The Blending of Flavors

I decided to interview my mother because she is the only person I can have a face-to-face interview during this semester. I decided to explore the stories on my mother’s side because I was grew up with my grandma’s cooking. However, I also realized that it was hard to connect my grandma’s dishes with the family heritage that I knew of because her cooking consist of cooking styles of many different regions in China. By talking with my mom, I learned more about my family. Including why my grandparents moved to my hometown, Xi’an, and stories about my grandparents when they were young.

Rachel: Me

Li: My mother

The interview was translated from Chinese.

Rachel: Where did you born?

Li: Xi’an. Southern part of Xi’an. You know I never been to western part of Xi’an before I met your Dad. [Laugh]

Rachel: Did you spent most of your childhood on the college campus my grandpa was teaching in?

My mother with one of her cousin. The doll she was holding was her childhood’s favorite toy.

Li: Not really. I was taken back to Shanghai where your grandpa’s family are. My grandma raised me up. I did not come back to Xi’an till I was seven years old.

Rachel: What was my great grandma like?

Li: I was really close to her. She is the healthiest old lady I had ever met. She lived till she was ninety years old. If you ask me who’s my family’s tradition bearer I would say is she. I did not know much about her. You know us Chinese. We never talk about what’s in the past. All I knew is that my great grandfather was an owner of a small grocery store. Your great grandma married him when he was a little boy and she was a lot older than him. It was an arranged marriage.

Rachel: I felt like they should have many stories. Do you know more details about their stories?

Li: No. I only overheard some of my grandma’s story from my uncles. They did not allow children to join in the conversation.

Rachel: I wish I could meet her and learn more about her life. Do you remember any of her specialty dishes or what was your favorite dish as a child?

Li: I would say is Braised pork in brown sauce. Not only pork but also everything else can be cooked in brown sauce. You know, your grandma always cook everything in brown sauce too. Chicken with brown sauce, fish with brown sauce, everything can be cooked with brown sauce.

This is a picture of my great grandmother. She took this picture on the college campus my grandfather was lectured in. She was already in her eighties when this picture was taken. University of Electronic Science and Technology at Xi’an

Rachel: Do you think the flavor of brown sauce can represent the flavor of our family?

Li: Not really, you know back when I was a child, food was really precious. We did not have many chances to eat meat, that’s why I loved the dish so much because I could only eat it on birthday or on Chinese New Year.

Rachel: Do you know why meat was so limited back then?

Li: You know when I was a child China was really serious about building a communist society. So all the food can only be bought with food tickets. You can only buy certain amount of food every month. That’s why we always save the meat tickets to those important occasions.

This is an example of food ticket. The value of this food ticket is 3 kilogram. Food could not be bought with money back in the sixties and seventies in China. Food ticket is the only currency accepted by the grocery store.

Rachel: Did my grandma always choose to cook meat with brown sauce?

Li: Yes, You knew how much we like to cook meat with brown sauce.

Rachel: I do, but I always thought brown has nothing special. Almost all the families in China know how to cook meat with brown sauce.

Li: yes! Brown sauce is like the most common flavor, but actually not all families cook brown sauce in same way. We like to make our brown really sweet. When pork was cooked with brown sauce, the pork would have a reddish shining look. [Laugh] We should cook the dish during your winter break, pork in the steamed bread.

Rachel: I know. You are making me drooling right now.

I was getting red packet from my uncle. Red packet is money wrapped in red paper given to kids from their parents, grandparents and others as New Year gifts.

Rachel: Ok, we have to get back to the interview. Do you consider our family’s cooking style northern or southern?

Li: Definitely southern. We like to put sugar in all of our dishes. [Laugh] A lot of sugar. You are now putting more sugar than any of us.

Rachel: Only when I am cooking for myself.

Rachel: Who was the one always cooking after you came back to Xi’an?

Li: your grandpa. Back then your grandma was still in the military, your grandpa was always the one cooking for us.

Rachel: Did my grandpa also cooks Shanghainese dishes ?

