashao quipped. “She has yet to get a chopstickful into her mouth.”
Emma did not last very long as Solin’s wife, or in China for that matter, but returned in fairly short order to England to enjoy the bangers and mash and the fish and chips she was used to. Dashao was not sorry to see her go. Nor, eventually was Solin, who remarried not too long afterwards, this time a woman who was content to eat home-cooked Chinese food with chopsticks.
But there was another guailou, or foreign devil, looming on the Western horizon of Dashao’s Eastern world. Or so Dashao dictated. A woman whom my father met while attending university in the United States, married, and brought back with him to China along with their starter family — my older sister Marcy and me. Having waged and won the culinary war against Emma, Dashao was well prepared to meet and make mincemeat — in the kitchen if she had to — of her mistress’s new daughter-in-law. My mother, however, was nothing like Emma. For one, she was half Chinese on her father’s side. For another, Nai-nai took to my mother as early as their first encounter, which occurred in Shanghai. For this all-important meeting my mother wore an elegant cheongsam with a repeating pattern of the Buddhist eternal knot woven into the silk jacquard fabric. Circling her neck was a double strand of pearls. She had stayed back, waiting for her husband to introduce her. At his beckoning, she approached her mother-in-law, not rushing forward aggressively as so many Westerners tend to, but not hanging back timidly either, as so many Chinese were wont to when meeting someone for the first time. Truly, this Eurasian daughter-in-law of mine is half Eastern and half Western, my grandmother thought. And I don’t have to be a physiognomist to know that she is blessed with good fortune. Nai-nai took my mother’s hands in hers and, with Yau Luen translating, welcomed her into the family and to China, hoping she would be happy in both. By the expression in the young woman’s eyes, Nai-nai knew that my mother understood, if not her words, then certainly her sentiments. My mother thanked her in very simple Mandarin and called her “Muqin.” Mother. All the way home in the chauffeured limousine which my grandfather had hired for his enlarged family, Nai-nai held and patted my mother’s hand and tried to make simple conversation with her. To everything her daughter-in-law said, Nai-nai leaned over to my father and remarked, “She speaks Chinese very well, doesn’t she? And to think — she’s only just arrived!”
Though my mother won Nai-nai over easily, Dashao was not so ready to succumb to the half-guailou’s charms. No doubt she was as impressed as she was skeptical when thundering trucks arrived in front of the house on Haight Road and discharged huge crates and boxes, two of which contained a refrigerator and a stove. Another crate housed an American automobile, a purchase which Nai-nai attributed to my mother’s exemplary foresight and thorough preparation. “But did she think that our country didn’t have cars?” she asked her son, out of earshot from his wife.
Other aspects of Western living as revealed by my mother’s standards of housekeeping were also perplexing. Americans, it seemed, were very particular about their bathrooms. For them, bedrooms could be rudimentary, but well-appointed and immaculate bathrooms, with flush toilets and hot and cold running water, were de rigueur. And if the bathroom was important, the kitchen was crucial. “Hygiene is essential to food preparation,” my mother explained to Nai-nai, with Dashao right by her shoulder hanging on every word. “One’s health depends on it. A proper kitchen must have good circulation, lots of sunlight, and spotless utensils.”
In fact, one of my mother’s first tasks as second mistress of the house was to teach Dashao how to wash dishes the Western way — in very hot water to which was added dish detergent, a substance Dashao had never used before, then how to dry them, with a clean dish towel used specifically for that purpose, another first. During these strange initiations, Dashao performed her duties without question or fail, thanks to my mother, who, though inexperienced in much of the culture and customs of her newly adopted country, was a paragon of tact, diplomacy, and intuition. Yet surprisingly it was she, not Dashao, who threw down the kitchen mitt and declared the “chicken wars.”
Though it was customary for my family to eat the meals Dashao prepared, one day my mother, who loves Chinese food but who was also homesick for simple, straightforward meat and potatoes, decided to whip up a Western-style dinner. Dashao’s duties were thus reduced to after-dinner
cleanup: she was not to prepare a thing. Her long, lanky arms folded across her chest, she followed my mother with eagle eyes as her usurper traversed the kitchen many times: from refrigerator to stove to toaster to electric oven to cake mixer to ice-cream machine. The menu her young mistress had planned was hors d’oeuvres on toast points, leg of lamb, julienned vegetables, roast potatoes, chocolate layer cake, and vanilla ice cream.
“It’s surprising to me how many machines, big and small, foreigners need to cook a good meal,” Dashao said, finally, “while we Chinese need only a wok and a cleaver.”
