by Eddie Huang
You talk about values or shared histories or similar life goals after the fact. They’re things you talk about when someone asks why you got chose, and I guess they’re things that sustain a relationship after the choosing, as if it was a business. Come to think of it, marriage is a business. It may be a partnership if it’s equal, or an S Corp if one person is more dominant, or even an LLC if liability is the primary concern, but love? Love is a different thing. For me, it starts with lust, and I don’t see anything wrong with it. They say it’s “so hard not to act reckless,”*14 but here’s the problem. It’s all reckless.
When the pedicure was over, I was pressed for success.
“I’m glad my heels are gonna be extra presentable in Jumpman slides at Old Jesse tonight,” I crowed.
“Why you gotta be so ratchet, fam? You have two hundred pairs of sneakers and you wear these dirty-ass slides everywhere. Aren’t those your shower sandals?”
“They comfortable. I’m ’bout that cozy boy life, so I stay in these sandals. And why can’t you just let my heels shine? My heels haven’t been this shiny since I had my feet up on my mother’s placenta.”
“I mean, if you wanna go eat dinner at a Shanghainese institution in shower sandals, that’s your prerogative.”
“Motherfucker, did you just Bobby Brown me?”
“I ain’t Bobby Brown you. I’m just questioning your choice of footwear.”
“You said this spot is the hood champ with old Chinamen prepping food, killing eels, and peeling snow peas on crates in the alley.”
“We eating with Janice and Eddie. Their parents own Golden Eagle, man.”
“Is that some super buffet?”
“No, dick, it’s the biggest holding company of malls in the world, I think.”
“Wait, we’re eating with the Chinese Eddie DeBartolos?”
“Pretty much.”
“Cot damn, Corky, you just ruined this date! I thought we were gonna pick our toenails, smell our fingers, roll up our wife-beaters, and eat homestyle Shanghainese food. Eating with mall magnates is not romantic to me.”
“This is Shanghai, man. It’s not like that. And I’m not like that.”
—
Later that night, Corky, Evan, and I rolled up on Old Jesse, and in many ways it felt just like pulling up to Rao’s on 114th Street in East Harlem. A small group of people were loitering outside waiting for tables, but it was a different type of line than the peons waiting for cheeseburgers and crinkle-cut fries in Madison Square Park. If you didn’t know somebody, you weren’t going to know the world’s greatest red-cooked pork. The group of people, all friends of the restaurant, consisted mainly of well-heeled guests with Gucci loafers and children in Flyknit Chukkas, all wearing strange combinations of Joyrich and Rick Owens.
It was a second-generation Shanghainese scene with “We Made It”*15 parents who probably remember peeling snow peas and slicing eels but now brought their private-school children who prefer McRibs and KFC Egg Tarts to pay respects to the culture. Instead of incense in their hands, they held PSPs and bowed dismissively like Larry David.*16
“China is a country full of only children serviced by six adults,” said Corky.
“What are you talking about?”
“The one-child policy, dude. You can only have one kid, so that one kid over there has two parents and four grandparents that put all their money, energy, and hopes on him. Everyone is a golden child in this country.”
“Damn, it’s a whole country of Evans!”
“Shut up, man!” screamed the Golden Child.
“It’s all good, I’m a golden child, too,” Corky said.
We walked in, past the curtain in the doorway and landed on Mars. From the amber lighting to the smell of Shanghainese cooking wine playing with Chinkiang vinegar and the Scent of a Woman poster in the bathroom, Old Jesse is a moment that you see in black-and-white photos, hear about from aunts and uncles that got away, and talk about like some kind of Far East Coast prerevolutionary Cuba. A romantic twenty-seat restaurant Chinese people fled to for one last rendezvous with their boos before getting sentenced to life in an arranged marriage.