Li: Not really. Yes, he still loved to make everything sweet, but he was really limited to the ingredients he had. He was also really busy. So most of the time we would just eat vegetable stew with cabbage, tofu and rice noodle. It was the cheapest and quickest. He just needed to put everything in the pot and let it boil. We still would have something really nice for special occasions like birthdays and New Year. You know, Braised pork in brown sauce. Your grandpa was a good cook.

Rachel: I never had a chance to meet my grandpa. Can you tell me more about him?

Li: Yes. He was also in the military when he was in your age. His unit was responsible for the wireless communication on the battlefield. I did not know if you can write this on your project, but your grandpa was in the Korean War. [Laugh] After the war, your grandpa’s department turned into a college. The location of the college did not settled at first. It was first at Beijing, then Xi’an. Your grandpa moved with the college to Xi’an, but that’s before I was born.

Rachel: I wish I could meet grandpa.

Rachel: If grandpa was cooking all the time, when did grandma learn how to cook? Did she learn after we were born?

Li: She knew some, but not a lot. She did not start cooking after your grandpa passed away.

Rachel: Is my grandma has her own style of cooking?

Li: She learned some from your grandpa and she also cooks with her own creativity. [Laugh] She always cooks with what’s available in her hand. But the flavor is still the flavor of Zhang’s family (The name of my mom’s family).

Our family’s Chinese New Year’s Eve cooking. My uncle sent this picture to me during this year’s new year’s Eve. From what I can tell the dishes includes: Century eggs, meatballs, shrimps, marinated chicken feet, garlic steamed mussels, cured beef, braised chicken with brown sauce, spicy lotus root, meat jelly and different stir fried vegetables.

Rachel: Do we have any family recipe? Anything passed down from your grandma to you?

Li: [Laugh] family recipe? No. We all cook depend on our mood. You knew it. I don’t even cook anymore. I have to find a recipe online before I want cook a dish.

Rachel: Apparently, men are the ones cooking in Zhang’s family. my uncle can cook much better than you can. my cousin can cook much better than I can.

Li: [Laugh] At least someone is still cooking!

Smithsonian Guide to Oral History:

How does your tradition-bearer’s story relate to your community in both the present and the past? How does it relate to you?

I always view my grandma as my family’s bearer. However, according to my mother, many of my grandmother dishes were influenced by my hometown’s western cooking style. This type of cooking style reflected the story of my family. Moving from southern to western China, my family’s eating habits also changed. I was born and raised in the western city, Xi’an, my grandparents moved to. My eating habits are really different from the eating habits of the locals, but also very different from where my grandfather’s hometown.

How did your perception of community history change, from before the interview to now?

I always thought my grandma should be my family’s tradition bearer, because I grew up eating my grandma’s cooking. Therefore, I was surprised when I learned my grandpa was actually the one brings the flavor of his hometown to our dinner table.

Also my mom reminded me the importance of brown sauce in my family’s cooking. The dish was too common for Chinese I rarely realized its speciality.

How did this project inspire you to learn more about your community?

I never thought about to learn about my community from food’s perspective. I did not realize how our family’s cooking can tied us all together. Food was like an entering point for me to learn more about my family’s story. I wish I could meet my grandpa to learn more about my family’s history.

What were some of the challenges you faced during this project? What could you do differently in your next oral history interview?

My biggest challenge is I could not meet with most of my family members during this project. I could only learn my family from my mother. It was hard for me to ask questions through the phone. Many of my information is not complete only with my mom’s knowledge. If I have a chance, I hope I can do my next interview with my grandma face to face and learn more about my family from her perspective.

If the roles were reversed and you became the tradition-bearer, what stories would you like to tell?

My family is always moving. My grandpa moved from Shanghai to Xi’an. I moved from China to United States. Every time we move, our cooking styles changes. I hardly know how to cook any Chinese dishes; therefore, most of my cooking learned from recipes online. If I am the tradition bearer, I might be able to tell the story of how the dishes on our family table start getting Americanized.