“For example?” my mother asked, basting the leg of lamb.
“For example, mistress, that great big refrigerator. I can see the purpose it serves if the weather is hot all year long, but in Shanghai winters are very cold. Yet foreigners, I hear, rely on their refrigerator year-round.”
“It’s true. An American family would be lost without a refrigerator. We don’t shop as you do — once, even twice a day. We don’t have the time, so we shop for most of our food once or twice a week.”
“Foreigners say that a refrigerator keeps food as fresh as just-picked or just-killed. But I don’t believe it,” Dashao continued. “Can you honestly tell me that a box that’s cold inside is the same thing as a plot of earth enriched with a nice thick layer of night soil? Or that a chicken that lies in the electric winter of an icebox will be as tender as one that’s still warm, whose neck has just been wrung? I don’t mean to criticize, mistress, but despite all your fancy machines and exotic ingredients, the dishes you can make are proportionately few.”
“That sounds like a challenge, Dashao,” my mother said, smiling. “Remember, although I’m American, my given name, Genevieve, is French, and French cuisine is among the best in the world.”
“As is Chinese cuisine,” Dashao was quick to reply.
“And justifiably so. Perhaps we should put your theory to the test — a contest. There’s no question that you are a better cook than I,” my mother conceded. “However, national cuisine is the question here, not personal cooking skills. You say that, with all the ingredients and all the machines I have at my disposal, I am able to cook only a limited number of dishes. Let me cook them, then. You, as the better cook, may make as many vegetable dishes as you wish to prepare, but as for meat, you are restricted to chicken, and chicken only”.
“Not just any chickens,” Dashao qualified, not to be denied her say in the formulation of the rules of the game. “Only fresh-killed, unrefrigerated chickens.”
“Of course. The contest will last ten days. Well each cook dinner for five alternating days. Agreed?” My mother held out her hand.
“Agreed!” Dashao boomed, grasping it in hers and pumping away.
When Yau Luen and Nai-nai learned of the gastronomic contest that my mother and Dashao had devised, the latter attributed it to her daughter-in-law’s Chinese sense of protocol. “To defuse potential rivalry, she employed a form of rivalry — a challenge — the result of which will be that Dashao will become her loyal servant and unwavering ally, just like she became mine.”
Yau Luen disagreed. “More likely it’s her Polish charm and her American rigor. A blend of Western spiritedness and seriousness.”
“Whatever the reason,” Nai-nai replied, “we will never eat more thoughtfully prepared meals than those concocted in this house over the next ten days.”
Or more anticipated ones. The electricity generated wasn’t just in my mother’s American-bought range or mixer, it was palpable in the air in the Li kitchen. My mother created her Western-style meals — a variety of meat, fish, and poultry, exotic (for China) fruits and vegetables, and a vast array of condiments and confectionery — with the aid of her many culinary appliances and gadgets. Dashao, on the other hand, remained well within the limits my mother had set: chicken, common Chinese vegetables, such as bok choy, guy-lan, and celery cabbage; the usual condiments of soy sauce, black bean, chili paste, oyster sauce, garlic, ginger, and five-spice powder; and her wok and cleaver. But such wizardry she worked with her few implements and ingredients! Cold shredded chicken, chicken with cashews, seeyao gai chicken, steamed chicken with mushrooms and lily buds, drunken chicken, chicken medallions with snow peas. At the end of the ten-day trial, my mother graciously conceded that Dashao was not only the far better cook but also that Chinese food was the better cuisine. The winner of the cooking contest, however, would not be outdone in international relations and replied, “I may be a somewhat better cook than my young mistress, but I also understand that she is an excellent dancer.”
Given this unexpected compliment and cue, my mother changed into her tap shoes and set a big band tune on the Victrola; Dashao and my father rolled up the dining room rug; and my mother set to work a second time, beating out a rhythm on the parquet floor with her rapid feet to which Nai-nai kept time by slapping her hands on her bouncing knees. When the recording and the lively performance came to an end, who should be applauding loudest and longest but the winner of the chicken wars.
It was wars of a very different sort — the Chinese Revolution of 1945-49 and the Cold War that succeeded it and continued to be waged until 1971 — that separated Nai-nai and Dashao in the end. Shortly before the Chinese Communists took power in 1949, my entire family sought refuge in Hong Kong. We had moved steadily southward — from Beijing to Shanghai to Hong Kong — as the Red Army rolled through the country from north to south and east to west. Leaving Dashao behind while she made ready to travel to Hong Kong was for Nai-nai almost as wrenching as the many times she had said her temporary farewells to her immediate family, with whom she was almost certain she would be reunited. But leaving Dashao in Shanghai offered little promise that the two women would ever see each other again.
