by Eddie Huang
“What are nice moves?”
“You know, like that thing you do with the dried shiitakes. How you wash them, soak them, then use the infused water to give vegetarian dishes umami.”
“That’s just cooking, g!”
“No, Chef, that’s a nice move.”
In cooks’ terms, Southern food simply had a lot of nice moves. From the pickling to the smoking to the frying, Southern food really spoke to me.
Just like Charles Barkley, Jonathan Swift, hip-hop, and Married with Children, I saw parallels with Southern food and my home. Mom loved pickling things and one of the first recipes I learned from her was this quick garlic pickle we’d always have in the fridge. Those were the only pickles I knew until I started seeing things like chow chow, pickled okra, old pickles, young pickles, and everything in between. The first time I saw boiled peanuts on the side of the road in Georgia, I said, “Grandpa used to eat these!” I thought some Taiwanese people were gonna jump out from behind the barrel, but instead it was some dude with no shoes and a pair of overalls. Apparently, Southerners liked boiled peanuts, too. But the most familiar thing was to take little bits of smoked meat to flavor vegetables, starches, and soups. In the old days, meat wasn’t plentiful so Hunanese people got really good at smoking meat, especially duck or ham hock. One of my dad’s favorite dishes was a plate of leeks stir-fried with bits of La Roh or smoked ham hock. I remember watching collard greens come at me across a counter in a pair of dark brown hands. It was unfamiliar until I took a bite and recognized that the flavors easily could have come from my father’s hands, carried in a melamine bowl with plastic chopsticks.
The Haitians at Cattleman’s taught me how to make ribs, but it wasn’t until years later that I realized how un-Southern their technique was. Yet, seeing it done the wrong way, knowing there was something off, and then learning to do it the right way taught me a lot about food. With food, there’s a right way to do things, but it’s probably only right for you. You may like char-siu pork roasted in an oven hanging from hooks like the old Chinatown joints. Or, you may like to sous-vide and finish it on a high-heat grill like me so you get the caramelization of sugar with a bit of char. They’re both acceptable ways to make char-siu pork, but whatever method you take, there’s a right way to roast it in the oven and a right way to sous-vide. Style isn’t an excuse to cook without a standard. Style just determines the set of rules you choose.
I have to say, the Haitian guys chose a really shitty style, but my mom and dad loved it because the technique was familiar. They would boil off the first,‡ but the liquid was infused. It would have bay leaves, oranges, onions, garlic, carrots, liquid smoke, scotch bonnet peppers, sugar, etc. We would throw all the ribs into this boiling stock and cook off the first. A lot of the technique revolves around cooking the “stink” off of pork and then slow-cooking the meat so the juices you want come out later. After boiling the ribs, we’d finish them in the oven with BBQ sauce. It was definitely not barbecue in the traditional sense, nor was it delicious. I’d say to myself, Why do they insist on calling this barbecue? Why don’t we give up on BBQ and just do a red cooking braise with the ribs? Or even my mom’s winter melon and sparerib soup! No one listened and I became the “crazy” one that didn’t like “barbecue.” I had a lot of fun cooking with those guys, but I still needed someone to teach me real Southern American techniques.
Warren and I reconnected through the restaurant, too. Once he started working at Cattleman’s in the kitchen, we got to hang out like we used to. We’d become so close by that time that we didn’t even ring each other’s doorbells. Warren had the code to my garage door and vice versa. Warren would still surprise my mom all the time, but my dad loved it. Whenever Warren came in, we’d set him up a plate, a chair, and some chopsticks, which he got really good at because he followed instructions. My mom used chopsticks the wrong way, holding them with her knuckles instead of fingers, so we all picked it up, too. Warren learned from my dad and those red chopstick paper instructions so he was pretty nice with them. I remember my brothers or Mom mumbling in Chinese when Warren would go to the bathroom, “This guy is taking the food so fast!”
“Bu yao fan!” (Don’t be annoying!)
“I’m not annoying, he’s eating everything!”
“He is our guest! Let him eat.”
“He’s here every day! When is he gonna stop being a guest?”
