by Cheryl Tan
Willin’s meal, however, had a happy ending after the waiters discovered that he was a fine-dining chef from Singapore. Truffled egg custard and more appeared on his table as well. But our friendship had been sealed long before that. There we’d been at Per Se, one of the toniest and most impossible to get into restaurants in New York City, and we’d filled the evening with snotty playground taunts, uncouth, Hokkien-splattered diatribes, and much jealous pointing—a display that had entirely been fueled by a shared love for food. In an instant, I knew we’d be dear friends. What my friendship with Simpson had taught me, after all, was that boys may come and go, but if you find a person who loves food and loves to cook as much as you do, you’d better hang on.
Whenever I touched down in Singapore for more cooking lessons, I began texting Willin as soon as I could turn on my phone. “Welcome back, my friend!” he’d always say, almost instantly. And then: “When are we eating?”
Together, we began eating our way through Singapore. We ventured to a hole-in-the-wall Cantonese restaurant in search of shark’s fin scrambled eggs, which neither of us had had for years and which we were beginning to believe had been a figment of our imaginations. We nibbled on squid ink and Parmesan breadsticks at Jaan, a high-end restaurant at the top of the tallest hotel in Singapore, marveling at the throbbing cityscape seventy floors beneath us as we giggled over much too much wine. On a particularly decadent evening, we visited Fifty Three, a new restaurant opened by a law student turned Heston Blumenthal stagiaire, and inhaled Japanese tomatoes, impossibly tiny and so incredibly sweet, paired with creamy burrata and a fiery and icy horseradish granita, chased with crunchy ducks’ tongues and lobster in a rich, brown butter sauce.
Over these meals, I shared my enormous fears with Willin. “My aunties are really hard-core in the kitchen—scary,” I’d say. “I’m not sure that I’ll ever be able to cook like they do.” Or “I don’t even really remember what real Teochew food tastes like sometimes.”
Patiently, Willin would listen. And his answer, just like Mike’s, always was “Of course you can do it.” Like all my aunties and my uncle Simpson, Willin wanted me to learn. He himself wasn’t Teochew, but he’d grown up in Singapore’s Teochew enclave, the Hougang neighborhood. He’d been raised by a Teochew auntie who’d plied him with the porridges and soups of my people. Years later, after ditching a lucrative law career to open Wild Rocket, he’d even incorporated Teochew elements into his modern fusion menu, introducing a pasta with a duck ragù that had been slow-cooked with spices like star anise and cinnamon, which the Teochews use in braised duck dishes.
After he’d listened to me whine, Willin and I came up with a solution for my insecurities. To fully understand my quest and divorce myself from the fear of my aunties’ Teochew cooking abilities, I should see how the professionals do it. Wherever we ate, Willin and I would dissect each dish with the enthusiasm and confidence of scientists splitting the atom: What were the ingredients? How could we re-create this dish? What would we add or change to make it better? Always, always, we came away with the fervent—if sometimes misguided, especially on my part—belief that we could do it. Or that we could come somewhat close trying.
For me, however, this bravado was still hard to summon when it came to Teochew food. These dishes had long ceased to be just food, having been wrapped up for years in the tangled mysticism of my family, of its history. After all, I tended to eat Teochew food only at family gatherings, for which it had been painstakingly cooked by my aunties or late grandmother, my impulse when I eat out being to seek Western food or spicy Szechuan or Indian dishes, which are far more oomphy than the relatively subtle Teochew cuisine.
I decided that perhaps Willin was right—I needed to start thinking of Teochew food as just food. And before I knew it, we were in a tiny restaurant in a working-class neighborhood of Singapore, sipping tea impatiently as we waited for dishes to appear. We had asked a well-regarded Singaporean chef who happens to be Teochew, Ignatius Chan, where he went when he craved Teochew food. And as soon as Iggy was free, we invited him to join us at Swa Garden, his Teochew restaurant of choice.
