Category: Creative Piece

Zoe Walker

PRIMI PIATTI

Spaghetti Carbonara

Spaghetti Carbonara is a classic Italian dish. This dish is simple and easy to make while also using one of the most popular pasta in Italian culture, spaghetti. One origin story of how Spaghetti Carbonara got its name is because Carbonara roughly means “in the manner of coal miners” and the sprinkling of black pepper gives the illusion of coal dust against the creamy pasta. The dish originated in Rome which can be seen through the specific cheeses used in its preparation. This classic Italian dish is one of my favorites because it has become a trademark dish for me and my grandpa to make together. Seeing as we are both not very skilled in cooking, Spaghetti Carbonara with its five main ingredients of spaghetti, pancetta, eggs, hard cheese, and black pepper is an easy way for us to feel like experts in the kitchen. On Saturdays, we would cook together and serve it for my whole family. This dish had a great way of connecting me and my grandfather through the years and allowed us to bond over a shared experience of cooking.

Generously salt a pot of  6 quarts of water until it tastes like the ocean. Add in your pound of spaghetti to cook for 8 to 10 min until al dente. While the pasta is cooking heat a large skillet and add in 8 pounds of pancetta until it is golden crispy. In a bowl mix 4 eggs, ½ cup of grated Pecorino, and ½ a cup of grated Parmigiano-Reggiano. Add your spaghetti to your pan of pancetta and mix them together. Remove the pan from the heat and add in the egg and cheese mixture while stirring quickly to create your creamy sauce. Add in the final touch of cracked black pepper by sprinkling it on over the pasta. Enjoy!

1. The piece I chose to imitate was Under the Tuscan Sun by Frances Mayes.
2. I chose this piece because I loved that she included personal or cultural information about each dish before she went into describing the recipes. She took on a personal approach to describing many of Italy’s celebrated dishes and made me feel connected to the author and her history with these dishes.
3. I learned a lot about the culture and regions where these different dishes are made. In many of the varying dishes, Mayes mentioned what holidays or occasions they are eaten at or what regions they originated from. This allowed me to get a deeper understanding of the dish and learn more about it beyond its ingredients. I also learned about the typical dishes eaten during the different courses of the meals such as Antipasti, Primi Piatti, Secondi, Contorni, and Dolci. By including dishes from each of the different courses that are in the Italian culture, I learned about a wide variety of dishes and when they are best served. This also allowed me to learn about other amazing Italian dishes besides pasta such as Faraone with Fennel.
4. I learned a lot more about my grandpa’s personal history with this dish and why this is a dish that he enjoys making. While this dish is something me and my grandpa make together, I learned from him that he used to make this dish with his mother as well. When he was growing up in New York this was a dish they would make together on special occasions and cook it for the rest of his family. It was one of the few times that they would get to sit down together as a family and enjoy a meal. As a result, he has very good memories tied to this meal and wanted to pass down the tradition to us. This was very fascinating to learn about because it made feel like I had a relationship and connection to my great-grandma who I never met.
5. I believe there is definitely cultural DNA embedded in the piece I read and in my piece as well. In the reading of Under the Tuscan Sun, Mayes talks a lot about her personal history with many of the different dishes she mentions. Her personal culture and history is the backbone of this article and allows you to see that her cultural DNA is an important part of this piece. Examples of this show up many times such as when she talks about a quail dish. When describing this dish, she first mentions how her father was a hunter and would catch the quails himself which puts a personal spin on the meal. When I replicated my piece in the same manner, I added in my own personal cultural history with the Spaghetti Carbonara and got to learn more about past history with this dish that I didn’t know. By including this cultural DNA, it creates a more personal and relatable piece that allows people to draw on their own personal experiences as they read it.

“Work hard and earn everything you have, Naya. This way, no one can ever take anything from you.”

My mother used this mentality and saying to push me to learn everything I know today. Her biggest goal for me as her oldest and only daughter was being independent, and it all started in the kitchen. Our small, yet stuffed fridge was the holy mecca of food; it had everything from steaks, beef short ribs, ox-tail, ground turkey, kimchi, pesto, Greek yogurt, rice cakes to soy paste. I guess this was just the epitome of living in a Korean-American household.

Average Shim Household Menu on a Saturday:
8:00AM – The thick aroma of pancakes, eggs, bacon, and toast would fill up our home in the morning, especially on weekends. Waking up to the sound of bacon sizzling on the stove and the smell of bacon and eggs was the best. We’d walk down to a cloud of hot smoke-y air from the heat of the stove. But smelling the food itself from upstairs was definitely enough of a reason for us kids to get out of bed. (I learned pancakes were just a way for my mom to get us to eat our fruit, decorating it with a colorful array strawberries, blueberries, and bananas).