As soon as I walked in, I knew I was in for one of those meals where the chef has it all on a string. Like Isiah Thomas dancing through the lane without losing his handle or Ronaldinho cruising across the pitch with that Brazilian foot wizardry, Old Jesse had it on a fucking string. From the fried eels lacquered in sweet braising sauce to the kau fu to the crabmeat on tofu, everything was as you imagined it jumping out of old Fu Pei Mei cookbooks. These were all dishes I’d had in their home-cooked variation. Every aunt or uncle could produce one of these dishes at a high level and bring it to potluck, but to have it all laid out at the same time, at the right temperature, at the highest level, was unprecedented for me. It was like watching LeBron take over Game 6 against the Spurs in 2013 like I always knew he could, rise to the expectations, and crush anything we ever thought was possible in basketball. Old Jesse presented Chinese food in a way I’d never experienced but always imagined.
The signature dish was the codfish head that you had to order ahead of time. No one in the restaurant would reveal how it was prepared, but I suspected it was a steamed head finished with hot oil, topped with burned scallions and a nod to the gods. It was superb.
“How does it compare to the Chinese food you’ve had in your travels?” Janice asked.
“I mean. This is ground zero. There are certain dishes I’ve had better in a handful of places, like the lion’s head meatballs, and I’ve had good kau fu. I have been able to make yellow eels with chives as good as this probably once in my life because all the stars aligned and we had tsao lu in Orlando, but it was after a lot of mistakes. To see every dish here done at the highest level I’ve probably ever seen it all on one table is pretty fucking insane.”
“Well, I know you’re known for red-cooked pork, so I’m curious what you think about that.”
Fuck. I almost forgot. I felt like a pig being fed for slaughter. Caught up in Old Jesse’s rapture, I forgot what I had come for.
I forgot because over the course of the week, I’d eaten red-cooked pork at every restaurant that had it on the menu. Fu 1088, a restaurant with a per person minimum and extra crispy white tablecloth, had one of the most texturally impressive red-cooked pork dishes I’ve ever had, but fell short with a sauce that broke down, yielding a layer of oil on top and a flavor that left me wanting more acid. Other, more homestyle places had soulful braising liquids but left a lot to be desired texturally. Nothing blew us away or made us reconsider our methods. Neither Evan nor I was ready to give up the garlic and dry red chili that made Hunan-style red-cooked pork famous or the cherry cola that defined our Taiwanese-Hunan-American version that we served in a bao at our shop. And then it appeared.
You couldn’t have scripted it any better. Shining, dark, red lacquered pork belly in a clay pot. No garnish, no modernized presentation, no insecurity about doing it the same way for decades, just picture perfect Shanghainese hong sau rou: the holy grail of holiday food.
“Motherfuckers,” I said.
“Damn, son, I need a photo of this,” said Evan.
“Dig in,” said Janice with a smile.
This was it. This is what happens if there is a heaven. You show up in shower sandals, god gives you back the wallet you lost in El Segundo, and then she offers you a piece of the mystical red-cooked pork you’ve heard about all your life.
I took a bite, and my teeth melted through three inches of pork belly like a broadsword in butter. The sugar came first, tempered by superior dark soy sauce, buttressed by the undeniable flavor of freshly slaughtered pork from a three-year-old pig, with rice wine dancing all over it like a Lavo waitress with sparklers in her hands. Just when you thought it was over, like you’d totally lost your mind and fallen miles down a pork belly hole, there was Bird once again. The Chinkiang vinegar was like listening to Charlie Parker with strings—it caught me and reinforced that no, I
hadn’t died and fallen down a one-note pork belly hole with sparkler wielding bimbos but was in fact still in the motherfucking building and that this hong sau rou is real. I understood Shanghainese hong sau rou. It didn’t need garlic and chilis because the song was about sugar, rice wine, superior dark soy, pork essence, and the way they all played with Chinkiang black vinegar. Every ensemble has its configuration, and so does red-cooked pork.
“Damn, son. Lost one.”
For a moment, Janice was pleased. She’d taken me to a place that schooled me on my signature dish. But just as I was going to concede the 2000 election, Evan came bursting through headquarters with the latest numbers.