A bowl of porridge—a hallmark of traditional Teochew cuisine—appeared. The water was just slightly milky, the grains of rice soft, yet still separate and not so soft that they were mushed together, as they often can be in lesser versions. The porridge was simple and clean—a lovely canvas for the subtle dishes that would follow. A giant steamed fish came peppered with slivers of ginger and swimming in a slightly sweet broth with tinges of the tomatoes and sour plums that had been steeped in it. A crunchy beggar’s purse erupted in an avalanche of diced chicken when sliced open. Perfectly fried prawn balls were crunchy outside and hot and juicy inside. Goose legs and wings came braised in sweet soy sauce to such softness that the meat was like cotton puffs on our tongues.
Willin and I were speechless after. “You don’t have so many flavors fighting for your attention,” Willin said. “It’s very cheng,” he added, using a Chinese word for “clear.”
The dishes had been unfussy and plain. Delicious, yes, but, in my mind, doable. Willin was right—things had become a little more clear.
CHAPTER SEVEN
In my quest to retrace my grandmothers’ footsteps in the kitchen, I had known, of course, that there were compulsories I’d have to nail.
Bak-zhang and pineapple tarts were two. But these were special occasion items made just once a year. Twice, if we were lucky. When it came to everyday food, however, the single Teochew dish that my relatives and friends continually asked about was one that had me genuinely afraid: giam chye ar tng, or salted vegetable and duck soup.
This soup had been a hallmark of Tanglin Ah-Ma’s repertoire. Every year, at the big family reunion dinner, she would make a feast on the eve of the Chinese new year—and this was the dish that I always looked forward to. Salty and sour with a delicate layer of meaty umami, this clear soup was simple and light, yet complex. It wasn’t easy to pull off—the balance of salty, sour, and sweet had to be just right. When done well, it was lovely on its own but also scooped over a bowl of plain rice to lend the grains a subtle sour flavor. My father spoke longingly of it for years after his mother died. In our own home, although my mother is an absolute ace at making Chinese soups, she never once tried this. Why bother, after all? It would just be futile—nothing would come close to the memory of my Tanglin ah-ma’s salted vegetable and duck soup.
So when Auntie Khar Imm invited me over to help her make it for a weekday family dinner, I jumped at the chance.
As I barreled along with my quest, my mother seemed increasingly uncomfortable. She had never enjoyed cooking, seeing it as a chore that should be left to the maid, if you could afford one. And having always been cordial at best with my father’s side of the family, she wondered why I suddenly wanted to spend so much time with these people whom she’d much rather forget, given the divorce.
“You don’t have to do this, you know,” she said one day.
“But it’s the only way I’m going to learn,” I protested.
“Why don’t you just ask your e-ma to teach you things?”
“I am. But I also want to learn the dishes that Tanglin Ah-Ma made!”
After a silence, she would finally say, “Okay lah, just tell me what time you’re going. I’ll fetch you there.”
We began to have a ritual. My mother would drive me to my auntie Khar Imm’s apartment in Hougang and leave me with firm instructions to “text me when you’re done—I’ll come fetch you!” As I waited in my aunt’s apartment for her to return, Auntie Khar Imm would always say, “Ask your mummy to come up and sit down for a while, say hello.” But my mother could never bring herself to leave the car.
“You know why that is,” my mother said. “Your father invited them to his second wedding. How can I face them?”
And so I would make an excuse. “Oh, my mum has to rush to class, so she can’t come up for tea.” “She’s not feeling well.” “Maybe next time.”
I felt increasingly torn between the two sides of the family. I wasn’t sure if I’d ever be able to bring them together, even over food. I wasn’t going to let that stand in my way, however. The olive branch had been extended; there were many more dishes to be learned.
The moment I got to Auntie Khar Imm’s kitchen for our salted vegetable and duck soup lesson, I saw problems ahead. When I’d balked at dicing the somewhat piglike pork belly, I’d sensed that more animal-like meats would be in my very near future. No amount of preparing for the moment, however, could have diminished my horror at seeing a pale, cold duck in a large red basin, its neck gently curled around its body, its beady eyes fixed on me. I wasn’t sure what to do.
