When I was a kid, my mom used to joke that she thought I was switched at birth and was really a Chinese baby. Why? Because I loved Chinese food more than anything. More than hot dogs or French fries, more than pizza or grilled cheese sandwiches or ice cream or any of the other culinary staples of childhood in America.
My first memory of eating Chinese food was when I was about three years old and my parents took me to a hole-in-the-wall joint replete with shiny orange vinyl booths and gold paper lanterns dangling from the ceiling. It was the 1970s and even in a progressive, melting-pot town like Berkeley, Chinese food was still considered "exotic," even as it was, I'm sure, heavily Americanized.
My parents ordered "kuo teh" (the word "potsticker" hadn't even made it into the vernacular yet) and a small plate of plump, glistening pillows that looked like big, fat raviolis arrived on our table. I don't remember what else we ate that night, but I do know—perhaps only because I've heard the story so many times—that I loved the pot stickers so much that I ate the entire order myself and a second had to be summoned for the others to enjoy. By the end of that meal, the myth of my mistaken heritage was in full swing.
At home my mother, skilled in the kitchen, occasionally cooked some Westernized version of Chinese food—fried rice or stir fry, for instance—but to my dismay, linguini, along with its Western culinary counterparts, was far more common on our table than lo mein. I used to fantasize about having a Chinese grandmother who would cook authentic Chinese delicacies for me. When my wishing failed to produce one, I settled for frequenting funky Chinatown establishments with names like Good Luck Dim Sum, Number One Dumpling House, Dol Ho and Hang Ah, drawn in by their storefronts filled with eye-catching displays of tasty delights-from lofty steamed buns filled with pork to deep-fried, shrimp-stuffed crab claws. I could spend hours watching the dumpling makers' quick fingers deftly pleat perfect little packages, endlessly enthralled by the drama of the teahouse-dumpling-laden trolleys clattering over linoleum floors, unfamiliar treats glistening in threes and fours on little plates and nestled in tiny bamboo steamers, crotchety ladies haphazardly filling pink pastry boxes for to-go orders.
When I went off to college in a small seaside California town that was, much to my dismay, completely devoid of Chinese bakeries, I set out to teach myself to make potstickers that would live up to my childhood memory—by now, surely, greatly inflated. Through much trial and error, I eventually succeeded and I've never lost my penchant for those tasty morsels. But alas, a girl cannot live on pot stickers alone and I've continued to search in vein for a cookbook that would reveal the secrets of the whole gamut of Chinese cooking. Why, I lamented, isn't there a Julia Child for Chinese cooking?
Some four decades after that first dumpling graced my lips, I have finally found my Chinese Julia Child in Eileen Yin-Fei Lo. Her latest book, Mastering the Art of Chinese Cooking, truly lives up to its name. Lo details how to stock a Chinese pantry, how to shop in a Chinese market, and how to cook a perfect pot of rice (her advice runs counter to everything I thought I knew about cooking rice, but, of course, it works every time!), then goes on to explain in detail the vast range of cooking methods and styles used throughout China and provide more than 150 classic recipes, including, of course, one for my beloved pot stickers.
While my friends may reach for The Joy of Cooking—for its tried-and-true recipes for tuna casserole, lasagna, or meat loaf—my comfort foods will always come from the Far East. I'll choose Lo's warming Hot and Sour Soup, soul-satisfying Shrimp with Salted Egg, mouth-tinglingly spicy Old Skin Beef, and of course, those beloved pork-and-shrimp-filled, pan-fried dumplings any day. These are the foods that remind me of childhood and home. Who knows? Maybe my mother was right and there's a middle-aged woman in China who craves macaroni and cheese whenever she has a bad day?
Do you crave comfort foods from another culture?
Robin Donovan is a San Francisco-based food writer and the author of Campfire Cuisine: Gourmet Recipes for the Great Outdoors. Her writing has appeared in the pages of Cooking Light, Fitness, San Jose Mercury News, and many others.