“It’s cloying. You can’t eat more than one piece of it,” said Evan as he licked the veneer of his teeth.
“Well, hong sau rou is an indulgent dish, one piece is probably enough!” countered Janice.
“Nah, people come to Baohaus, and they’ll eat three to five baos EASY. If we used pork like this, no one would eat more than one.”
I took another bite…then another bite…and then still another bite. Each one with diminishing returns.
“You know, I feel like the vinegar is the thing that keeps you coming back. The sugar is too much, the pork fat is great, the texture is phenomenal, but you start to come back less and less.”
“Yeah, for sure the vinegar is the thing that they do, which I think really sets it off, but Hunan hong sau rou has the garlic, the chilis, and you even hit it with some peppercorns that give it an air of menthol. Shanghainese hong sau rou leaves the sugar out to dry with just vinegar and wine. It’s cloying,” said Evan.
He may have been right. But even if the red-cooked pork was one note with a countermove, it worked. Like Shaq’s drop-step spin to a baby hook, Old Jesse’s pork had only one countermove: vinegar. Our Hunan red-cooked pork was like the Nigerian Nightmare, Hakeem Olajuwon. It lured you in with pork fat, faked you out with sugar, bounced you with garlic, elbowed you with peppercorns, and, just when you thought it was safe, laid it over your head with a touch of anise. But like the old Taco Bell commercials with Shaq and Hakeem arguing about crunchy or soft tacos, the answer is the double decker taco.
“Well, look, in terms of texture, I think they got me. And I haven’t seen vinegar used in red-cooking that well since I last had Second Aunt’s ti pang, but you’re right. It’s missing layers. I’m definitely going to tighten up our braising liquid, though, and experiment with vinegar. I like the viscosity in theirs.”
Maybe in Evan’s mind I make a more layered version of red-cooked pork, but I bow in the presence of greatness. To be this consistent, this good, and preserve your identity the way Old Jesse has is something I can only hope to be a part of. Dinner inspired me, but something about the restaurant told me I’d missed it. Old Jesse belonged to a bygone era.
It made me think of my dad. Not just ’cause Pops and Old Jesse are both dusty, but because eating at Old Jesse gave me the same feeling as playing my dad in the driveway. He never let me win. When I turned fifteen, I should have beat him—I was big enough and skilled enough—but I couldn’t.
He always beat me with a running hook shot across the lane or a turnaround on the left block. I emulated a lot about my pops, but never that disgusting over-the-head Bill Cartwright jumper he had. So when I played him, I went on the block. I hit him with the heee and I hit him with the haaa, but every time it got to game point, he’d grab me, push me, and hold me if it meant winning.
“Yo, you can’t hack me like that.”
“Who says?”
“That’s flagrant, man. You just grabbed my arm when I went to shoot.”
“So? I’m not going to just let you beat me.”
“I don’t want you to let me beat you, but you have to play fair.”
“I am play fair. I am allowed to foul.”
“Whatever, man, check.”
And every time I’d go back on the block, there he was again.
“WHAP!”
“What’s wrong with you, man, just play defense.”
“This is my defense! If you don’t like it, don’t play.”
I didn’t understand. I would never hack my dad on purpose. If he scored on me, he scored on me fair and square, I’d let him finish. I defended as much as I could within the rules but lived with the results. But he never let me get to my spots on the floor, he fouled as much as he could because there were no limits on fouls in the driveway, and he used everything he had to his advantage. Eventually, I’d attempt a move spinning around the baseline, ducking up and under to avoid contact, and clank it. He’d of course get the ball back and go to work. Patiently feeling me out nine feet from the hoop, faking one way, then running the other, creating just enough separation to release his hook shot off the glass.
“It’s so cheap, you always go glass!”
“Glass is here, I’m allowed to use. If you don’t like it, use yourself.”
“You know this backboard is cheap and deads anything you throw at it.”
“If you smart, you use the glass, too.”