I sensed Dashao’s presence, felt her tap me on the shoulder. I rolled over in bed, opened my eyes, switched on the lamp. She placed the pen on the night table between my fingers, opened my notebook, dictated the final chapter to her story: “You’ve been more than a trusted servant,” Nai-nai told the weeping woman. “You’ve been more than a family member. You’ve been a wonderful friend to me, and I will miss you very much.”
“Li Tai-tai,” Dashao said, pressing her palms together and bowing repeatedly, “return to China when we have won it back. Send for me, and I will come. I will wait till I hear from you. And I will serve you for the rest of my days.”
See Yao Gai (Soy Sauce Chicken)
3-pound chicken, washed and patted dry
1 cup dark soy sauce
1 cup light soy sauce
1 cup water
¼ cup plus 3 tablespoons firmly packed brown sugar
1 whole star anise
3 tablespoons dry sherry
2 cloves garlic, crushed
2 slices of peeled fresh gingerroot about the size of a quarter
sesame oil for brushing the chicken 1 scallion, shredded lengthw se and cut crosswise into 1-inch pieces
Hang the chicken from the neck on a hook over a bowl for 20 minutes to tenderize it In a heavy saucepan or kettle just large enough to hold the chicken stir together the soy sauces, water, brown sugar, anise, sherry, garlic, and ginger-root Bring the mixture to a boil. Add the chicken. Simmer, covered, for 15 minutes. Turn it over and simmer, covered, for another 15 minutes.
Transfer the chicken to a colander and let drain. Cut the chicken through the bone into 2-inch pieces. Brush the skin with sesame oil. Sprinkle with scallions. Serve the chicken on a platter with the soy sauce mixture on the side.
Makes 4 servings.
Drunken Chicken
2 whole chicken breasts, with skin and bones
½ teaspoon sugar
1 cup shaoshing (or white) wine
2½ teaspoons salt
sprigs of cilantro
Rinse chicken breasts and pat dry. Cut breasts in half through the bone. Rub salt evenly into the breasts. Refrigerate overnight.
Place chicken breasts on rack in wok filled with water. Cover and s
team for 15 minutes. Transfer breasts to a bowl.
Mix sugar and wine. Pour over chicken to soak and cover for one, preferably two, days, turning the breasts several times to soak evenly.
Drain chicken breasts and chop crosswise into ½-inch pieces. Garnish with sprigs of cilantro and arrange on a serving platter. Serve cold or at room temperature.
Makes 4-6 servings.
MOON CAKES, JADE RABBITS, AND
ELIXIRS OF IMMORTALITY
From a pot of wine among the flowers
I drank alone. There was no one with me —
Till, raising my cup, I asked the bright moon
To bring me my shadow and make us three.
—from “Drinking Alone with the Moon”
by Li Po(a.d. 701-762)
When the osmanthus trees are in bloom — “the best time of year to visit Guilin,” according to my father — is also when the Moon Festival is celebrated. With autumn comprising the seventh, eighth, and ninth months of the lunar calendar, the Moon Festival falls precisely in the middle of the season — on the fifteenth day of the eighth month. This is the day of the year when the moon is full, or “completely round,” as the Chinese would say. The celestial orb is also at its greatest distance from the earth and at its lowest angle to the horizon, making it appear bigger and brighter than at any other time of year. And I was in Guilin to see and to celebrate it “the Chinese way” as my father would say to differentiate the real from the fake, the wheat from the chaff, Eastern values from Western ones.
Of course, we observed the Mid-Autumn Festival, as it is less poetically called, in New York when Nai-nai came to live with us. That is, we bought yuebing, or moon cakes, from a Chinatown bakery and ate them at home washed down with glasses of chrysanthemum tea. I wasn’t terribly fond of moon cakes — round pastries stuffed with various fillings: orange peel, red-bean paste, date paste, egg yolk, coconut, lotus seed paste — until I stopped eating them like cookies and began nibbling at them like cake — fruitcake, Chinese-style, which is the Western dessert they most resemble. Cut in very thin slices, moon cakes become the satisfying and substantial delicacy they are, whereas consumed in generous bites, they’re capable of gluing one’s jaws shut and, once swallowed, sit heavily in the stomach like a stone.