Best Food Writing 2013 (57 page)

I once tried substituting canned Coke, but it was patently absurd–it's nigh unto impossible to make peanuts flow out of a can. I'd never even consider diminishing the tradition by pouring Coke and peanuts into a glass. I don't think people outside the South understand unless they are, in fact, displaced Southerners, but there's something about gripping that curvy green glass bottle and tilting it just so, at that perfect 40° angle that offers up a trickle of Coke with an attendant peanut or two in each swig, that makes for one of the most satisfying sensations imaginable.

I still approach the Coke-and-peanuts ritual with reverence, though I consider myself a Californian these days. It takes me straight back to those excursions into town with my daddy, when the two of us shared a little together time riding in the pickup with the windows down, watching for wildlife along the roadside, the clean Tennessee air wafting through the cabin. Completing these trips with Coke and peanuts was ritual. Sacramental, even.

 

 

E
ATING THE
H
YPHEN

By Lily Wong

From
Gastronomica

A recent graduate of Williams College who majored in Asian Studies, Boston native Lily Wong now teaches English in Hong Kong, where she explores the mysteries of dim sum. It's all part of piecing together a cultural identity that makes sense.

F
ork? Check. Knife? Check. Chopsticks? Check. It may seem odd to have all three of these eating utensils side by side for the consumption of a single meal, but for me, there's just no other way. Oh, and ketchup, that's key. Definitely need to have the ketchup, pre-shaken to avoid an awkward first squirt of pale red water. There's no place for that on my plate, not when I'm eating dumplings. Yes, that is what I said: I need a fork, a knife, a pair of chopsticks, and ketchup before I eat my dumplings.

Now I've just looked up “dumpling” on the online
Oxford English Dictionary
and discovered that it is “a kind of pudding consisting of a mass of paste or dough, more or less globular in form, either plain and boiled, or enclosing fruit and boiled or baked.” I am definitely not talking about whatever unappetizing-sounding food that dumpling is supposed to be. I'm talking about Chinese dumplings, pot stickers, Peking ravioli,
jiaozi,
whatever you want to call them. Do you know what I mean yet? Maybe you've gotten a vague idea, but let me explain, because I am
very
picky about my dumplings.

To begin with, the skin has to be thick. I mean really thick. Thick and chewy and starchy and the bottom should be a bit burnt and dark golden brown from the pan-frying. Have you ever had
gyoza,
the Japanese dumplings? Yes, those thin, almost translucent skins just won't do it for me. Hands-down, no question, until my dying day, I will vouch that the skin is the make-or-break feature of a dumpling. Bad skin equals bad dumpling. Those boiled dumplings that are also a type of Chinese dumplings? The skin is too thin, too soggy, and frankly, rather flavorless. If I had to call it names, I'd say it was limp and weak and characterless. The thick-skinned dumplings that I know and love absorb more of the meaty-flavored goodness inside the dumplings. Also, because they are pan-fried (a key aspect of delicious dumplings), the bottom gets its own texture—a slightly charred crispiness to add that perfect smidgen of crunch. So, if you were to eat just the skin of the dumpling, it would be simultaneously chewy and crispy, with a bit of savory meat flavor mixed in with a burnt taste off the bottom—a wonderfulness that the words of the English language are hard-pressed to capture.

But what about the filling? To me, it's a bit peripheral. The dumplings I'm talking about have a standard pork filling with “Chinese vegetables.” I've never been entirely sure what these elusively named Chinese vegetables actually are, but I imagine that they are some combination of leeks and Chinese cabbage. They're not too salty and they don't have cilantro. These dumplings also have enough savory broth secretly sequestered inside the skin so that when you cut them open, you get some oil spatterings, pretty much all over your clothes, plate, and table. That's the sign of a good, moist, and juicy meat section.

I should mention before you envision me slaving away in a kitchen to create the perfect dumplings that the ones I like come out of the freezer. In plastic bags of fifty each. Imported to my house from Boston's Chinatown. It's strange, considering that most days I like the homegrown version of foods more than the store-bought version, but these are the exception. Even though I know they're handmade by a small company, so you get that same small-batch feel as if you made them at home, they're still store-bought and frozen rather than fresh.

But enough about finding the right dumplings; you're probably still confused as to why it's so imperative that I have a fork, knife, chopsticks, and ketchup. Here is your step-by-step guide to an entirely new dumpling eating experience:

       
1. On a large white plate, place six or seven dumplings (or more if you're particularly ravenous) and add some broccoli or beans for color and nutrition.

       
2. Squirt a glop of ketchup in one of the empty white spaces on your plate (as in not touching the broccoli or the dumplings). This is where it's key that the ketchup has been shaken a bit, otherwise that red ketchup juice runs all over your plate ruining everything.

       
3. Take that fork and knife on the side and cut each dumpling in half width-wise. Make sure to cut completely through the skin and meat.

       
4. Take the backside of your fork and push down on the top of each dumpling half until the meat abruptly pops out in a pool of brothy juice.

       
5. Once you've finished systematically cutting and squishing, you'll have lots of skins and meat pieces separated and you can put that knife and fork away. Grab the chopsticks.

