Kitchen Chinese
Page 33
What types of food do you enjoy cooking, Chinese or otherwise?
Like Isabelle, I grew up eating Chinese food every single night, with very little variation. My dad, who is an excellent cook, made dinner each night, and though he has a wide-ranging palate, it was my mom’s distinct preference for Chinese fare that dictated our meals.
As a result, I find that what I most enjoy cooking is a variety of different cuisines—I cannot eat Chinese food every day, but nor could I eat French cuisine, or spaghetti, or sushi every day. (Except Indian food—I sometimes think I could exist on masala dosas.)
I usually make Chinese food during the week, when I crave something easy, fast, and healthy (you can sneak a lot of vegetables into a stir-fry). But unlike my dad, who really did make three or four different dishes every night, I tend to cook just one enormous pan of something, like a huge stir-fry.
I enjoy experimenting with North African food, discovering the play of spices, the contrast between sweet, sour, spicy, and salty. I studied Italian cuisine in Bologna, where I learned how to make decadent lasagna—and where, after watching Italian women labor for hours over sheets of dough, stretching, pulling, and rolling, I knew I would never make fresh pasta at home! Right now I live in Paris, where I am discovering the seasons by shopping in the open market—who knew sea scallops abounded in winter? I’m also enjoying the ritualized formality of French dinner parties, which involve four courses, eaten slowly and savored.
In fact, there’s only one thing I don’t like to cook: bread. I find the process of rising and kneading incredibly stressful. Plus, it always comes out heavy, lumpen, and dry, and I usually think, Why didn’t I just buy a loaf at the store?
What advice would you give to a beginning writer and/ or cook?
First, I would say: consume. If you want to be a writer, read, read, read. Read everything—fiction, nonfiction, the newspaper, magazines (both highbrow and pop culture), the classics, and pulp fiction. This will help give you a sense of different styles and voices, with the ultimate goal of developing your own. Likewise, if you want to be a cook, eat. Save your pennies and splurge on amazing meals. But also wander ethnic neighborhoods in search of crowded restaurants. Spy on your neighbors’ table and order what they’re eating. Also, experiment with new flavor combinations, or buy a new vegetable at the farmer’s market because it looks cool and you want to try it. Explore and discover what you like and dislike.
Second, develop a thick skin. For cooking, you’ll need it to survive nicks, scrapes, and burns, all of which will occur no matter how careful you are. Writers need a tough, protective layer, because they face a lot of discouragement. Unfortunately, they hear the word “no” often. You have to be brave enough to persevere in the face of despair.
Third, make sure you have excellent tools. This is more important for cooking, when sharp knives and heavy pots and pans make all the difference in slicing, dicing, and heat distribution—you don’t need a lot of fancy gadgets, just good quality basics. Obviously, writers only really need a pen and notebook. But to this I would add a good dictionary or computer spell-check—no one wants to read a short story littered with typos (and editors notice these things)—as well as a thesaurus (I like Rodale’s Synonym Finder).
Fourth, as the old joke goes: How do you get to Carnegie Hall? Practice! Practice! Practice!
Are there restaurants you would recommend in Beijing and Shanghai? What is the dining scene there like?
As China’s capital, Beijing reflects the diversity of the country. In fact, each of China’s twenty-two provinces has a government office in Beijing, and almost all of them have restaurants that serve the cuisine of their region. These are state-run eateries, with absolutely no ambiance, but the food is extremely authentic—some even fly in special vegetables or other hard-to-find ingredients! One of my favorites is the Sichuan Provincial Government Restaurant (5 Jianguomen Gongyuan Toutiao, Dongcheng district, tel: 86 10 6512 2277), where the chefs skillfully blend chilies and Sichuan peppercorns—I can still feel the tingle of their mapo doufu on my lips. I also love the refreshing salad of giant mint leaves and “crossing the bridge” noodles at the Yunnan Provincial Government Restaurant (in Chinese, Yunteng Shifu—7 Donghuashi Beili Dongqu, Chongwen district, tel: 86 10 6711 3322 X7105).
If you want to taste Beijing’s northern cuisine—stodgy and wheat-based—zhajiang mian noodles are a must. I like the bustle of Beijing Style Noodle King (35 Di’anmen Xijie, Dongcheng district, tel: 86 10 6405 6666). As for Peking duck—everyone has an opinion, but my favorite is still the elegant, crisp-skinned bird at Made in China in the Grand Hyatt hotel (1 Dong Chang’an Jie, Dongcheng district, tel: 86 10 8518 1234).
