Month: November 2020

[translated Nov 19] The original Nanmen Market [南門市場] is an interesting place, and lately some dear recollections have come to me.

When it comes to the new-year shopping in the “groceries from South to North” [南北貨], Dihua street [迪化街] and Nanmen Market are the prime choices. The retreat to Taiwan back in the Chinese civil war incidentally endowed us dishes in the “eight styles”, and a thorough walk in Nanmen’s does provide a representative if incomplete sample.

Seldom have I bought ingredients from Nanmen’s, after I started cooking myself. A few kinds of supplies I do replenish are dried ingredients — the cured Jinhua ham [金華火腿] for stewing, infant shrimps for frying, infant fish for sauces, and scallop for steamed egg. A slight disappointment is however the lack of Xinjiang pepper as of now, which has a flavor heavy but not excessively spicy. To make a fried cured meat with garlic leaf, which I crave for every year or two, one can’t go wrong with Nanmen’s, or possibly the “Peng’s Hunan Cured Meat” [彭記湖南臘肉].

The stinky tofu, if steamed rather than fried, I tell you, smells ten times worse. If you think it is not strong enough, leave that in room temperature for days to let it ferment, and the softer it is, the more stinky, so much that it can well deserve a quarantine in the balcony. But I stopped buying it upon discovering that it is made from gene-modified soybeans, and later, to avoid extra estrogen in it.

Jinhua ham too is finicky to make, in that, rather unlike the honey-cured ham, it requires more than a year to age. But an old store I frequent has their own bacteria colonies, and even their own factory in Taoyuan that insists on using local Taiwan pork: a principle (which I failed to appreciate before) rare in the time of pig pandemic and in the contending imported US pork.

While Guangdong people love to have ham in steamed soup, hams actually originated in Zhejiang in the Northern Song. Northeastern sour cabbage, equally indispensable in seasoning the hot pot, is another thing: if the salt brings out the sweetness, the sour cabbage rids the oil. Indeed I have once, out of rebelishness, made a sour-cabbage-with-fat-meat pot with leaner pork, and they simply did not go well, and I so realized the wisdom of insisting fat meat passed all along from the ancestors.

But as for cooked food, quite a few highly regard the Yichang Royal House [億長御坊], where I remember a more friendly price before it enjoyed its fame. The sweet-sour ribs and baby fish with chilis have stayed in my childhood memories; after I could cook better, I hardly purchased them any longer. Still there were the Lion’s Head (stewed meatball) and the braised goldfish with green onion, one in Huaiyang style and one in Sichuan style, all so intricate yet meticulous prepared that I can hardly tell the original ingredients by their final look, hence my principle of refraining from eating out was reluctantly compromised, when I fancied them once in a long while.

Just next to the stairs in the basement of Nanmen’s, was a stand of Chouzhou-style Zongzi [潮州粽], which at its best is comparable to Dintaifung’s [鼎泰豐]. Another stand sells some mantou, baozi, among other sweet breads and pastas. (But you have to go up to the second floor for babaofan, a sweet rice with fruits.) Further down the basement were stands of raw foods, such as some ridiculously priced vegetables, and giant pork rib bones, excellent for stew, which are sold out so early in the morning. In the end of hall, before electronic slaughter was popularized by the government, there used to be a stand of raw chicken, and it was there that I have seen chicken slaughtered, blood drained, and hair removed by hot water. The peculiar dark walk therefore cast, for some time, a shadow in my mind when I was a kid.

Jinfeng’s [金峰] Lobahpng [滷肉飯] (rice with minced pork), served there with fried tofu, is something I have favored as a kid, but my taste buds somehow no longer prefer them now. While it has been a tourists’ place of interest, the incredibly long queue always astonishes me. A path near Jinfeng’s leads to a stand of Loumei [滷味] (soy-braised snacks); they know to cure ingredients overnight to let the sauce in. Tofu, chicken wing, chicken leg, and wood-ear are the best in my opinion, but the holder is so good at advertising, you have to “harden your ear” and stand firm in your ground.

P.s. The original Nanmen Market is being remodeled, and has moved into a makeshift building for now.

[Nov 15] I have this series of (objectively boring) events happening today, but they made me happy, and I tell you why. A first friend of mine, Mr Jiang the coder, was getting married; he was a classmate of mine in the EE department, and worked in Google now. 

I was not willing to attend the wedding banquet, because I am afraid of all the small talks on my future plan. But the first message received today saved me; a second friend of mine, Ms Shi the erhu instructor, asked me whether I wanted to go to a concert for free in place of her, as she could not go. She had to attend an awards ceremony.

I nevertheless wanted to send the red envelope to Mr Jiang; so, I handed the envelope physically and left, going to the concert. Then, it occurred to me in the concert, I forgot to mark on the envelope that it was indeed for Mr Jiang, the groom, and the receptionist will not tell. Will he get the money? I was so poorly versed in social conventions that I often chose to be alone.

It was a premiere concert of newly commissioned pieces in Chinese style. Composers stood up to receive applause after their pieces were performed. It struck me another time, seeing this, that I always had wanted to be a composer, an amateur one, yet I lacked the talent and time. I had sometimes pictured that I shall work during the day and compose music at night. And the vision looked so distant and vague, I thought, in the blackness in the concert hall, in front of the spotlight.

The concert ended, and Ms Shi messaged me whether I enjoyed it. “I prefer a more modern style.” I wrote. “Have you been composing music lately?” she asked. (I acquainted her only once at a recital of another common friend of ours, where I said I sometimes compose music.) “Haven’t for some time. Will you help me if I write an erhu piece?” I asked. Sure, she replied, showing genuine interest, and sent me a file which explained erhu’s ability. This cheered me up, so much that I was immediately in a whimsical mood, imagining erhu melodies in my head.

Several years ago, I recalled, I said to a third friend of mine, Ms Wen the flautist, that I will write a flute sonata and ask her to try it out. She studied in Paris at present. Months ago, intending to bring up the matter, I wrote some melodies and messaged them to her, and she didn’t reply.

Then, Mr Jiang messaged me to thank me for my envelope. “I will perhaps ask you, some time, how it is like to work at Google.” I wrote. Anytime, he wrote.

Later, a fourth friend of mine, Ms Huang the pianist, messaged me, remarking that she was getting married (too), and invited me to watch the live stream on YouTube, and Ms Wen, our common friend, was also invited. Amused, I messaged Ms Wen, mentioning the flute sonata. She replied instantly, urging me to complete the piece. I wished to dedicate the piece to her, I wrote, if it will indeed be done. It will be an honor, she wrote, and she had found a piano accompanist.

This was how I, somehow, reconnected four friends, within one day. These were trivial matters, and they made me laugh, in the same way you earnestly believe a flaw to be grave but it may very well be immaterial, or an air to be serious, but be lighthearted, as when a cook gave you eleven meatballs instead of ten, or a stapler failed to penetrate the last page. It was like this I was having this unfounded epiphany on the street, in the rush hour in the evening, in a warm wintry breeze. Things, at least some of the times, are going to be okay. It is a common shortfall of ours to forget happy times when we are sad, which we nevertheless must try — as sad times when happy.