I consider my childhood to be a thoroughly privileged one as I was surrounded by a trove of books, toys and clothes. I had the chance to attend various art lessons, and received a constant outpour of affection, attention and encouragement from my family and relatives. But there’s one thing I’ll always envy others for and desire to have – to have grown up with home-cooked food. I envied how my friends could sit at a table and scoop warm rice from the cooker, have a conversation over dinner. I wish I could say, too, that ‘home-cooked food is really the best’.
My mother isn’t a stay-home house wife and on top of that, was never interested to learn how to cook when she was younger. Her ‘culinary expertise’ covers a few Chinese soups and dishes done up simply by pouring ingredients into water and turning on the fire. Once in the bluest moon, she makes the attempt at something beyond that but it eventually ends up an abandoned project with the justification that everyone has their inclinations and cooking is clearly not hers.
She passed on my grandparent’s signature dishes to me verbally instead – vividly recounting how they would conjure sweet steamed egg desserts and lunar new year cookies, spiced claypot chicken and fried grouper fish, stir-fry vegetables with silky tofu, while speaking in a tone intermingled with vivacity and regret, as if she relished every meal she had had, missing them dearly while also clearly knowing that she had missed the chance to learn from them and recreate those wonderful dishes.
So, being invited over to a friend’s place for a meal of home-cooked food delights and comforts me immensely. To them, it may be just predictable and familiar everyday food but to me, it’s a rare and precious treat I’d take over the most famous restaurant or buffet, any day. The very same dish could be bought outside but taste entirely different altogether. My friends attribute the disparity to various reasons like the amount and kind of oil and salt used, the portion prepared, or the ingredients sourced. But to me, it’s also the careful earnestness put into preparing the meal with the heart-warming experience of sitting together at a table and eating from the same plate.
The most fascinating thing is how every parent has their own unique way of cooking that’s not an exact replica of how their parent cooks, even if the recipe used is the same. Each house I’ve visited also has a distinct flavour and style of it’s own. Home-cooked food is a family treasure or heirloom of sort, a living and breathing symbol of culture being shaped organically while being passed down from hand to hand.
The value and importance of learning how to cook from your parents is often neglected. Food is such a powerful thread to bring people together again and an elegant way of preserving one’s unique family roots. There’s an indescribable sense of belonging and connection, I’d imagine, to be able to tell your children or friends that in this spoonful of rice, there’s a little bit of grandma and great grandpa and so on. In that way, just like the blood through our veins and the spirals of our DNA, we’re all linked.