Fortunately, Auntie Khar Imm took the lead, grabbing the duck, giving it a quick rinse, and then hacking at it with a cleaver, chopping it into large chunks. We would be making dinner for her family tonight—for Uncle Soo Kiat, my cousins Jessie and Royston, and Royston’s wife and toddler. I’d never met two-year-old Giselle or her mother, Kat; in fact, I’d never been invited to a small family dinner at their home without my parents or sister before. I fervently hoped that my “helping” wouldn’t ruin the meal the way my chopping skills had ruined the bak-zhang.
Working quickly, Auntie Khar Imm brought a small pot of water to boil for blanching the duck chunks. “If you don’t do this, the soup will have a very smelly, meaty taste,” she said. I barely heard her. I was too stunned after seeing her dip the duck’s head into the water and swirl it around. I wondered how a duck skull, eyes, and beak could possibly enhance the flavor of soup. (I also wondered if it would be impolite to refuse the soup at dinner that night.) But hey, I’d rarely made soup before—and the best soup I’d made thus far involved heavy cream, corn, potatoes, and bacon—so what did I know about Chinese soups, really? I watched her place the blanched duck in another pot, toss in sour plums, ginger, and tamarind leaves, and bring that to a boil before starting on the rest of dinner.
Also on the menu that night were sweet and sour pork and steamed egg custard. The egg custard was fairly straightforward. Auntie Khar Imm carefully cracked three eggs into a bowl, filled an eggshell six times with water, and added it to the mixture. (At this point, I had given up trying to guess at the amounts and dutifully wrote “six shells of water” in my notebook.) She rapidly beat the egg mixture with a teaspoon of salt and strained it. “This will make the eggs very smooth,” she said. Onto the steaming rack it went, and we moved on to the next dish.
I had been surprised to hear her mention sweet and sour pork, a dish that’s definitely not Teochew or even, really, Singaporean. “I learned it from the gossipy aunties” chattering about cooking to while away hours in the neighborhood, she explained. While I wasn’t crazy about sweet and sour pork, I had a rather lonely—and, often, hungry—husband who adored the dish. Mike had been very patient with me—never grumbling about my cooking trips or having to get up at four in the morning to take me to the airport for my insanely early flights to Singapore. Always, always, he’d send me off with a pep talk: “You can do it,” he’d say. “Don’t let anyone get you down.” And as the plane took off and the sadness subsided, I’d still feel the rosy glow of his confidence as I thought of the weeks ahead without him. Mike liked pineapple tarts well enough, although he’d once confessed that they weren’t his “favorite.” Kaya wasn’t his thing either. But sweet and sour pork—now, here was something he truly adored. When Auntie Khar Imm brought out the pork, I started paying very close attention.
Once again, this pork was slimy. “You want something with some fat on it,” Auntie Khar Imm said, as she swiftly chopped the white-speckled pink meat into slender strips. (I noticed she was not offering to let me help with the slicing this time; perhaps she’d gotten the same complaints about the bak-zhang we’d made as I had.) As she mixed beaten eggs, tapioca flour, salt, pepper, plum sauce, ketchup, and sugar in with the pork, I asked her about Giselle, her grandchild. Her life had changed since Giselle was born. Although Royston and Kat didn’t live with his parents, they stopped by every morning before heading to work to drop off Giselle for Auntie Khar Imm to watch. This is a fairly common arrangement in Singapore. (My father has made it clear for years now that, if I have a child, he’ll happily babysit, as long as he can do it at his golf club.) My auntie Khar Imm’s arrangement was a little more traditional, however. She now spent mornings and afternoons looking after Giselle, who, she kept telling me, was an unceasing jumping bean who sang and chattered away nonstop and ate like a maniac. After work each day, Royston and Kat would come over for dinner and take Giselle home for the evening.
“Lu-Lien ah, you don’t want to give your mother a grandchild?” she gently asked. I wasn’t sure what to say. None of my earlier excuses had really mattered—family was family after all. Living all by myself in New York, I should want to have a child. For the firstborn in my family, who’d been married for five years by now, it really was time. And besides, who was going to take care of me when I was older? “Maybe later,” I finally said. It occurred to me that this was the first time I’d uttered those words. Fortunately, the conversation didn’t go much further. There were vegetables to be fried, there was rice to be made.
