The Best Contemporary Women's Fiction: Six Novels

by Jenna Blum

  "But that sounds great!"

  "And not even their meat. Their shells, their fat, and their roe. Reduced and thickened until it's just thick enough to soak into the tofu and stay there. Until you bite into it. This is a dish of artifice. See? It comes to the table looking like one thing. Like the plainest of food. Tofu. But you taste it and it's something different."

  "Don't listen to them. Do it."

  Sam stopped and turned his head to a sound, the gate. A knock. It was the smallest of sounds by the time it got all the way back to the kitchen, but this was his home and he knew that small sound by heart. "First Uncle! They're here."

  "Oh!" Jiang yanked off his apron and brushed his pants, anxious suddenly, fussy.

  "You're fine," said Sam. "Go."

  Maggie held the heavy door and watched him pause to light the candles and switch on more lamps to illuminate the couplets of calligraphy around the walls. Then he hurried out to the gate.

  "How many judges are there?" she asked Sam.

  "Six. All food people, from the Ministry of Culture and the Beijing Restaurant Association."

  "Here they come." She peeked through the door.

  Sam put his knife down and came over to stand next to her and look through the crack. The panel filed in, all men, with one senior member, all in dark suits, smiling, First Uncle welcoming them. It was right for him to be the one to do it; he was the eldest. Once he had them settled in their seats around tiny dishes of pickles and salt-roasted fava beans, he poured a rare aromatic oolong while he delivered a sparkling little introduction to Liang family cuisine.

  "Now!" he hissed as he swept back into the kitchen. "Are you ready?" But Sam already had the first appetizers laid out. After an interval for the diners to relax, Jiang carried out a mince of wild herbs and dried tofu, sweet-savory puffs of gluten, and pureed scented hyacinth beans. He came back for the fragrant vinegar duck, spattered with brown Shanxi vinegar. The last appetizer was fresh clams, marinated in a dense bath of soy, vinegar, and aromatics. "That's nong," he said, bringing the sauce close to her to smell. "The dark, concentrated flavor."

  A shimmering interval of eating and happy laughter floated by in the dining room. Appetizers were consumed, along with tea and the first toasts of wine.

  Sam himself carried in the first main courses. According to the classical pattern he started with a few lacy-crisp deep-fried dishes: pepper-salt eel fillets like translucent little tiles, similar to those his father had described making for the mother and son in the swamp; and an aromatic stir-fry of yellow chives studded with tiny, delicate fried oysters.

  Back in the kitchen, he stir-fried tender mustard greens with wide, flat tofu-skin noodles and plump, fresh, braised young soybeans. These glistened on the platter in a light crystal sauce. After that there were lamb skewers, delectably grilled and crusted with sesame.

  On the other side of the kitchen Sam noticed Second Uncle looking distinctly glossy as he bent over his knife. Too much to drink. It was bad enough that he was using a knife to carve vegetables; he had to be kept away from food. Sam and Jiang would need to do everything by themselves. Could they?

  "When is Baba getting to Beijing?" Sam asked in Chinese, loud enough for only Jiang to hear.

  Jiang understood; he sent the smallest look in Tan's direction. "Actually, he is here."

  Sam jerked around. "Already here?"

  "He came a few hours ago."

  "Why didn't he call?"

  His eldest uncle regarded him patiently. "This is your night."

  Sam understood, but still—to stay away from his childhood home? "Where is he?"

  "At Yang's house. Not far from here."

  "We may need him," said Sam.

  "We may," Jiang agreed. "But let us wait. Do you know, it was always difficult for your father to be his father's son. He was never the original one or the real one, only the son. He knows well that you have been here alone for four years, with us. He wants you to win tonight the same way." Jiang raised a white eyebrow. "I agree with him."

  "Unless we need him," Sam qualified.

  By now there was a palpable surge of success from the dining room, the sound of pleased conversation, laughter, delight, comprehensible in any language. Everyone in the kitchen was smiling, Jiang, Sam, even Tan, still on the side carving daikons.