1:00PM – Lunch time meant something quick and easy for my mother to whip up in the midst of her busy day full of housework: fettuccine alfredo with chicken and pesto.  Often eaten with chopsticks in my home, Alfredo sauce was our favorite, and my mom would make a quick and easy recipe from scratch using heavy cream and fresh parmesan cheese. If the food processor is going, it meant she was making pesto for that day. Grinding up the olive oil, parmesan, basil, pine nuts, with a dash of salt was enough to overpower the smell of chicken grilling on the skillet – our protein element for the dish (pasta was also the safest option for lunch when friends came over for playdates on the weekend because who doesn’t love pasta?).

7:15PM – Dinnertime was a family favorite and considered the most important meal of the day because dinner meant family time. No matter how busy my dad was for work, he would always make sure to come back to eat with us. For my mother and I, dinner meant bonding time. It was common to eat a Korean dinner. It was as if my mom wanted to remind the family of our roots and culture at the end of the day. Kal-guksoo was the first [Korean] dish I ever learned how to make; it was easy, delicious, and acceptable to be eaten at any time of day. We ate this dish at least once during the weekend, but it didn’t always have to be dinner. Sometimes we’ll have these noodles for breakfast.

This kind of bonding time with my mom was silent – we did not speak. Though the kitchen was loud enough already, my mother did not have to explain herself or the recipe. Pure. Focus. I just watched my mom dance around the kitchen while I cut potato she gave me and a small knife to practice cutting with, but what took me 10 minutes to dice a potato took her 10 seconds to finish all the vegetables for the broth. How did she do it? Dinner was the most elaborately prepared meal, and I carefully watched her prepare two hours beforehand: *chop chop chop chop* the sound her quick knife work of mincing garlic, julienning carrots, dicing potatoes, and slicing green onions.

The best way to describe the kitchen before dinner is organized chaos. The sound of clashing pots and pans hitting the stovetop, the sink running, the water boiling, the fan going, and the knife chopping against the cutting board. It was the perfect formula of sounds for kal-guksoo noodles with banchan (korean side dishes at home usually consist of kimchi, seasoned bean sprouts, green peppers with soy paste dipping sauce). She made preparing the same dish in three different ways for the family look easy. Yes, THREE. The first bowl was made without any veggies or meat for my picky little (and youngest) brother, he got served first. Then, she added the main ingredients for the broth and served my brother and I the original simple noodle dish. Lastly, she would add the seafood and spicy red pepper paste to make a spicy version of the dish for herself and my father. But this sequence also meant, the children would eat before the adults get their meal. This was against all of my innate Asian filial piety instincts.

“Excuse me, miss? Do you mind bringing out my kids’ dishes first if they are ready? They are hungry,” my mother would ask the waiter at a restaurant.

My mother always puts the family before herself, and it isn’t only with noodles or in the home. She would serve herself last, but if my mother felt ill, too tired, or didn’t have time to cook, there would be no meal to serve. As the oldest and only daughter, I learned my duty was being the “second mother” since the day I learned how to make kal-guksoo. Sharing this recipe and experience with me was her way of passing down her magical wand of power in the family.  It was this day I learned that being independent meant not only being able to take care of yourself, but others too. And this, was the start of my journey to feel empowered and capable.

*Phone conversation last week* “Naya, thanks for sending me pictures of the food you make! I think it’s so funny that you told me you didn’t want to be like me when you were little. A-housewife-that-spent-all-her-time-in-the-kitchen. Look at you now! You’re always in the kitchen cooking in your free-time.”

This is true. Over the years I have learned to use food to my advantage and show people the extent of how much I truly care. It is the reason why I spend an hour cooking for my friends when I still have homework and laundry to do. It is the reason why I hosted a separate Thanksgiving dinner amongst my friends, not family. I learned to make many recipes from scratch, including noodles, just like my mother. I didn’t want to buy pre-packaged foods and dried pasta to only be a part of the cooking process. I want to be there from beginning to end, start to finish. From one end of the noodle to the other, I want the consumer to know that was all from me.

Though I am not with my family, I cook my own meals because I need myself. I do not have anyone else to rely on to feed me in my apartment, and for this I am independent. No one can take my food from me that I make for myself. I decide where my food goes, whether it is for me, my friends, family and guests.

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I chose to imitate Alane Salierno Mason’s “The Exegesis of Eating” chapter in the The Milk of Almonds because the story reminded me of my relationship with my mother. Even more so, food helped me discover one of many purposes I can serve in life. Similar to the narrator, I wondered if I was needed and soon had to step up to the plate and care for family when an important female role in our lives could not. I loved this piece because the writing was very detailed and descriptive for the story it was telling as well, so I chose this piece in efforts to make my creative writing to have the same effect on the reader – immerse them in the time, place, and experience with the noodles and my family. I figured there was no better way to do this but take on this writing style and engage all five senses.