Auntie Khar Imm paused only to tell me quickly how my cousin Jessie had made the gway neng gou (egg cake) that she was sending home with me. “Just whisk six eggs with sugar, a bit of flour, and pour in three quarters of a can of Sprite,” she said. “Your sister likes it, right?” It was a detail that even I had forgotten, after many years of not having this steamed egg cake.
Soon enough, dinner was on the table. As I watched the tiny Giselle shovel down a bowl of rice swimming in salted vegetable soup with bits of steamed egg aloft in it and then chase that with jumping and singing, I found myself thinking for a moment, Perhaps I could do this. And then half an hour later, when the jumping and singing continued, I thought, Hmm, maybe not. I hadn’t done much that day besides watch Auntie Khar Imm cook, but I was exhausted. I had no idea how Auntie Khar Imm and generations of housewives before her had pulled this off without dropping dead from exhaustion. Suddenly, motherhood seemed like a very noble calling, one far nobler than anything I’d ever endeavored.
Calling it a night, I said my good-byes. It wasn’t until I was almost home that I realized what had been missing. I’d been in Auntie Khar Imm’s home for the better part of the day—and not once had she offered to get me water or tea. I’d been there enough times by now; I was family. Not a guest anymore.
Meanwhile, on my mother’s side of the family, there was hardly any cooking going on. Everyone was consumed with one thing: a big family wedding.
When a man loves a woman, in Singapore, the courtship ritual often ends something like this: the man and his entourage pounding on his loved one’s door, waving red packets of money as bribes, demanding to “buy the bride.” Once they’re inside, a number of the dishes are set out, ranging from the sickeningly sweet to the downright vile.
The groom and groomsmen’s task is to consume what’s set before them with as much gusto as they can muster. Only then have they earned the right to claim the bride for the wedding to proceed. While it sounds like a prank, the practice actually is a legitimate part of Singaporean Chinese wedding tradition. By eating items that are suan, tian, ku, la (sour, sweet, bitter, and spicy), the groom is symbolically acknowledging that he expects to go through these phases with his bride in the years ahead. (Think of it as something of a literal take on the “for better or for worse” contract of Western marriages.)
I could say that the women involved in these proceedings often feel sorry for the poor sods—but I’d be lying. Any bridesmaid helping out with the suan, tian, ku, la bit relishes the opportunity to really stick it to the boys.
It had been years since I’d thought of this ritual. I’d been married for five years, and my marrying friends in New York certainly didn’t indulge in anything this masochistic. In our courtship, however, Mike had been informed of thes
e Chinese wedding proceedings should he pop the question. Bravely, he decided to take the plunge anyway. The night Mike had proposed, I’d had an inkling that something was up. Before my trip to New York for the weekend, he informed me that he had made a reservation at One If by Land, Two If by Sea, a starched-tablecloth, candlelit restaurant in lower Manhattan that I discovered through a quick Google search was noteworthy at one point for being the setting for an average of twenty-four marriage proposals a week, so the story goes. We hadn’t been dating long, and I wasn’t sure what my answer would be.
In our short time together, Mike had become my best friend, my first true love, and a trusty older brother to my sister, who lived in New York, working as a hotel industry consultant. With no family in Manhattan, Daphne was regularly calling or e-mailing Mike, leaning on him with an easy comfort that had been there from the very start. On 9/11, as I raced around lower Manhattan reporting my front-page story for the Baltimore Sun and, when I could get a signal on my cell phone, calling only the paper’s rewrite desk to file dispatches—or Mike to ask for directions to Saint Vincent’s Hospital or where I might find a store to buy sneakers so I could ditch my heels—my sister and family had been beside themselves. They had no idea if I was alive or hurt. Even though Mike had just met me, he took it upon himself to handle my family—calling my sister to let her know I was okay. I was simply working. From that day, Daphne treated him like a brother.
I thought about 9/11 as my Amtrak train raced up the Atlantic to New York. I thought about how I knew Mike had already asked my sister if she was free later that night for after-dinner drinks. And I thought about how he had always treated my friends, my family, and me with such intense love and care. By the time I was seated at One If by Land, Two If by Sea, sipping the flute of champagne Mike had ordered for me, I was nervous.
