I come from a village in Taiyuan, Shanxi. As the sun went down, there were always kids like me chasing each other through the neighborhood, giggling down the streets. The air would be filled with the shouts of street merchants, their carts carrying smells of crispy fried starch sausages and bulanzi — a glorious Shanxi dish of steamed potatoes and flour. Adults walking home from work would inevitably be ambushed by a bunch of kids begging for snacks. They’d reply with a halfhearted grumble: “You’ll spoil your appetite!” I would annoy my grandparents as well and often be dragged home by my ear, though sometimes with a greasy, spice-dusted treat. The bulanzi, served with those fried sausages doused in chili and cumin, felt luxurious. I’d taste each bite as if it were a delicacy. Grandma and Grandpa’s home-cooked version seemed like it never caught my appetite, an example of how the old words said, “Outside’s always better than the inside’s,” is true for kids especially.
At home, the meals were more simple: steamed buns with fermented tofu, fluffy yet soothing. When I was sick, congee, noodles, or silky steamed egg custard took the place of normal fare. Winters brought feasts — dumplings, kaolaolao (rolls made of oat flour), and yuyu (small dough called “fish”). My grandparents would repeatedly told us how oat noodles lowers blood pressure and let us eat more. It was the countless Shanxi wheat-based dishes that left me feeling overwhelmed, healthy and tasty. Other than flour dishes, Grandpa’s meatballs, studded with briny tofu, had outplayed plain pork in braises. Grandma would yell at him for cooking as if he were feeding an army, but those pots filled with food are what stick in my mind. Childhood was simple, except for the constant complaint that home-cooked buns could never compete with the street fare.
That all changed when my parents moved us away to Shanghai for elementary school. To a child whose adolescent sky had been framed by the village’s ancient pine, Shanghai’s skyscrapers and neon-lit cityscape seemed so unrealistic and alienated to me. The starch sausages and bulanzi disappeared; in their place, a new favorite. Through the plastic curtain, at the market, the smell of meat and toasted wheat kidnapped my senses. That’s how I found shengjianbao, the soup-filled pan-fried buns. My initial bite sent hot broth spraying all over, while the wicked owner laughed at me so hard. Nevertheless, I was hooked by the food. For the next few years, mornings were meant for early market runs to pick up those juicy buns, a ritual that dulled some of the alienness of Shanghai. Through middle school’s ups and downs, nothing was really noticeable with the fixed routines except I learned how to cook.
When I was in high school in Illinois, I was stuck in Chicago’s own Chinatown, where I would eat Shanxi oat noodles every week. Lafayette College, however, is far from the local Chinatown, which left me with no authentic Chinese food nearby. Since the first day on campus, I had been craving for Chinese food. Every hungry night my upset stomach filled with fries and salad was weeping for a nice hot dish. I was so excited on the day when the orientation leaders told us that Marquis would serve Chinese food, which also was the day where my dreadest nightmare took place. As I walked into the cafeteria expecting a nice meal, I saw a long line of students lining up. I guess that would be the Chinese food section, though I saw none of the Chinese students in the line. As I was wondering about that, I met General Tso’s Chicken, sweet, sticky, and absolutely not what I was expecting. Orange chicken, what kind of person would put juice in dishes? Broccoli invading every dish? Fuchsia Charlotte Dunlop, an English writer and cook who “specialized” in Chinese cuisine, visited Hunan, where the dish was claimed to be a part of the cuisine there, and found absolutely none of it! It was just a stereotype that existed far too long that General Tso’s chicken was a Chinese dish!
This was not diversity; it was a Frankenstein’s mashup of stereotypes. I wanted to scream, “This isn’t Chinese food!” with every other sugar-glazed impostor that entered my mouth. And imposing stereotypical cooking methods onto every “diverse” ingredient was not a “diverse menu” at all. I get it—they tried. But neither do these distorted “Chinese foods” soothe homesickness; they remind me that I’m in another country. It’s similar to those superficial gestures toward “diversity” that categorize individuals by their ethnicity without truly listening. Genuine cultural diversity isn’t just remixed traditions or slapping tags of stereotype onto everyone’s faces which makes everyone become the stereotypical person. Only maintaining authenticity without changing the fundamental concepts would create diversity instead of superficially adding every element. Food isn’t merely sustenance, it’s memory and identity, we need diverse food, the same as real diversity in the community.
