What Home Taste Like

On Sundays it is a tradition for my mother would make jook (Chinese porridge) for lunch. I do not know why but I know that she loves to spend her time preparing jook for the family to eat. She spends one hour before noon washing the rice, boiling the mixture, chopping pieces of chicken, egg wraps, or duck eggs, and heating Chinese dumplings. I pass her in the kitchen on the way to my room or other parts of the house and I notice that she always multitasks between cooking, answering the telephone, and checking on what’s going on in the house. She doesn’t have that much free time so she does her best to accomplish as much of her tasks as she possibly can.

When it is noon, the whole entire family gathers (mom, dad, brother, and me) at the dining table and my mom brings out this large, steaming pot of jook and a plate of food to go along with it (called sung in Cantonese). My eyes widen and my mouth waters like crazy at the sight of such delicious food. We take turns serving the jook (usually I let my dad and mom go first because I think of it as a sign of respect) and have no conflicts over who gets food first.

Once all the food is settled right in front of me, I am excited to eat and get the awesome taste of Chinese cuisine. However, bad manners are not permitted in my family so I cannot let my bad side of greed and ill table manners get to my head. I eat in a respectable way and I enjoy the food. The jook is basically a combination of rice and water, but it tastes really good when served with other food, including leftovers. Once I get a large amount of jook in my mouth, I feel its warmth and I accompany the bland flavor (rice does not have that much taste) with more tasty food like dumplings and chicken. I can also add hoisin (soy sauce) to jook to make it sweeter. There are many ways to serve jook that are impossible to list, but each way is unique in providing a different experience of taste in Chinese cuisine. I like the fact that jook is served warm because most of the time cold food is not appealing to eat. I feel comfortable and calm eating warm food and it provides more value from the meal.

After eating all the jook in my bowl and some of the side food, I am really full and I cannot eat anything else. That’s the thing about jook: if you eat a large amount you are guaranteed to be full. Being full after a meal is important in Chinese cuisine. You do not want people to be hungry and you want people to be happy. That is the reason why the Chinese tend to serve a lot of food and why the Chinese like to eat as much as they possibly can.