  Sam signaled Jiang that there would now be a pause. Shaoxing wine was to be served, thick, aromatic, in tiny stoneware cups. Uncle Jiang poured it from the large crock into the smaller, more precious one that would be borne to the table; it was inscribed with the words of the ninth-century poet Po Chu-I, What could I do to ease a rustic heart? Sam had planned every small thing this way, to support the theme of the meal. He positioned the jug with its words on the tray. He hoped the diners would have their own rustic thoughts. Perhaps they would be reminded of the words of Confucius— With coarse grain to eat, with water to drink, and my bended arm for a pillow: I still have joy in the midst of these things.

  When the tray was ready Jiang closed the wine crock and stowed it high in the cupboard, out of reach. "I saw that!" said Tan.

  "I hope so!" Jiang shot back.

  While they were drinking and toasting the dishes at the table Sam took the next course from the oven, a perfect plump chicken, roasted to a crisp honey brown. No, she thought, not a chicken—this was the chicken skin. "Is there any chicken inside?"

  "None," he said. "Minced vegetables and ham. You cut it like a pie. Here we enter the part of the menu which toys with the mind. You see one thing, you taste something else. This is supposed to wake you up, make you realize you've been daydreaming. You know what I mean?"

  "I feel that way all the time here," she said. "Seems like my whole life before I came to China was a daydream."

  "Woyiyang,"Sam said, Me too. He turned to Jiang and Tan, who had magically risen from his corner and joined them at the center island. The three of them quickly created a monumental platter by settling the whole crisp chicken on a papery bed of fried spinach next to a pearly white woman in flowing robes carved from daikon, her lips and eyes brightened with food coloring, her hands spread in universal kindness. This provocative creation was borne out, thwacked open, and shouted over by the diners. In the kitchen, Sam lifted the steamer to check the ribs in lotus leaves. Almost time.

  Behind them they heard a cry. Maggie turned and saw Tan's hand raised, the clutch of his other fist not quite hiding a little uprush of blood. He had cut himself. She grabbed a clean towel and leapt to him, applying pressure.

  "Thanks, Maggie," Sam said, and then to Jiang, in Chinese, "Let's go to the soup."

  This he assembled in an enormous blue-and-white tureen—the intense, delectable fish broth, the fish balls like fresh clouds, the silky tofu, the mustard greens. The great bowl was too heavy for Jiang.

  "I'll take this one," said Sam, hoisting it.

  When he walked into the dining room with the soup there rose a general murmur of approval which escalated to a cheer. He told them the soup was a tribute to Hangzhou.

  Then they were ready for the tofu with crab sauce. Tan's finger had stopped bleeding and been bandaged, so Maggie came over to watch. Sam reduced the sauce and then thickened it with emulsified crab fat and crab roe. Just enough, he said to her, so it would penetrate the tofu and stay there.

  When it was right he dropped in the slices of spongy tofu, immersing them. "This cooks on low. The tofu will drink up all the sauce. It looks like tofu—a peasant dish—when it comes to the table. Then the crab squirts out when you bite into it. So good. Here—try. This is what they will taste." He took a spoonful and dropped it in a small clean dish, which he held up and tipped to her lips. "Go on."

  She opened and let him pour it into her mouth. It was crab flavor multiplied further than she had ever thought possible. "What is that? I never tasted crab flavor so intense."

  "The shells are the secret," he said. "The part most people throw away. It's almost ready." He stood over the tofu, monitoring it. "Now! Let's
go."

  He took the rustic-looking platter he had selected and piled it on. Yuan Mei said nothing was more sophisticated than the simplest bowls and plates. This platter said "plain food." It completed the illusion—all of which would be shattered when the diner bit into the crab sauce. This, he thought, might be his best dish.

  "Ready?" said Jiang, and he took the platter and bore it toward the door. Just at that moment Tan rose from his chair, lost his footing, and stumbled backward into Jiang.

  The platter flew from First Uncle's hands. They all saw. But nothing could stop it from arcing through the air and shattering on the floor. Big, powdery shards of smashed porcelain came to rest in the tofu and crab sauce.

  They all stood staring in a circle around it.

  Sam was heaving. The thirty crabs. The glory of the taste.

  "Who moved this chair?" Uncle Tan glared. "Nephew? Was it you? It wasn't there before."