I learned about Italian culture from a multi-generational perspective, seeing and hearing it from the experience of the author via the language and interactions with their grandparents. The gender roles in Italian culture are very similar to me own, which is why I can see how my own cultural DNA is embedded in the piece. When I was younger, I didn’t like the idea of being stuck in the kitchen like my mother. I wanted to work a corporate job and make money instead of being at home all day. But I soon found a love for cooking and giving food to others when I saw how my food can make people happy or feel better, the same ways the grandmother’s food could make the grandfather feel. I feel like I have a deeper purpose and that I am needed when people ask me to make food for them.

I also felt connected to the grandfather in someway, because he had to learn how to cook for himself when his wife fell sick. There were many instances while growing up that I had to learn how to cook for the family when my mom could not. Through the similarities in my own life and the class reading I extracted from my own culture that a woman keeps families alive. They put food on the table to survive, even if the process gets tiring or even boring for them.

I learned a little bit about the perspective of a couple where one was native to America, whereas the other came from Naples, Italy to America way later in his life. Similar to the couple in the reading, my mother and father were both born in Korea. Except, my father came to America when he was 3 years old with his family and my mother came for college around the age of 18 by herself. My mother learned how to survive on her own, while my father grew up in a very traditional household under the care of his parents where the man did not need to know how to cook. Rather, cooking was a female’s role in the house. I learned that Italians also give back and take care of the elders when other generations can’t, the same way I take care of my family and when my mother can’t.

I learned that my Korean culture, and more specifically my family’s particular Korean-American culture, has adapted to our lifestyle here in the United States. While many Asian families serve the elders first, my mother just wants us to eat before the food gets cold instead of waiting on her or my dad to finish up their chores and errands. We do not always eat Asian food at home either, especially when there are guests over for playdates or visits. It is hard to make fancy noodles, but easy to prepare a fancy steak dinner. Through my writing and reflecting on my past, I’ve learned that food was a significant means of communication for my mother. Food is her way of telling us how much she cares, more so than satiating our hunger.

Oh Soul, come back! Why should you go far away?

All your household has come to do you honor, all kinds of good noodles are ready:

Round rice noodle (圆粉), flat rice noodle (扁粉), wide rice noodle(宽河粉), mixed all with wheat noodle(面条),

sour, spicy, sweet, hot and cold: there are noodles of all flavors.

Snails cooked with hot pepper and other natural spices,

Spicy and sour blended in the soup of Liuzhou Snails Rice Noodle(柳州螺蛳粉);

minced pork stir fried with ginger slice, garlic and pepper flakes, becoming the soup of Nanning Old Friend Rice Noodle(南宁老友粉);

Fresh filtered dry rice noodle poured with marinade(卤汁), roast pork and beans, here is comes the Guilin Marinade Rice Noodle(桂林卤菜粉) ;

Wide rice noodle, sweet and sour sauce, pork, pickled cucumber and so on, combine to form the Binyang’s Acid Rice Noodle(宾阳酸粉);

Guiling jelly(龟苓膏) and golden sponge cake(黄金糕),

Silk like soybean milk, sweet and fresh, filled the paper cups,

mung bean soup, strained of impurities, clear drink, cool and refreshing;

Here are laid out the patterned ladles, and here is sparkling wine!

I choose to imitate the the piece “The Summons of the Soul” from Chu Ci by Qu Yuan because Qu Yuan is a very famous ancient poet and I have learnt some of his pieces when I was in high school in China. Also, the piece start with an exclamatory sentence and a question, which interests me. 

The summon “Oh Soul, come back” is what makes the piece so special. In the old times, people believe that when the should leaves, it is necessary to hold a soul gathering ceremony and call for the return of the soul. The purpose of Qu Yuan to write this piece is to “summon” the soul of the King Chu Huai(楚怀王), the old king who died years ago, to come back. In the piece, Qu Yuan listed various delicious food, which explains the importance of food in ancient China and how delicious food is enough to “call the soul back”.

In my writing, I summon the souls of people who leave home to study or work to come back. I listed the various kinds of noodles in my hometown Guangxi, because those are definitely what can “call my soul back” to my home town. At the beginning, I list different shapes of noodles, corresponding to “Rice, broomcorn, early wheat, mixed all with yellow millet” in Qu Yuan’s piece. Then I list many flavors of noodles and their major ingredients in response to the main dishes Qu Yuan wrote in his piece. And finally, I talk about some Chinese style desserts and drinks like he did. Through imitating Qu Yuan’s piece, I notice that in both ancient China and Modern China, desserts and drinks are also indispensable in a meal. For dessert, Qu Yuan mentioned “ried honey-cakes of rice flour and malt sugar sweetmeats” and I bring up “Guiling jelly(龟苓膏) and golden sponge cake(黄金糕)”. For drink, Qu Yuan described the wine in detail as it is the most common drink when people are going to express their feeling, but I talk about soybean milk and mung bean soup as they are what we usually have with noodles. Moreover, I find that noodle is the core of Guangxi cuisine. There are many kinds of noodle in Guangxi, and almost every city in Guangxi has its signature noodle. For example, Nanning has Nanning Old Friend Rice Noodle(南宁老友粉), Binyang has Binyang’s Acid Rice Noodle(宾阳酸粉).

