How My Mom Shows Her Love Through Food

When it’s hard for her to say ‘I Love You.’

Even though it’s hard for Asian parents to say ‘I Love You,’ they show their love in many other ways like cooking and food.

Every mother-daughter relationship is different

Some women can only tolerate their mothers for a moment before needing to exit the room.

Other women can hang out with their moms every freaking day.

Some are estranged and some lost their mothers too soon to figure out where they stand.

My mom and I are somewhere in between the first two.

When I was little, my mom poured her love into making traditional Chinese soups for my sisters and me.

I’m not talking Hot and Sour or Egg Drop.

I’m talking Ching Bo Leung (清补凉), with dried goji berries, lotus seeds, fox nut barely, pork bones, dates and a bunch of other herbal ingredients that give the soup a distinctive taste.

As a kid, I never enjoyed drinking them because the taste made me gag.

I’d whine,

“Can’t we just have Campbell’s chicken noodle? You know, like Becky’s family?”

So my mom would use her super convincing powers to get us to drink her soup. First, she would state all the health benefits that the soup has. I’d roll my eyes,

“How can the water that boiled lotus seeds improve my health?”

Then, she’d tell me it tastes different this time because she added chicken broth to make it taste more restaurant-style. I’d take a sniff of my soup, scoff and call her bluff.

Lastly, she’d bribe me with Haw flakes (A Chinese sweet treat made from Chinese hawthorn fruit).

And somehow that’ll work. (Yes — SMH).

I’d plug my nose, chugging this hot liquid down my throat while fixating on the small, sweet, maroon cylinder at the edge of the dinner table.

At that moment, my mom would begin eating the Chinese soup ingredients (Tong Ja in Cantonese 湯楂)