  Sam ignored him, turned to Jiang. He was drained of color. "Now we're short one," he said.

  Jiang nodded. "I'll call your father."

  "I'll do it," said Sam.

  "Nephew," Tan persisted drunkenly, "did you move it?"

  Sam just looked at him. He knew when to raise the barriers so he could keep going, and this was one of those times. He turned away. As he thumbed Liang Yeh's number into his phone, from the corner of his eye he saw Maggie step over to Uncle Tan and put her hands on his shoulders. On the other end of the line the phone was ringing.

  "You should sit down and take a rest and let us clean this up," he heard her say. "And don't say another word to Sam right now." She gently pushed him down into a chair.

  In his half-lubricated state a foreign woman coming at him and then actually touching him was too much; he did exactly what she said and sank into the chair, mute. "Wei?" Sam heard Liang Yeh say on the other end.

  "Wei," said Sam. "Dad. I need you. Please come right now."

  "My son, this is—"

  "Now," Sam cut in. "I mean it. Please."

  "Wh—"

  "We've had an accident."

  Quiet. He heard small faraway sounds. "Right away I will come," Liang Yeh said.

  It was only a few minutes until he arrived, a small older man, stepping quietly in through the back kitchen door.

  Tan looked up at him dumbly. "How did you get in?"

  "No matter how far a man may travel, he still knows how to return to his native place," joked Liang Yeh.

  "Baba," Sam said, and the two walked to each other. Sam held his father for a long time. He could feel Maggie watching, unable to take her eyes away. This is me. Take a look. He comes with me. They stepped apart and he introduced her.

  "Hi," she said, smiling up at him. She was on the floor, wiping up the last of the crab.

  She had insisted on doing it while she kept an eye on Tan. Sam was grateful.

  He led his father to the cooking area, explaining, and gave him a taste of the crab sauce that had just been lost. "Wonderful," Liang Yeh whispered, his eyes wide, his face split in awe. It was a look Sam didn't think he'd ever seen on his father's face before. "How many crabs?"

  "Thirty."

  "Thirty!" Liang Yeh's gray eyebrows shot up. "Magnificent! I love crabs."

  "'As far as crabs are concerned,'" Tan intoned, "'my mind is addicted to them, my mouth enjoys the taste of them, and never for a single day in my life have I forgotten about them.'"

  "You're drunk," Liang Yeh said.

  "But accurate," Jiang said. "That's Li Yu, 1650. Word for word."

  "Still drunk. Old friend." And Liang Yeh embraced Tan, who cried a little on his shoulder, and then Jiang, who squeezed him in a tall, quiet way. They had greeted each other a few hours before, but still seemed overcome by being together—old now, but together.

  "Gentlemen," said Sam, "I need another dish. Fast."

  But Liang Yeh was on his own time, as always. Now he was looking at the white woman over there with her rump up in the air, cleaning the floor. "Is she—," he said.

  "No, Baba. Just a friend. Actually she's interviewing me for a magazine. So only sort of a friend. A colleague."

  "Sort of," repeated Liang Yeh. "She doesn't talk?"

  "No. But you speak English, last time I checked. Now come on. A dish."

  "All right." Reluctantly he tore himself away from the natural speculations arising from the sight of Maggie on Sam's floor. "Where are you?"

  "Here. See the menu?" Sam pointed to a spot on the page.

  "The spongy tofu," said his father. "What else can you tell me about the room, the poems, the serving pieces?"

  "There is the couplet on the wall," said Sam. "It's something we chose from Su Dongpo, a poem about taking a boat down the Grand Canal. Uncle Jiang did the calligraphy. It says:

  "The sound of chopping fish comes from the bow

  And the fragrance of cooking rice from the stern."

  "Good," said Liang Yeh. "Let me see through into the dining room." He moved to the door and peered through the crack. "Ah! You have made it beautiful."

  "I'm sure I could have done a better job," said Sam, knowing that he couldn't have, but using the automatic modesty that came with Chinese.

  Sam was startled when he realized they were speaking Chinese. His father had not spoken it much during Sam's childhood, sticking stubbornly with his simplified English and thus allowing himself to be simplified before the world. No wonder you retreated. Now the deep-throated, rrr-inflected Mandarin of Beijing had settled back over his father. "You can talk, too," he said to Sam approvingly.