Both the piece I read and the piece I wrote explain how food can gather people together and demonstrate Chinese people’s love of food. Qu Yuan use food to summon the soul of the King Chu Huai to come back, and I use noodles to appeal people to go home. Food has the power to make people home and food is something that people miss the most when they are away from home; food is an embodiment of hometown. Also, Chinese people love to eat, so people are willing to put so much effort and use their creativity to make various kinds of food, like the multiple dishes Qu Yuan mentioned and the various flavors of noodles I wrote.

Work cited:

https://www.gushiwen.org/wen_1058.aspx

Scallion Oil Noodle

Green are the fresh scallion leaves,

we cut them and put them into the hot oil. 

Handmade noodles come from the flour shop in the market,

they are combined with the soy sauce and fried scallion oil.

They are put in small bowls to ensure they are evenly mixed with sauce, 

I eat more, worrying that I won’t have this homemade dish after leaving.

Balmy fragrance wraps around the tip of my tongue,

sweet fried fish along with delicate pork ribs. 

Passing my mouth it is more umami than meat, 

I urge my cousin, offering them like treasures.

I wish to go with a time machine,

returning to my childhood to see my grandpa making the noodle once again.

The journey is hard, I worry about whether it can be realized, 

but the memory is unforgettable and deep in my mind.

A bowl of noodle was a common thing,

grandpa’s care and love make clear its uniqueness to me.

Across the ocean in the public kitchen,

we fry scallion oil in the frying pan.

Late in the day when my friends and I miss our family dishes,

this flavor too is indispensable for the occasion.

I chose Cold Noodle Soup with Sophora Leaves by Du Fu to intimate. I always love reading Du Fu’s poems since his realism style depicts everything vividly and reflect many social problems at that time. Although many other students dislike reading and analyzing traditional Chinese poems, Du Fu’s wonderful writing skills and patriotism always make reading his poems an enjoyment to me. As a patriotic poet, Du Fu wrote many poems that reflect social problems when he was in Sichuan after An Lushan Rebellion. Therefore, it’s surprising to see that he also recorded local food and life in his poem. The vivid depiction of the cold noodle soup makes me want to eat it when I was still reading the poem. Also, in my opinion, when Du Fu mentioned the scene that “the ruler is enjoying the cool”, he tried to indicate that the emperor himself wouldn’t avoid the summer heat without eating the same noodle and wouldn’t be able to govern the country well without understanding normal people’s lives. The literariness and profound theme make the poem worth analyzing and intimating.

While intimating the poem, I realized how common and important it was using food as medicine in ancient Chinese people’s lives. Because of the hot and humid climate in Sichuan Province, it’s hard to bear the summer heat. Without electric fans and air conditioners in ancient time, people would have got sunstrokes if they had not done anything to avoid the high temperature. The sophora leaves, which can bring the cool feeling to the human body, were used then. By mixing the juice into the noodle, it would not taste wired. Therefore, this common plate of cold noodle soup just shows how wise working people were in ancient time. Moreover, the patriotism reflects another type of culture of the original author. Under the centralization of authority, it’s so hard for the governors to understand normal people’s thoughts and change the situations unless they could experience civilians’ daily life. This piece of work just reflects the philosophy of governing the country by a simple dish of noodle; as a result of which, it is a demonstration of how food is used as an analogy to the politics in traditional Chinese culture. 

Compared to the culture reflected in Du Fu’s poem, mine is more specific to my family culture. Like a lot of Chinese men, my grandfather is not good at expressing his love to my cousin and me. Instead, he likes to make delectable meals with the best ingredients for us, and the scallion oil noodle is the most representative one since it is always made in our birthdays. Each time my cousin and I praise the delicacy of the meals, we can see the brightest smile appearing on our grandfather’s face. At that moment, I deeply understand how much grandpa loves us. Because of grandpa’s love and care, when nostalgia comes over me, his scallion oil noodle, which is made on the warmest day every year, always gives me lots of comforts.

There is one cultural DNA, which is the simpleness, embedded in both Du Fu’s piece and my piece. The cold noodle soup with sophora leaves and the scallion oil noodle are both simply made with noodles and sauces. However, these simple dishes were passed by generations for thousands or hundreds of years. Today, we can still taste the same flavors as people in the past did. As the Taoism claims, “The greatest truths are the simplest”, the greatest food dishes are also very simple. Even though the noodles themselves are quite simple, they could even taste better than some precious dishes. The scarcity of physical resources limited ancient civilians’ choices of food ingredients but boosted their ideas when making delicious dishes with the simplest methods and ingredients. The indication used by Du Fu also demonstrates that even the principles as big as governing a whole country can be represented by a simple dish. Our food is just a metaphor of the principle, which is pursued by all ages of Chinese people, that the greatest is the simplest.

Many families have unique recipes inherited from one generation to another for chicken noodle soup, carrot cakes, or exceptionally fluffy pancakes. My family boasts of a recipe even more unique: janchi gooksoo.

