恩 N is for New Year’s Banquet: an extract from Jenny Lau’s ‘An A-Z of Chinese Food’

Jenny Lau’s An A-Z of Chinese Food – not a recipe book, but a deliberate ‘anti-glossary’ – deconstructs and interrogates complex ideas around Chinese identity, history and culture, via the universal language of food. Jonathan Nunn, editor of London Feeds Itself (which features Lau’s essay ‘The Community Centre’), calls it ‘a landmark in British food writing, somewhere between a book, a magazine, and a treatise, but completely its own thing.’ Read on for a timely extract from this unique work.

恩 N is for New Year’s Banquet

Welcome, welcome, one and all! Please, step inside my home. Did you have to travel far? I hope you did not get caught in the rain. Come, come, take a seat for our reunion dinner. Let us sit together to welcome the Year of the Snake with an eight-course banquet. It’s really nothing; I didn’t prepare much. I have only been cooking for the last four days. Don’t be shy – go ahead and dig in while the food is hot. I only have one request: that you listen carefully as I serve each course with a little speech that I have written.

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SECOND COURSE

– Luxury Seafood Dumpling Trio –

– Edible ingots that symbolise wealth and prosperity –

Shanghainese soup dumpling filled with Iberico pork, and abalone and conpoy broth

Black truffle and shiitake dumpling with gold leaf King scallop siu mai with flying fish roe

I am sure you have all heard of the Chinese 5 Cs, have you not? Cash, Car, Credit card, Condominium and Country-club membership.

If you have acquired all these, congratulations: you’ve unlocked the answer to success. Chinese girls: snag yourself a husband with the full set! Chinese boys: don’t stop until you reach the top! Got all five? Now level up and produce, produce, produce those children.

I hear some of you laughing. I did too, when I first heard about the 5 Cs. We laugh in self-deprecation because it is an admission of our own middle-class aspirations, but there is no humour to be found in the 5 Cs that come later: Credit-card debt, Career burnout, high Cholesterol, Chronic fatigue and mid-life Crisis. My hopes for my generation and those that follow is that we outgrow some of our elders’ preoccupation with material status – which is so intrinsically linked to saving face.

Dumplings and kung hei 髮菜/fat choy for wealth, but at what cost? To gamify life’s achievements at the expense of spiritual progression is a recipe for regression.

So listen to my 5 Cs for a new definition of wealth:

•    Comfort – live moderately in every way, and never beyond your means.
•    Culture – develop your intellect; value brains over beauty.
•    Communication – engage with people and society. Start by listening.
•    Compassion – treat others as you would have them treat you.
•    Charity – give away what you own but don’t need – money and goods – but also time, energy and, most importantly, kindness.

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FOURTH COURSE

– Supreme Lobster Noodles –

– Left uncut to wish you a long life –

Boston lobster and yi mein stir-fried in butter with ginger and spring onions

What is a full life, and how should we live it? On the eve of Chinese New Year, we eat long noodles that are uncut, to rep- resent our aspirations for longevity. For only arbitrary reasons, eighty is the age in Chinese society at which you are deemed to have lived a full life – regardless of how you lived it.

My father left his earthly body at seventy-seven. Aged seventy-two, the doctors removed a tumour from his liver. We knew he would live for ever. Aged seventy-six, the doctors discovered another spot. We were confident he could live another decade. A few months later, when he was rushed to hospital, we hoped to enjoy five more years with him. In the last days of his life, I secretly prayed every second for his speedy departure. My quest for longevity – if only I could eat those celestial peaches of immortality on Mount Kunlun! – obsesses me. But if I lived to eighty never knowing love and contentment, I would
cut those noodles short.

FIFTH COURSE

– Golden Chicken –

– Carved and served whole, enjoyed by all the family –

Whole poached free-range chicken, accompanied by double-boiled fish maw and chicken broth

There are two stereotypes about our Chinese parents that keep making the rounds. One is of the unemotional, unloving, Tiger Parent. The other is of the Very Asian Parent. At some point, we decided our elders were ripe material for content™ – making their Asian-ness the singular theme of ranty Reddit threads, memes and even mom-and-pop-porn brands.

On the Tiger Parent: you can’t choose family, so make peace with that. You can’t even change them – God knows I’ve tried. I once had a moment of clarity when I realised you don’t have to like your parents. Their role is not to be your friend. But you will always love them. So, a suggestion: shall we stop making a big deal about how Asian parents don’t say ‘I love you’? Yes, yes, we get it. They cut fruit instead. But we also don’t need to make their stoic silence into a defining flaw about Asian-ness, because – actually – complex emotions are not verbalised across many different cultures. I mean, have you ever asked an English person how they are feeling? Those emotions are just expressed in different ways; sometimes actions eclipse words. I’m content not to say ‘I love you’, and I’m content not to hear my mother say ‘I love you’. Because how awkward would that be? I’ve made peace with that.

On the Very Asian Parent: we are swinging the pendulum between two extremes – of either turning our elders into satirical caricatures, or pedestalling them. Yes, yes, my mum hoards plastic bags. Me too. Guess what: I would hate it if someone made a meme about my borderline miserliness. Yes, yes, I can see that your po-po was an amazing matriarchal cook, but your blood relation to her is not convincing me to part with all my savings for your handmade dumplings. Let’s start to see them and talk about them – talk to them – for the 3D, complex humans that they are, and separate our identities from theirs. It’s hard but it’s the healthy option. Make peace with that.

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SEVENTH COURSE

– Tray of Togetherness –

– Six auspicious dessert bites, united on a traditional lacquered tray –

Nin gou glutinous-rice fritter cube; osmanthus and goji berry jelly; deep-fried sesame ball; pineapple-tart macaron; almond, walnut and pecan cookie; Valrhona chocolate-filled tong yuen

Once upon a time we went to church, broke bread together and were bonded by faith in a common god. Nowadays, most of us form the basis of our human connections in one of three groups: family, friends and colleagues. Yet community – that rarity of modern secular life – is so special once you find it. Communities nourish the soul in a way that family, friends and colleagues cannot. They form around shared values and identities, whether it’s your running crew, book club or local volunteer group. Communities put these core values above any individual agendas.

I’ve learned some things in my time spent building a community with other people: first and foremost, it is founded on true grassroots action. There will be corporations and nar- cissistic individuals who claim they’re building a community in the name of ‘solidarity’ . . . if solidarity were spelled E-G-O. Don’t fall for it. Community is also more complicated than the number of hashtags you’ve generated, or if your identity is based on a shared antipathy to the status quo. My feeling is that communities seek to create something greater (indeed, unquantifiable) than its parts.

Like the ubiquitous glutinous rice that is used this time of year across parts of Asia, successful communities hold together better than others. To create a sticky community, find something that binds you together in a common space: like cooking, hiking, mahjong.

Finally, it’s a mistake to assume your community are automatically your friends. It’s healthy if there are people in your community with whom you disagree, or even dislike. For this is the true test of whether you believe it’s worth sticking with the community.