Alas, I don’t know Shanghai as well as I’d like. But I still dream about one restaurant there, a tiny dumpling shack called Jia Jia Tang Bao (90 Huanghe Lu at Fengyang Lu, Huangpu district, tel: 86 21 6327 6878). The décor is quite dismal—think McDonald’s. But the soup dumplings (in Chinese, xiaolongbao), which are stuffed, folded, and steamed to order, make you forget your surroundings—they’re delicate, with a rich meaty flavor and a luscious squirt of soup within. And, believe it or not, a basket of fifteen dumplings is only 7.50 RMB—that’s less than one dollar!
You’ve lived in New York and currently live in Paris. How do these cities compare to Beijing? Do you miss China and would you ever live there again?
Of course, the differences between Paris and Beijing outweigh the similarities. But the two actually have more in common than one might think. They are both very old cities, very proud, very historical. Both bear battle scars—in Paris, it’s not uncommon to see statues or monuments dedicated to the monarchy that were defaced during the French Revolution; the same is true in Beijing, where many old buildings were destroyed during the Cultural Revolution. As capital cities, both represent the diverse regions of their respective countries, and attract residents from all over. Also, both have thriving and enthusiastic food cultures—though they realize them in very different ways.
Of the three cities, I probably feel most comfortable in New York, with its manic energy and diversity and sense of possibility. In fact, Beijing and New York are pretty similar (aside from racial diversity): they both burn with a vivid intensity, plus you can get a good meal in either city at any hour of the day or night. But New York also has an openness, a permissiveness that I love: expressing yourself is good, creativity is rewarded, being different is desirable. Only thirty years after the end of the Cultural Revolution, Beijing hasn’t reached this level of openness yet. But I hope it will soon.
I miss many things about living in China—above all, I miss friends and food—and I would love to live there again. But next time I’d like to live in Shanghai, where my mother was raised. As a former treaty port, it has a history of gangsters, spies, turn-coats, and glamour—it would make a great setting for a book! Anyway, I don’t know if I’ll ever have the opportunity to live in Shanghai, but I can dream…
About the Author
ANN MAH was born in Orange County, California, and lived in Beijing for four years, where she was the dining editor for a monthly English-language magazine. She writes regularly for the South China Morning Post, Condé Nast Traveler, the International Herald Tribune, and on her blog, www.annmah.net. Ann was awarded a James Beard Culinary Scholarship in 2005 and now lives in Paris.
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ADVANCE PRAISE FOR
KITCHEN CHINESE
“Ann Mah’s Kitchen Chinese is a delicious debut novel, seasoned with just the right balance of humor and heart, and sprinkled with fascinating cultural tidbits. Read thoroughly. Share with friends.”
—Claire Cook, bestselling author of The Wildwater Walking Club and Must Love Dogs
“Suffused with humor, genuine warmth, and mouth-watering culinary descriptions, Kitchen Chinese is, first and foremost, about the adventure of self-discovery.”
—Irina Reyn, autho
r of What Happened to Anna K.
“Ann Mah’s sizzling portrait of life in Beijing serves up more than just scrumptious banquets, identity crises, and fraught, intercultural romances. It’s a story of how we find and nourish ourselves in unexpected ways and places, so delicious that I took breaks from reading only to dash to the phone and order Chinese.”
—Rachel DeWoskin, author of Foreign Babes in Beijing and Repeat After Me
“With a light, self-deprecating touch, Ann Mah portrays the quirks, pleasures, and surprises of life as a young Chinese-American woman finding her way in an alien motherland.”
—Jen Lin-Liu, author of Serve the People: A Stir-Fried Journey Through China
“Ann Mah’s richly detailed Kitchen Chinese is humorous enough to make you laugh out loud, and so delicious you are sure to begin craving Peking duck and dim sum. A true tale of reinventing oneself in a new and foreign world.”
—Patricia Wells, author of Vegetable Harvest and We’ll Always Have Paris…and Provence
Credits
Cover design by Amanda Kain
Cover photograph by Jason Hosking/Getty Images
Copyright
This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Excerpts from Classic Food of China copyright © 1992 by Yan Kit So. Reproduced by permission of the Estate of Yan Kit So.
Excerpt from Swallowing Clouds by A. Zee (Simon & Schuster, 1990) is reprinted by permission of the author.
Excerpts from The Food of China by E. N. Anderson copyright © 1988 by E. N. Anderson. Reproduced by permission of Yale University Press.
Excerpts from Oxford Companion to Food by Alan Davidson reprinted by permission of Oxford University Press.
KITCHEN CHINESE. Copyright © 2010 by Ann Mah. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Mah, Ann.
Kitchen Chinese / Ann Mah.—1st ed.
p. cm.
ISBN 978-0-06-177127-9
1. Chinese Americans—China—Beijing—Fiction. 2. Sisters—Fiction. 3. Beijing (China)—Fiction. I. Title.
PS3613.A34923K57 2010
813'.6—dc22
2009012087
EPub Edition © December 2009 ISBN: 978-0-06-196948-5
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
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