Janchi gooksoo literally translates to “party noodles” in Korean. Janchimeans “party” or “feast” typically centered around food, and when it’s time to celebrate a special occasion, you host a ma-eul janchi, or “a grand feast for everyone in the village”.Gooksoodirectly translates to “noodles.” Janchi gooksoo is made with a carefully stewed anchovy broth, most often served with finely chopped egg omelets, sautéed zucchinis, specially crafted sauce, pan-fried kimchi, and fine wheat noodles. My mother, raised in Seoul, inherited this recipe from my grandmother, raised in Daegu, who took a common recipe for janchi gooksoo and interpreted it her own way. Janchi gooksoo is usually eaten on special days like weddings and birthdays.

I took janchi gooksoo for granted until I left for college in 2016. Extremely homesick in a city I’ve never lived in before, I was craving homemade janchi gooksoo so I headed to a Korean restaurant in Duluth. As I took my first bite, something felt different, almost wrong. It was not the taste I was looking for, and I began to miss home even more. After the meal, I decided to make this dish myself.

Janchi gooksoo looks like a very simple dish; there’s not a lot of toppings and ingredients typically needed for this dish. I was pretty confident that I would nail this dish on my first try, for I have a huge heart for and experience with cooking. Knowing that other bowls of janchi gooksoo is nothing compared to my grandmother’s original recipe, I called her and jotted down a relatively simple set of directions along with a long list of ingredients. Many ingredients came to me as a surprise, but determined to satiate my homesick soul, I headed to one of the biggest chains of Korean markets in Georgia: H-Mart.

First, the broth. Nearly half of the ingredients on my list was for the broth alone. The most important ingredient for the broth was anchovies, but as I walked into the store, I saw thousands of different kinds of anchovies, all varying in color, size, and drying methods. My grandmother had told me to choose the big, fat anchovies silver in color, so I quickly threw a small bag of those anchovies in my cart. Then, I had to choose the right type of noodles. They had to be the thinnest kind made from flour. The biggest struggle was the soy sauce. The soy sauce had to be gook ganjangor “soup soy sauce” that was fermented and salted differently than regular soy sauce you would find in a sushi restaurant. The regular soy sauce would result in weak flavor, lacking the depth and richness of flavors that janchi gooksoo has. The dish wouldn’t be complete.

After a long stare down a long aisle of soy sauce and conversing with some of the workers there, I headed back home with what I thought was the right type of soy sauce. It was $4.99 before sales tax and dark brown just like what I was told by my grandmother.

When I finally arrived home with two hands full of groceries, I realized that I had never handled anchovies before. Brewing broth and taking care of anchovies was always a task that my mother or grandmother did for me even when I was cooking. In college, I had always gotten a pre-made pack of anchovies specifically made for making broth, so I never had to touch the tiny fish with my hands. The strong smell of the sea tickled my nose as I began to cut the anchovies’ backs to get rid of the intestines, and the crunchiness of the fish gave me goose bumps. I was already so frustrated and exhausted from cleaning out anchovies that I wanted to give up.

After bringing a pot of water to boil, I added a handful of clean anchovies, along with dried shitake mushrooms and dried shrimps. Two tablespoons of gook ganjangwas added as well.  After 50 minutes of boiling the broth on low heat, a fishy smell filled up my house. It began to smell just like my grandmother’s house, and I was hungry for janchi gooksoo.

I turned the heat off to let the broth cool and began to work on the toppings that go on the dish. I cracked four eggs, carefully separating the whites and the yolk. I stirred the separated eggs to let it become softer, and on low heat, I began to fry a thin layer of egg whites and yolk. Once fully cooked like a freshly cooked crepe, I rolled it up and sliced them very thinly. I sautéed thinly sliced zucchini on the same pan with a hint of sesame oil. Lastly, again on the same pan, I grilled some kimchi, adding sesame seeds this time. When the broth reached room temperature, I put it in the fridge to make it cold, a secret twist to the recipe my family loves.

 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Janchi-guksu#/media/File:Janchi-guksu.jpg)

A couple hours later, when the broth finally became cold, I boiled a pot of water again, this time to cook the noodles. The thin noodles cooked to my liking within minutes, and to keep the temperature of the dish consistent and cold, I washed the noodles under icy cold water. I get a handful of noodles and place them in a deep bowl. I included the pre-made toppings, all cold, on top of the noodles. To complete the dish, I poured the cold broth into the bowl. It is essential to add long strands of noodles without cutting them to wish the diners a long, happy life. They have to eat the entire bowl to ensure longevity enters their life.

“It smells like home,” I thought to myself. With a big smile on my face, I stared at my bowl for a couple minutes to let the rush of nostalgia run past me. I drank the broth. The cold soup chilled my bones as I decided that the janchi gooksoo is genuinely the best cold noodle soup.