Figure 1. kaolaolao
Figure 2. yuyu
[Chinese]
碗里的乡愁：从太原小吃到美式中餐的文化漂泊
我从小长在一个太原的村子里，每当太阳渐渐落下，偶尔能见得小孩在小区里嬉戏打闹，当然我也是其中一份。每当这时，总能听见小吃摊的吆喝声传遍街口，同时传来的还有炸淀粉肠，不烂子的香味。大人们陆陆续续经过大门，总是被馋嘴的孩子们纠缠的不得不买一份小吃，却又半抱怨半疼爱的来上一句：吃了又不吃饭了。作为在此的小孩之一，我当然也是缠着家里人来买，结果往往是被爷爷奶奶拧着耳朵拖回家里，偶尔却也能品尝美味的辣条淀粉肠和不烂子。香喷喷的不烂子配着炸淀粉肠外酥里嫩洒满了辣椒孜然，每一口都吃的小心翼翼，仿佛什么珍馐美味。虽说爷爷奶奶也会做，但好似总归是外头的香一些。老话说的对，小时候总归是“吃着碗里的，看着锅里的”，仿佛永远吃不够一般。爷爷奶奶在家里做的却也是一桌好菜，馒头配着腐乳便是一样虽说清淡却又不失美味的饭菜。而每当我生病的时候，馒头便会变成稀饭，挂面和鸡蛋羹等等，大人总说这些方便消化。冬天过节的时候，饺子，莜面栲栳栳（图1），鱼鱼（图2）便都加入了食谱。我常常看着老家眼花缭乱的面食而不知道吃什么。除了面食自然是少不了肉，爷爷总喜欢在肉丸中加入卤水豆腐，吃着却比肉丸子更香，一大锅炖菜里总能找到他们的身影。而当炖菜端上来时，奶奶则总是埋怨爷爷“又做这么多，吃不吃得完啊”。这便是我小时候的记忆了，没有什么烦心事，无非也就是家里的馒头腐乳不如外面的不烂子淀粉肠。
随着我上了小学，父母便带着我来到了上海，相对与山西来说，上海对于一个初次到来的小孩来说却有着能用震撼来形容的差别。高耸的楼房一栋挨着移动，路上的车流来来往往划出霓虹灯编织的城市。在来这之前我认为天也就是小区里那颗老松树那么高吧，那些高耸入云的办公楼和小区住宅却狠狠打破了我曾经的见识。随之而来的便是再也没有找到的淀粉肠和不烂子，在想念了一阵子后我便找到了新欢。一次我爸带着我去菜市场买菜，在我掀开有机玻璃做的黏糊又因油污变得发黄的帘门后，一阵肉香便钻入我的鼻腔。不像香料卤制的那般招摇，却是麦香与肉香撩拨着我的神经。在我强烈的要求下，我尝试了那种叫做生煎的包子。一口咬下去，不料汁水仿佛喷泉那般，滚烫的汤汁溅的我到处都是，那坏心眼的老板却看着我的样子捧腹大笑。无论如何这对于当时的我也是新奇的体验，我也爱上了这种看似内敛而馅儿大多汁的食物。由于早上要上学，我总是早早起床来到菜市场买一份生煎再满足的上学去。虽说离了山西家乡，在这边却也能找到如此面食，让我对这座城市也少了些陌生感。小学和初中便在这种基调下平安的度过了，虽说有不少起伏却也算不上什么大风大浪，为数不多值得称道的便是我学会了做饭吧。
随着高中在伊利诺伊州度过，虽说人在美国，但那边的中国餐馆也不少，离学校不远的芝加哥也有条华人街，即使学业压力再重便也是我每周都要造访的地方，哪怕就是过去吃完莜面。而大学却完全不同，也是我接触到最让我无法理解的食物的地方。由于在伊利诺伊周围都能吃到中国人开的中国餐厅，我从来没接触过类似panda express之类的美式中餐，因此在大学声称有“真正的中餐”时，收购薯条管够生活的我便满心期待能吃上点老家的面食或是哪怕几个炒菜也行。可菜谱上的食物确实我从来没见过的，左宗棠鸡是什么？为什么还有人用橙汁来炖煮鸡肉？以及为什么几乎所有的肉食里面都有西兰花？这类的疑问便让我大为困惑。难道这就是所谓的正宗中餐？我憋下自己的疑问尝了两口，食物却像是那披着羊皮的狼，厨师用着一知半解的中餐知识和似是而非的菜谱做出的混杂而歪曲的食物让我眉头紧皱。这难道也算丰富食谱？这也是食谱多样性？将刻板的，似是而非的烹饪方式强加在不属于食材上便称之为多样化食谱，我却很难苟同。我无数次想将：“这才是真正中餐”的想法传达出去，转念一想，得到的回应怕不是厨师一句，“拜托，我们已经尽力在做了”，而作为纯正的中餐享用者的我却也无法指责些什么。虽说也相当感谢学校能理解中国学生对于中国菜肴的想念，但这种似是而非无法叫做中餐的中餐有时更能戳到我们的痛楚吧。这么一想，一些变形的文化多样性却也和美式中餐一样，无非是将刻板影响贴在大家的身上让每个人更符合族群的刻板影响。而真正的文化多元则是听取真正的不同文化的人的想法，保留文化最原汁原味的一面才有利于社区发展，中餐是这样，社区亦然。