“Eh! You guys always complain white people make fun of our food, then we find one that likes our food and you complain he eats too much! White people can never win with you guys!”
“What are you talking about?! White people win at everything! If they didn’t lose with us, they never would!”
“Ha, ha, ha, bunch of assholes, man! Bunch of assholes …”
I remember for Thanksgiving at our house we would just eat hot pot or some strange spread of sautéed Chinese items, cranberry sauce, sweet potato casserole from Boston Market, and sushi from Publix ’cause I guess it really made the table pop. These days my Jamaican friends have turkey but it’s flanked by oxtail, beef patties, rice and peas, cabbage, etc. My Cantonese friends have turkey with lobster steamed over e-fu noodles, salt fish fried rice, and stir-fried squid with yellow chives. I fux with Diasporic Thanksgiving and consider it more American than duck sauce, but at the time, I felt left out of the American experience. Our family really didn’t like Thanksgiving until I went to Warren’s and finally understood what it was about.
Every Thanksgiving, I’d walk in through Warren’s garage door and get hammered by the smell of roast turkey, chicken cacciatore, biscuits, boudin balls, and of course Mrs. Neilson’s green bean casserole with fried onions on top. That was her dish. I remember seeing it come out of the oven with golden fried bits of onions on top, covering a stack of fresh green beans mixed in with cream of mushroom. It was a simple dish. Mrs. Neilson even used canned cream of mushroom, but I’d never had green bean casserole so it was a revelation. I took a plate home to my mom that had a little sample of everything on it.
“Mom, look, it’s Thanksgiving!”
“Oh, I don’t want American food.”
“Try it! It’s really good! I promise.”
“No, no, no, American food makes me feel funny. Too much salt and cream.”
“Mom, come on, you are missing out! I ate it and it’s awesome.”
Whenever I brought home American artifacts to share with my mom, she’d shut me down. My parents were not the type to humor their kids; they always kept it too real. It literally took three Thanksgivings as Warren’s neighbor for my mom to finally try the green bean casserole I brought home every year.
She was sitting at the kitchen table just drinking tea so I put the plate down and she picked around the green beans with her chopsticks. With a few swift moves, she transferred the green beans to her bowl and lifted them to her mouth, then stopped. She turned them around in her chopsticks, took a whiff, glanced one more time as if to find flaws, and then bit carefully. I saw her eyes widen like Scratchy getting shocked by Itchy. It was a cartoon within a cartoon, Thanksgiving within Thanksgiving moment as my mom experienced New Orleans in a ceramic bowl with edges adorned by Chinese key.
“Oh! Oh! Oh my God! What is this?”
“I told you! Green bean casserole.”
“Casser-who?”
“Casserole, Mom. Like when Cantonese people put stuff in clay pots. That’s a casserole.”
“What’s it mean, though?”
“I dunno, it’s just casserole.”
“We need more! How do we make this casserole?”
“I don’t know, I’ll call Warren.”
Later that day, Warren came over with a huge dish of green bean casserole for my mom. He was so happy she liked it since she was so picky most of the time. For the first time, my mom was eating food from a non-Chinese home and she loved it. Who would have known it would be Mrs. Neilson’s green bean casserole?
From that first Thanksgiving in 1998, I started cooking at
our house every Christmas and Thanksgiving. I read cookbooks, talked to Warren’s mom, and watched a lot of Food Network. It’s embarrassing, but I would watch every single Food Network show leading up to Thanksgiving. Most of the year, I never watched the station, but I was determined to put together an all-American Thanksgiving.
I watched Emeril one year make an infused butter, let it cool, then he’d get under the turkey skin and spread the butter between the meat and skin. With a little seasoning salt on top, he’d wrap it in foil and send it to the oven. The turkey was flavorful, the skin was insane, but the white meat was still a bit dry. Plus, the flavor wasn’t in the meat. It was on top of it. I liked how braised meat took on the flavors throughout every piece inside out. Somehow, some way, I needed to get up in the guts.