The next morning, I called my grandmother and told her the story of my take on janchi gooksoo. I had done everything correctly, except the handling of anchovies. As soon as she saw a picture of my janchi gooksoo, she exclaimed, “Why are there bits of anchovies in your broth?” I supposed to take the head off of the anchovies along with the intestines, because often the eyes of the fish get in the broth, making it less aesthetically pleasant to look at. However, when I told her the name of the soy sauce that I used to make the broth, I could hear the proudness echoing in her voice.

Almost three years have gone by since the first time I made this dish. I’ve gained enough confidence to cook this dish for my friends in Atlanta. My grandmother taught me how to properly cook the broth nice and clean without anchovy bits. Sometimes I get lazy and don’t even remove the intestines, but the feast noodles still have an element of nostalgia and warmth.

The first meal I had when I came home for summer break a couple months ago was janchi gooksoo. It was a celebration of many events, including my last summer vacation as a college student. As I got ready to head home from a cold, but warm meal, my grandmother secretly slipped a piece of paper into my pocket. It had exact measurements of all the ingredients that I needed, including the brand names commonly found in Duluth’s H-Mart. She also slipped $20 into my pocket. With tears in my eyes, I just knew how exquisite my next bowl of janchi gooksoo were going to be.

The piece that I decided to imitate was “Ping A Mien, a Chinese Family Noodle Story.” I chose to use this piece of short story because of the way it was written. This story certainly felt special to me even though it was not drastically different from other pieces literature that we read for Tuesday’s class. It talked about noodles and family, a recurring theme in many of the stories that we read. However, the way it was written touched me in ways other stories did not. The author’s family also reminded me a lot of my own family. The way that the author’s mother instructed the author to make the noodles sounded very similar to my own mother. It felt casual, similar to my actual relationship with my mother and grandmother.

One of the biggest things that I learned from reading this piece is the language of love. Although I do not want to generalize this for everyone, I think families in Asia have a harder time expressing love through words. Love often times is shown through what is commonly thought of as criticism. When the author failed to choose the right type of noodles and incorrectly served the mushrooms in ping an mien, the author’s mother explicitly pointed out the authors mistakes. The author also states that she “could tell she was impressed.” This shows that the pride that Asian parents have for their children is not stated as “Oh wow, you are awesome,” but rather as “You could have done this better, but I’m still (subtly) proud of you.” The author and her mother also fought before the author left to go to the airport, and her mother brought out a warm bowl of symbolic noodles. This is a very stereotypical scene in Asian households; when parents get in an argument with their children, they try to resolve the issue by preparing them their favorite dish. Such encounter of the author’s family made me reflect on my own cultures. I soon realized that I shouldn’t be disappointed by the lack of verbal expression of love in my family but should be thankful for the small acts of kindness that my family does for me. Just like the author, I am still loved by my family.

This silent love language is embedded throughout the ping an mien piece and my piece equally. Not once did the author’s parents say “I love you” in the piece. In my short story, my grandmother and mother both do not say this phrase either. This culture of unspoken love is rather expressed through actions. The fact that the author tried to make the noodles on her own strictly following her mother’s recipe shows the love she has for her mother. The way that the mom gave the author a warm bowl of soup also depicts love. The way that my grandmother snuck a piece of an exact recipe in my pocket shows how much she loves me. She did not say, “I love you,” but the way she researched how much each ingredient costs in Atlanta shows the devoted love she has for me. Both the author and I connected with our roots through a bowl of noodles, and she and I connected over unspoken love.

Each family has its own special dish/snack with a secret recipe that is passed down generation to generation. It may be something special as a ping a mien noodle or something as common as spaghetti and meatballs. My family has a special yet common dish that we hold dear to- Japchae.

Japchae means “mixed vegetables” in Korean. The jap means to mix and the chae means vegetables. It is made from cellophane noodles and various vegetables stir-fried together. Meat was introduced to the japchae years after its invention and is always used in japchae today. It is a traditional celebration dish served at parties and special occasions like weddings and birthday parties.

My grandmother learned to make japchae noodles from her mother back in Korea and then passed the recipe on to my mother. Japchae is my grandmother’s favorite food since she first had it when she was 7 years old. The recipes to make japchae are readily available on the Internet today, yet my grandmother never liked these recipes and she disapproved me making japchae following an online recipe. When I see her making the noodles, I do not see a big difference in the procedure and I never understood the difference. It was such a common Korean food and readily available everywhere. I did not think that my grandmother had to spend an hour in front of the stove trying to cook this when we can go to a grocery shop and buy a pack.

Every year during Chuseok, Korean Thanksgiving Day, our family serves Japchae as the main dish. The whole family gathers and shares the just-cooked japchae. As we have the first bite, I hear my sister thanking my grandmother saying “Grammy, it gets better every year!” followed by a bunch of Mmmm! and “Wow.” This was such an ordinary, annual thing that I did not put much thought into what this food meant for me and my family until my freshman year at Emory University.