       
6. Pick up a piece of the meat (just the meat now, no trying to get some skin in on this too) and dip it into the ketchup. Eat and repeat. If at any point you want to indulge in that steamed broccoli, it's a good idea. You wouldn't want to leave it all to the end. But don't dip it in ketchup. That's weird.

       
7. Now this is the best part. Use your chopsticks to one-by-one eat every last half dumpling's worth of skin. Savor every part because this is what it's all really been about. No ketchup or meat to obscure the flavor and chewiness, just pure starchy goodness.

And that's how it goes. Every single time. Confused? So was I the first time I really sat down to think about how I eat dumplings. It sounds a little like a grand mutilation of how a dumpling should be eaten for it to be “authentic” (using only chopsticks and with the dumpling left whole and dipped in black vinegar, no ketchup in sight). And I have unabashedly criticized and ridiculed Americanized Chinese food for being fake and something of a disgrace to “authentic” Chinese food. Yet here I am, still eating my dumplings with ketchup and a fork, unceremoniously and quite literally butchering my dumplings before I eat them. My grandmother meanwhile takes
small bites out of whole dumplings, careful not to lose any of that broth from inside (with a face only three-quarters filled with disgust as I rush from the table to grab my ketchup from the fridge).

Bottled up in this entirely strange ritual is my status as a Chinese American. It is unclear to me where I ever came up with the idea that dumplings should be cut in half, or that the meat would taste better with ketchup (particularly since this is literally the only time that I use ketchup). Perhaps this combination has something to do with the fact that since both my parents grew up in the States, we've embraced many American traditions while abandoning or significantly modifying many Chinese ones. But even so, I have always embraced my Chinese culture and heritage. It gives me something larger to cling to when I'm feeling ostracized by American culture for looking “different.” The suburb I grew up in is mostly white, but it's not as if I didn't have Chinese people around me; after all, there was always Chinatown. But Chinatown was full of people who spoke the language—whether Cantonese or Mandarin—who somehow just seemed so much more Chinese than I ever could be. And perhaps that's true. Maybe that's why I feel so gosh-darned American when I eat my dumplings with ketchup while holding my chopsticks “incorrectly.” The notion that this somehow takes away from my ability to identify with Chinese culture is, I rationally understand, flawed. But in my pursuit to try and discover who I am, it's taken an oddly large place.

I'm not sure why I often think that to be a Chinese American means that you relish authentic Chinese food—and by authentic I mostly mean strictly what your grandmother cooks for you—but I do. I've told friends that they don't know what real Chinese food is because all they know is Panda Express. I pride myself on my Cantonese background, which leads me to look favorably on pig's ears and fungus of all shapes and sizes. My innate territorialism regarding my particular definition of what Chinese food is makes the choice to continue eating my dumplings in such a strange fashion slightly fraught. I'm not even sure that anyone besides my family knows that this is how I eat dumplings. In part, I think my reticence derives precisely from a fear that it would make me “less” Chinese.

Somehow, I've come to strange terms with these contradictions. Somewhere along the way, dumplings, cut in half with ketchup
on the meat and the skin separated as a special entity of its own, have become my comfort food. So whether or not it perverts some thousand-year-old tradition of the “proper” way to eat dumplings, this is what makes me happy. Although I sometimes catch myself overcompensating with extra delight in Chinese delicacies involving jellyfish and sea cucumber that cause most Americans to squirm, eating dumplings in my own style has become the hyphen between Chinese and American in my identity.

 

 

V
ARIATIONS ON
G
RACE

By Paul Graham

From
Graze

A professor of writing and literature at upstate New York's St. Lawrence University, Paul Graham dwells on the meaning of our daily rituals in fiction (
Crazy Season,
2012) and essays in literary journals such as
Alimentum
and the new semi-annual
Graze.
Here he ponders: when was the last time you said grace before eating?

E
aster Sunday. It's just my wife and me in the numb yearning of another North Country spring, and I have suddenly remembered a similar afternoon when I was ten years old. I had observed to my mother that because family rarely visited us on holidays, and friends never did, holidays felt like any other day of the week except that we ate more. Her reaction was a shrug.

Seeking a remedy for this nagging feeling, I reach into my mother's bag of tricks. I move dinner to the dining room. Sweep the tumbleweeds of dog fur off the floor. Get the linen napkins. Light tapers. It's only window-dressing, though. I think for a moment that it might be easier to go back, to prepare instead of vanilla crème brulée a dessert iconic of my youth—maybe a no-bake banana crème pie with layers of smashed Graham crackers and Cool-Whip. At least the contrast would be striking.

Here is the thing I am up against: when you have honed your skills and become a very good cook; when you think nothing of spending two hours on a weeknight preparing, say, seared lamb loin on a bed of lentils, which you parboil in homemade chicken stock and then finish in a pan with diced bacon and onions and herbs, and pair with
a Barossa shiraz because you know the affinities between lamb and that varietal; when your kitchen is always stocked with exotic spices and your freezer contains several different cuts of meat; when your wine cellar is respectable; when you have within your reach, both economically and geographically, some of the best produce available; well, then you have that much further to go to create a special or graceful meal. To make dinner spiritual rather than merely gustatory.