“I don’t use the glass because I’m trying to work on my shot, if I just throw it at the glass I’m gonna have an ugly-ass Bill Cartwright jumper like you.”
“Who cares? I’m not going NBA. And I just beat you. HA HA, SUCKER!”
Up until I was eighteen, he still beat me. Every single time, two or three times a week, I went out there to get hacked. I was determined to beat him without being cheap, but one day, he pissed me off. I was driving to the hoop on the right baseline by the bushes and he pushed me. My foot caught the gap between the concrete and the bushes. As I came down after my shot, I tweaked my ankle and fell.
“What the fuck is wrong with you, man? You almost sprained my ankle.”
“You need to control yourself. There is no room to drive on the baseline.”
After that, I changed. I realized that if I respected and yielded to—and emulated—my father forever, I’d never be myself. I had to beat him if he was ever going to let me go. I took the ball at the top of the key and gave up playing his game on the block. I exposed his biggest weakness: speed. I drove down the right side, time after time, forearm out, pushing off his chest to lay it in over his head.
“That’s a push off!” he said.
“Call it, then.”
To his credit, he never called it. He just shifted his stance and dared me to go left. In those days I couldn’t go as fast left, so I darted left just to spin back right and shoot a turnaround. It worked for a few possessions, but he caught on and played the spin, catching me on my way back. I tried to go right again, but he was ready. He was going to make me earn my last few buckets in his office on the block.
Anticipating his foul on my drop step, I dropped, fake spun, elbowed him in the chest, then laid it in rolling into the lane.
“Take it easy! You just hit me in the chest,” he complained.
“Game point.”
I already knew what I was going to do. Twice now, I had spun and faked. He was going to play me for the fake so I went right to my move. Like Charles Barkley at the first hash, I dribbled for a good twenty seconds backing my dad down.
“Come on, man! You dribble forever.”
“Shut up!”
I drop-stepped, hooked him with my off arm, then reverse laid it in.
“GAME. I win!”
I’d never been that upset at my dad. I walked off, left him, left the court, left the ball, and went inside where my mom was in the kitchen.
“Hey! How was the game?”
“AWESOME.”
“Oh yeah?”
Before I could respond, in barreled my dad.
“No sportsmanship! You should be ashamed of yourself.”
“Hey! What happened? Eddie say you had good game.”
“Yeah, right! Good game. He has no sportsmanship. Sore loser.”
“I’m not a sore loser. I won!”
“Eddie, calm down. What happened?”
�
��This son of bitch elbow me, then push me, then leave ball on floor after the game. You’re the worst man. Who want to play with you anymore?”
“Eddie! You can’t do that to your dad, he is older. You need to take it easy on him. You are going to hurt him.”
“Every time I play, he scratches my arms and fouls me. He pushed me into the bushes today.”
“Ay-yah, that’s just how your dad is. You have to let him win, though.”
“No, I don’t! He has bad sportsmanship. I had to teach him a lesson.”
“How, by being a bad sportsmanship, too?”
“Yeah!”
“No, Eddie. You are wrong. You can’t just beat your dad. You have to beat him better.”
“Why? He is a cheater!”
“Your dad is not a cheater, Eddie. He is testing you. If you can’t beat him the right way, he can’t let you go.”
One of the most important things I learned in our Chinese home was to respect my elders. Yet, I didn’t understand the breadth of this until I beat my dad fair and square. They may ask us to bow, but it’s temporary. We earn the right to hold our heads high in the presence of our elders because it’s not enough to be equals. We can’t walk backward, and we can’t move laterally. We have to transcend it. Just like I had to go through my dad and Michael had to go through Isiah, and LeBron had to go through Duncan, this generation of cooks has to go through the Old Jesses of the world.
The elders will scratch and claw and erect Bill Laimbeer like white walls in front of you, because they want to survive. Nothing wants to be the past. But before our fathers cede their thrones, they have to see us leap over their walls and empathize with their fear of the unknown. We don’t know the future; they don’t know what it means to fall into the past.