Eight-hundred and sixty-eight miles away from home, the Chuseok in 2017 was uneventful. I had a hard time adjusting to my studies. A few days later, I received a package from home. It was wrapped in different boxes and cold. My family had sent me a surprise gift-container full of Japchae with a little note saying “Hwaiting!”- a Korean phrase of support and encouragement. All my worries faded and all I felt was a sense of security. This ordinary food became an extraordinary one that day.

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I chose to imitate the short memoir “Ping A Mien, a Chinese Family Noodle Story” because there were many parts of the memoir that resonated with me. According to Susannah, “Ping an mien means “peaceful noodles” in Chinese. In Mandarin, ping an translates to “peaceful,” and when sending someone someplace far away, you say zhu ni yi lu ping an, or “wishing you a peaceful journey.” I remember when I leave my family to go on a trip for a few days, my grandmother would cook me a grand dinner to send me off. My grandmother believes that food is considered as a nourishment for the body and soul. A good meal is a hundred times better than taking medicine. Another part that resonated with me was the ending. Families can get into arguments and eventually they reconcile. My family is peculiar in that we reconcile through eating a meal together, especially a spicy one. I found this little odd similarity in the memoir and it reminded me of the time my mother and I reconciled after a meal. At first, the meal was awkward since we both did not want to see each other, but we were hungry. Then, my stomach growled. We both looked up at each other and laughed. After, we talked through our problems and reconciled.

The author elaborates on the following motifs: food is the language of love and affection and the preservation of family tradition. Susannah writes, “After I was all packed she handed me a bowl, and I fought tears, as well as feelings of anger, shame, and pride, as I gingerly ate small bites of every element: chicken, mushroom, noodles. She’d slipped two eggs into my bowl. I knew I’d be back.” After long, tiring fights with family, this simple bowl of Ping A Mien reminded Susannah of how much her mother loves her and always will. Moreover, Susannah decides to create this dish for her boyfriend when he leaves. She preserves her family tradition although she is just learning how to make the dish. Similarly, my family expects us to uphold the family traditions is place. For example, filial piety, respect for elders and parents, is very important in our family. In Korean culture, we use honorifics to adults or people we are not familiar with. We wait for elders to take their first bite of the meal and then everyone else start to eat the meal. I discovered that the Korean culture is influenced by Chinese culture, which is why I made a lot of connections with this memoir.

The emotional tie Susannah had with Ping A Mien is the cultural DNA embedded in the piece and parallels mine, my emotional tie to Japchae. Susannah shows us that Ping A Mien is more than a type of noodle dish. The dish is a memory and evokes a sense of nostalgia, which make it a comfort food. It provides a sense of familiarity and brings you back to your roots. As Professor Ristaino mentioned “I am one of the first members of my extended family to earn a Ph.D. I teach at Emory University, but deep inside I am working class, blue collar. I have immigrant blood running through me.” This is what Japchae means to me.

Picture from https://www.koreanbapsang.com/japchae-korean-stir-fried-starch/

Works Cited

Chen, Susannah. “Ping An Mien, a Chinese Family Noodle Story.” Chowhound, Chowhound, 5  July 2014, www.chowhound.com/food-news/152845/ping-an-mien-a-family-noodle story/.

Dana, Yeon. “Versatile Japchae, a Dish for Special Occasions.” The Chosun Ilbo (English Edition): Daily News from Korea – Inside Korea > Food, 23 Sept. 2010,english.chosun.com/site/data/html_dir/2010/09/23/2010092300228.html.

Before it’s too late

By Julia Rogers

I never learned to cook

I learned to eat out

Grocery store sushi

Premade Salads

Free food at work

I learned to request food

To eat food

I never learned to cook

My grandmother, the head chef

My mother, the sous chef

And I was supposed to be the apprentice

Where was I? People would ask

I was eating grocery story sushi

I was eating premade salads

I was eating the leftovers at work

I did not cook

My grandmother’s famous noodle kugel

Learn the recipe

Before it’s too late

You must master this

But why should I learn the kugel recipe

Why not my brothers

Why not my father

Why not my cousins

Why was I the chosen granddaughter?

Manischewitz wide kosher egg noodles

My grandmother daintily rips open the package

The processed noodles flow out of the plastic

Softening in a scorching pot

Uncoiling upon being dumped into a Pyrex dish

Swirling cinnamon, raisins, and brown sugar

The noodles become intertwined in the flavors

Covering up the bland egg

Inheriting the sweet swirls of cinnamon and sugar

A slice of the kugel

Flops onto my plate

Thick egg noodles, jiggling with delight

My fork pierces the sweet square

But before it reaches my mouth the words slip again

The clock is ticking

Remember this

It will soon be too late

But I, the chosen granddaughter, let these words run through me

Like a stream exiting into a larger ocean of unattended information

Now, a thousand miles away

I long for my grandmother’s kugel

Her delicate hands swirling raisins among thick egg noodles

But I cannot satisfy this yearning

I only know how to eat out

I never learned to cook

Discussion:

I chose to imitate the piece where food comes from which is a part of the book of poems “Saporoso” by Jennifer Barone. I chose this piece because it resonates with my life and my involvement with my family. My grandmother and mother are both amazing cooks yet I have never thought to touch a pot or a pan except to clean after a meal. However, beyond this idea of being the only female who cannot cook in the family, I could relate to the author and her story. I attend school over one thousand miles away from my home. It was not until I made the move from Boston to Atlanta that I realized how much I value my grandmother’s Sunday feasts and how much I crave my mother’s daily dinners. It was at this point in time, the time that I left my family’s cooking, that I began to show curiosity in their unique recipes. I used to loathe my grandmother nagging me to eat more at family dinners. Now, I long for those dinners, I long for her cooking. This is why I chose this piece, it reminded me of my own story, my own culture, and my own family.

From this poem, I gained a deeper insight into the importance of women in the Italian home. Italians rely on the women in their family to provide them with delicious meals every day. I also learned about the process by which the author’s family makes food. They pride themselves in finding fresh ingredients from their neighbor’s garden. This highlights the significance of food in Italian culture. The food must be prepared to the best of one’s ability and the ingredients within the dish must be the freshest possible. To my family, this would mean going to a local grocery store or farmers market, but to the author’s family, this means harvesting the ingredients directly from the dirt. I also learned the importance of family and remembering your roots in Italian culture. Even after the author moves oceans away, she still remembers her family and the life they brought her. Even in another country, her family and their cooking will always be the most important part of her life. This emphasizes the idea of family in Italian culture.

In my culture, no one explicitly says that women must be the chefs of the family, although it is extremely uncommon to find a man in the kitchen. That is, of course, unless he is helping to clear the dishes. This was never brought to my attention growing up it was just embedded into my knowledge from the time I was born. Based on this poem, where food comes from, and my own I learned the similarities and differences between my culture and that of the Italians. This is where a true understanding comes form, comparison. While we pride ourselves on delectable food, we do not pride ourselves on fresh ingredients. My family would sooner make Betty Crocker cakes than start from scratch if it means the cake will be moister and taste better. Yes, Betty Crocker cake mix is clustered with chemicals but my family focuses on the final result of the food. This final result is an irresistible dish. More than this, though, the final product is how the irresistible dish draws people in and brings them together. We believe that whether the cake is homemade or bought from the local Star Market the whole family will always show up to eat and share memories together. This is what I learned about my culture from this poem and writing my own spinoff. That my grandmother’s cooking, no matter where she gathers the ingredients, will always draw in my family to share her magical touch on food and our priceless time together.

There is cultural DNA embedded in both the piece I wrote as well as the piece I read about. The cultural DNA manifests in the text through the story of the author. One person does not make up an entire culture, but the stories and memories of one person can give an insight into a culture. This is how Jennifer Barone gives readers an insight into Italian culture. Another way is through comparison. As she compares her childhood with her Italian family, completely immersed in the culture, to her adulthood without her Italian family, isolated from her culture. I chose to do the same with my poem as I was imitating her writing. The comparison of being a part of the culture as opposed to being on the outside gives a new perspective into the culture that is being highlighted. This perspective allows for a true understanding of the culture through feelings rather than simply spelling out in words what each culture stands for and represents.

Debilitating addiction

Constant want

No, constant need

Never ceasing

Never waning

Always present

Looming

Over my shoulder

In my head

In my gut

Taking over

Incessant thoughts

Deepening grip

Tightening fist

Tying in knots

Nothing else

It’s all I see

It’s all I can think of

I must have it

No, I need it

Giving in

Hot or cold

Solid or liquid

Creamy or dry

Instant relief

Binging

Must have it all

It is all so good

I never want it to end

Bring me more

Satisfaction

Clouded mind

Stiff and bloated

Sleep incoming

Until next time

I chose the piece “La Cucina Povera” from Poems of Italian Food & Love. This poem talks about the power of hunger and the comradery that families and peasants built through their efforts to provide. I chose to imitate this because of the human effort that goes into food. More than just the human connection, food connects people with no connections. I wanted to capture the human need and desire for food. I wanted to draw similarities between an addiction that we need versus something we do not. I wanted to show what a relationship with food looks like that is not centered around family. We could all be considered food addicts. According to dictionary.com, being addicted means becoming, “physiologically or psychologically dependent” to a substance or habit. Everyone is physiologically dependent on food therefore making everyone a food addict. Of course, I am not saying that food is a narcotic, but consider why the same regulatory agency, the Food & Drug Administration (FDA), presides over both. My poem is an evaluation of fast food culture and how the industrialization of food has led to its bastardization. Many people do not eat to enjoy company and share a meal, but many people eat with their next fix on their mind. While consuming one meal, they are already planning the next. What if we let hunger control us the same way other physical feelings control people? Would hunger control the same way that lust and greed controls by forcing out all human feeling in an interaction in an attempt to satiate the animal.