I started thinking. What about that Haitian thing where they boiled the turkey in infused water? No, it wouldn’t penetrate something as big and dense as a fifteen-pound turkey. But I thought about marinating it so I went online and searched for “marinating” and “turkey.” What came up was this thing called “brining.” I had never heard about it before. We’d marinate proteins by letting them sit in spices, soy, rice wine, aromatics, and so on, but not usually overnight or beyond three to five hours. Brining is different because of the time spent and the higher levels of salt. The goal isn’t just to get the flavors into the meat, but also to add enough salt, retain water, and in turn keep the protein moist. I tried it.
Moms helped me out. We dumped a bunch of salt water into a bucket and brined the turkey that year, then rubbed the infused butter under the skin just like the year before. That year the turkey came out with crisp skin as usual, but salt carried the flavors throughout the meat and maintained its moisture. Very important lesson every good cook learns early on: master salt. It doesn’t matter how great your aromatics or spice mixes are: if you don’t have the proper salt levels, the flavors won’t travel. I also made a stuffing from scratch that year instead of buying Stove Top. It was easy, I bought Popeye’s biscuits, let them dry out for a day, then sautéed some loose country sausage with butter, sage, rosemary, thyme, salt, cracked black pepper, tossed in dried biscuit crumbs and finished with a little cream, sugar, and a pinch of chili powder. Once again, dinner proved to be more than the sum of its parts. Thanksgiving is my favorite American holiday because it was the first one I felt like a full participant in. I earned my way in.
Legally, I’ve always been a citizen. I was born here. But, even now, you’ll never see me hold an American flag, own a USA bumper sticker, or rock a Dream Team jersey that doesn’t say Barkley on the back. I been here eight years and I rep New York; that’s it. I get down with New York because it’s international. As for the rest of this thing we call America, I get down once a year. Thanksgiving. That’s my day as an American and it’s enough. Fuck countries and boundaries; you can call me international.§
Unfortunately, my parents weren’t feeling the whole “international” thing. Shit, they didn’t even want me to go above the Mason-Dixon line for school. If it was an Ivy League, sure, but you know the kid wasn’t getting in. I didn’t want to, either. My first choice was Georgetown just because of the basketball squad, but if it was academics, I wanted to go to Syracuse. Being a sportscaster was as close as I would get to the game so I applied to the Newhouse School of Communications that Marv Albert and all those other fools went to. I wrote my application about Charles Barkley and how his voice had a bigger impact on me than his game. There was a narrative in sports and I wanted to join that story even if it was off the court with a headset on.
The only problem was that I had to report my charge. Initially, the police were going to charge me with assault, but I was granted pretrial and pled down to a disorderly conduct that would be expunged after I did community service at Teen Court. When I applied to Syracuse, it was still on my record, so all my teachers helped out and wrote recommendations. They knew I was turning my life around and supported the kid. I was accepted around Christmas of my senior year and I couldn’t have been happier. For once, there was something society approved of that I also wanted to get down with. There was no shame in being a sportscaster. It wasn’t a “white” job, something that would change who I was. I’d get to be around the game I loved and get paid. I remember running to find my dad in the living room when the big white envelope came in the mail.
“Dad! I got in …”
“Where? Georgetown?”
“Naw, man, stop playin’. Syracuse!”
“Syracuse? Syracuse is far! You in New York is trouble!”
“I learned my lesson, I’ve been good.”
“YOU WERE IN JAIL five months ago and still have community service! What you talking about?”
“If this was Georgetown, you’d let me go. They have the best communications school in the nation. All the ESPN dudes went there.”
“Why you going there then? You not going to be on E-S-P-NNNNNNN.” As he accentuated his N’s, I clenched my teeth. By this time, I knew what was coming.
“Well, they gave me a scholarship so I’m going!”
“Yeah, right! You think you’re going to be a sportscaster?”
“It’s better than selling steak!”
“Yeah, you talk trash about my steak! Go ahead. I pay the bills around here, don’t forget that! What have they done for you? You worship these ESPN, these basketball players, gimme a break. They’ll never let you on ESPN with that face! Hilarious! Sportscaster, my ass.”
My dad was full of shit. Right in front of him on ESPN News every day was Michael Kim, a Korean American. I pointed to him as evidence, but he laughed at me.
