Traveling with my mother was an incomparable experience. She was endlessly curious and absolutely without fear: she wandered the streets of every city she ever visited and drank the water everywhere. If you were with her, and foolish enough to fall ill, she became truly annoyed. “You’re not trying,” she once told my brother who was suffering a bout of dysentery in Mexico, “it’s all a matter of will.”
In 1980, when I went to China for the first time, I could not stop thinking about my mother. A magazine had sent me to a remote rural village in Guangdong Provence, to cover what was supposed to be a new hotel. Our little group of journalists were the first outsiders who had visited Taishan in forty years, and my companions were careful not to eat a single morsel outside of the safety of our hotel. They drank only beer, soda and bottled water. When we went to the market we wandered ravenously around, watching women squat on the ground as they cooked up dumplings and delicious-looking noodles. When I bought a bowl they were all horrified. “You can’t eat that,” they said, “you’ll get sick.”
The noodles smelled wonderful. I heard my mother’s voice. “What are you waiting for?” she said, “isn’t this why you came?”
I inhaled the spicy scent of the garlicky, chili-rich pork. I took the first bite. And then another. After that I went back every market day, pitying my companions who were missing out on the spectacular treats.
I was incredibly lucky to visit China in 1980; it was an entirely different country than it is today. There were few cars, entire families lived in a single room, and much of the life of Taishan was lived in the streets. Today Taishan is a serious city, and the home of a nuclear power plant. But I’ll bet they’re still eating fantastic noodles.
Spicy Chinese Noodles
½ pound Chinese noodles, dried egg noodles, or spaghetti
Peanut oil
½ inch-long piece of fresh ginger
2 scallions
1 teaspoon sugar
2 tablespoons doubanjiang (or 2 tablespoons Chinese black bean paste with garlic and 1 tablespoon Chinese bean paste with chili)
½ pound ground pork
toasted sesame oil
Cook the noodles in boiling water until al dente (the time will vary with the type of noodle). Drain, toss with a half tablespoon of peanut oil, and set aside.
Peel and mince the ginger (you should have about two tablespoons). Chop the white parts and slice the green parts of the scallions.
Mix the sugar with the doubanjiang or the two kinds of hot bean paste, and set aside.
Heat a wok until a drop of water skitters across the surface. Add a tablespoon of peanut oil, toss in the ginger, and stir-fry for about half a minute, until the fragrance is hovering over the wok.
Add the pork and white scallions and stir-fry until all traces of pink have disappeared. Add the bean sauce mixture and cook and stir for about 2 minutes.
Stir in the green scallions and noodles and quickly toss. Add a drop of sesame oil and turn into two small bowls. This makes a perfect snack for two.
Click HERE for printable recipe
I was just reading a recent article about Jowett Yu, the chef who has left his Hong Kong restaurant, Ho Lee Fook, to return to Australia. It made me pull out this menu from 2015 when Yu came to New York to cook for a few nights at Chef’s Club.
Raised partly in rural Yilan province (where his grandmother grew her own rice, pickled her own vegetables and made her own wine), Yu was always fascinated by food. After earning a degree in history, he followed his heart to culinary school in Vancouver and then flew off to Australia to work at Tetsuya's (a restaurant I truly love). His own Sydney restaurants followed before he moved on to Hong Kong.
The banquet started with these drunken clams marinated in a mixture of beer and Shaoxing with piercing notes of lemongrass and basil and exhilarating sparks of chile. I found these little morsels irresistible, and as I chewed on the delicious clams their texture reminded me how rarely the Chinese serve raw food.
Taiwan, on the other hand, was strongly influenced by the Japanese, who ruled the country between 1895 and 1945, and you often find sashimi on Taiwanese menus. But Yu has made raw fish his own, marinating kampachi in a plum and coriander vinaigrette and pairing it with pickled cucumbers that underlined the subtle richness of the fish. I have never tasted a more successful substitute for soy sauce.
Prawn toast okonomiyaki is another clever concept. The thick crisply fried squares of toast with their kewpie mayonaise, their salt, their seaweed and Bulldog tonkatsu sauce are almost stoner food — all big flavors and bold textures. Then you realize that those bonito flakes shivering on top are actually smoked cabbage shaved into tremblingly thin slices and you laugh out loud.
"Sixteen pleats!" breathed Francis Lam, sitting next to me, when these dumplings were plunked onto the table. "Sixteen pleats!" Not to mention the most delicate dumpling skins imaginable. Like butterfly wings wrapped around a hearty cabbage filling. I think I could have eaten them forever.
Black kingfish, steamed with pickled chiles, capers, and shallots in a white soy dressing. A really clean dish (love those greens!) and exactly what you want to eat at this point in the meal.
Fried cauliflower and brussels sprouts in a bacon maple chile jam were undeniably tasty. But after the intelligence and humor of the previous dishes this combination struck me as fairly pedestrian — the sort of vegetable dish turned out by achingly hip restaurants across America.
A huge hunk of short ribs glazed in soy, topped with scallions and served with green shallot kimchi (yes!) and a jalapeño puree. Both did an admirable job of tempering the richly seductive fattiness of the beef.
Horelicks ice cream. Cornflakes. Figs. Raspberries. Coffee crunch.
Cute. Funny. A little breakfast to send you off to bed. Maybe I'm being grumpy, but I really loved this meal, and at this point in the evening all I really wanted was a simple slice of fruit.
I first discovered Red Boat fish sauce years ago, when it was so hard to find you had to order it by mail. Today you can find it in most supermarkets. And yet, I still find myself going to the Red Boat website for some of their special products. I especially like the Phamily Reserve fish sauce — the most intense fish sauce I know — and their wonderful black peppercorns from Phu Quoc. The Phams have just released a cookbook too; if you’re interested in exploring the possibilities of fish sauce, this is an excellent guide.
Ruth, we too were lucky to have traveled in China just months after it opened up. Had four teenage girls with us and the experience was fascinating. Sights, sounds, tastes, and smells will always stay with me. Candyce Cain Fisher, wife of LA Times long time reporter Dan Fisher
I grew up in China in the 80s and 90s, and like you, ate my way through every place I could. I'm pretty sure that's what made me the food writer I am today. P.S. There is a saying in China 不干不净,吃了没病, (bu gan bu jing chi le mei bing) which basically means a little dirt won't do you harm or even if it's dirty you won't get sick, and you use it to talk about restaurants or places that look like they might be dirty but where you eat well. I think your mom would approve.