  "Still learning. I'll show you the house later. I did over everything except the little north-facing room. That's where I lived while they were doing it. But it's not what you remember, Baba. It's just one court."

  "This was my mother's court," said Liang Yeh softly, "Chao Jing." And Sam saw the rain gathering in his eyes. "This was her main living area. She had her bed over there." And he pointed to the private rooms. "All right." He stepped away from the door. "Go on. Other serving pieces?"

  "We brought out the Shaoxing wine in the 'rustic heart' jug—you know the one?" said Sam.

  "So well! It was my father's." Liang Yeh followed him back to the cooking area, picked up the menu, and studied it. "The spongy tofu was your second artifice dish."

  "Yes. The first was the whole crisp chicken skin, stuffed with other things."

  "Then you lost one artifice dish. We need something intellectual," said Liang.

  "Or historical," said Sam. He switched into English. Chinese was for allusion, English for precision. He was in another realm with his father now that he could speak both. It shifted everything between them. "See, nostalgia is powerful here right now because of how fast things have changed. Anything that really nails the recherché is automatically provocative; it unleashes a whole torrent of ideas in people's minds."

  "All right." His father paced the counters, scanned the ingredients. "Can you buy me a little time?" They were still in English. "Serve something else?"

  "The lotus-leaf pork ribs," said Sam. "Uncle Xie's recipe. They're ready."

  His father turned. "He taught you? Go ahead, then."

  By the time Sam had served the ribs and chatted with the diners and come back, Liang Yeh had something under way. Sam watched him working with chestnut flour and cornmeal, mincing pork. He did it so easily. Why did you hold back all those years? Why wouldn't you cook? Was the fear worth it?

  "You don't need this pork, do you?"

  "No," Sam said. "It's from the top of the ribs."

  "Never waste food," said Liang Yeh.

  Jiang gave a chirp of laughter from where he stood, cutting, but Sam did not laugh. He took a deep breath in, loving it. It was home, being in the kitchen beside his father. It was the root of his chord, even though he had never heard it played before. "Yes, Baba," he said, obedient. Don't waste food.

  His father made three cold vegetable dishes, one of macerated bite-sized cucumber spears shot through with sauce, and an
other of air-thin slices of pink watermelon radish in a light dressing. Braised soybeans—those left over from yesterday's prep—had been dressed with the torn leaves of the Chinese toon tree.

  Then the meat and the cakes. First he marinated the minced pork. While it soaked he worked with the wheat flour and a little fat until he had just the weight he wanted, then formed the dough into balls that he rolled in sesame. The next step was to add minced water chestnuts to the pork and fry it quickly on a griddle with garlic and ginger and green onion and soy until it was deep brown and chewy-soft. Then he held another wok upside down, dry, over a high fire until it was very hot, after which he pressed the dough balls into little disks all over the inside and flattened them slightly with his fingers. "This is another dish of the Empress Dowager's," he told his son. "This one came to her in a dream. Did you know that? The Old Buddha dreamed, and then she ordered her chefs to make it." He smiled. "Actually it's not bad," he said.

  The wok with the dough disks inside it went back over the fire, upside down and angled, constantly turned, carefully watched, until all the flat cakes were golden brown and ready to be popped off.

  "Split them," Liang Yeh said, handing the steaming plate to Sam. "Stuff them with the meat." Sam started this, fingers flying. Each one emitted a fragrant puff of steam when he opened it to push in the meat. Meanwhile his father turned to his other bowl of dough, this one of corn and chestnut flour, and worked it until it was ready. From this he shaped a swift panful of tiny thimble-shaped cones.

  "After all these years?" Sam said, because he recognized what his father was making— xiao wo tou. This was the dish that had caused him to flee Gou Bu Li that night. This was the rustic favorite of the Empress, which Liang Wei had warned his son never to make. "Why now?"

  "Better than being haunted by ghosts, isn't it? Besides, it's another resonance on your rustic theme. For those who know their history, the connection will satisfy." Watching the speed at which he moved, it was impossible for Sam to believe that those fingers had been resting for forty years.