“You are nothing like that Korean.”
“What are you talking about? He’s evidence!”
“Evidence of what? That ESPN likes Asians? There’s one of him already; they don’t need another.”
“Dad! He’s not on ESPN just ’cause he’s Asian. There’s room for more.”
“You look at him. You both Asian, but you tell me you’re similar? You have shaved head, tattoo, crazy sneakers, you think ESPN putting you on TV? Fucking kidding me, man!”
Once again, my dad knew something I didn’t. Looking back, I realize it wasn’t just that I was Asian. I was a loud-mouthed, brash, broken Asian who had no respect for authority in any form, whether it was a parent, teacher, or country. Not only was I not white, to many people I wasn’t Asian either.
* Overcooked doesn’t mean it’s actually overcooked in terms of temperature. It’s overcooked in the concept. Like things Dwight Howard wears with epaulettes and zippers all over the place. That’s overcooked.
† R.I.P. Bill. His manager, Bill, was a great guy who really helped my dad in the early years. Pops paid the down payment on his house and Bill was doing great, but he had a nasty coke habit. He would come work for us three years clean, go off the rails, then come back two years later, etc. My dad always welcomed him back, but it ended badly when Bill OD’d. These are the things you see growing up in a restaurant.
‡ When people from Asia or the Caribbean cook, there is usually a “cooking of the first.” Jamaicans, when making oxtail, will soak them in a solution of water and vinegar to let the blood out, then also flash-boil them to “cook off the first.” At our home, we’d flash-boil everything before braising or stewing because it was bad form if the meat had a “stink.” Andy Ricker tells me that in Thailand they won’t even eat lamb because of the smell.
§ What up, Theo! #LVRS
10.
SPECIAL HERBS
Pittsburgh was my first time in a walkable city and I finally didn’t need that goddamn Benz. We sold the car and off I went. My Da A-Yi, First Aunt, lived in Monroeville, just outside of the city, and owned Quality Furniture out there. My cousins Allen and Phillip also went to Pittsburgh, and we were all excited to be reunited. It would be the first time in nine years we’d be living in the same place—I was suddenly back like cooked crack and that’s how they treated me.
As a ki
d, Allen was the leader. He was the oldest, he was wild, he had made jokes, and I looked up to him. But by the time I got to Pittsburgh, his reprogramming was complete. He was a nihilist in the sense that nothing was worth his effort anymore, but the worst kind because he was alive just enough to be jealous if you found something to be passionate about. Besides getting a job, paying his bills, and watching DVD porn, he really didn’t care about anything. He was a coupon-clipping, self-haircut-inflicting, George Costanza-esque Chinaman. Things would piss him off, but he wouldn’t say shit until he got in Jerry’s apartment, where only a few chosen Elaines and Kramers got to watch the meltdown.
“Yo, cuz!”
“Yeah, yeah, wassup, man?”
“Since when you start wearing New Balances son?”
“Word, you like them? I got them for seventy dollars!”
“You stay chasing deals, man, you need to get your Bo Jackson game back on.”
“Oh, my bad, am I not cool enough now? What are all your ‘homies’ wearing these days? Show me how to be down, Eddie!”
“Stop playin’, man, you’re the one that put me onto Bo Jacksons, now you steppin’ out like an English teacher with cats and shit, b!”
“I don’t know, man, I just can’t keep up with you ‘brothers’ these days. I’m just not black like you.”
“Whatever, dude, let’s go eat.”
My first night in the ’burgh Allen and I went to this joint Fuel & Fuddle, an independent T.G.I. Friday’s–type place with an “international” menu that made me want to take a shit right on the table. These fools were serving hot trash like pulled pork egg rolls or seared tuna wasabi nachos. You know the joint. Every neighborhood with a mini-mall has one of these things run by the kid from CIA who couldn’t cut it in New York but still wants to stunt in their hometown. Allen was cheap like my dad: he loved it ’cause everything was half off after 11 P.M., but I couldn’t subject myself to the shit. I don’t do coupons or Reeboks. Life is too short to half-step.
