Every Grain of Rice: A Taste of Our Chinese Childhood in America
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Every Grain of Rice: A Taste of Our Chinese Childhood in America Overview
Fried Green Tomatoes with Flank Steak. Pan-Fried Prawns in Ketchup Sauce. “Stand Back” Chicken. Turkey Jook. Sticky Rice with Sausage and Taro Root. These are the foods that say “family” and “home” to Ellen Blonder and Annabel Low. In Every Grain of Rice they have collected more than 120 outstanding recipes for the delicious homestyle and special occasion dishes they remember so vividly from their childhoods but have rarely found in conventional Chinese cookbooks. Studded with recollections from their years as part of an extended Chinese-American family and with Ellen Blonder’s exquisite watercolor drawings, it is a remarkable debut from two major new talents on the culinary scene.
An aunt and niece who are separated in age by only 16 days, Annabel and Ellen were raised virtually as sisters, dividing their time between Ellen’s family farm and the renowned cafe where Annabel’s father was chef/proprietor. From him, and from their mothers, aunts, and uncles, Ellen and Annabel learned to make such satisfying everyday fare as Steamed Minced Pork, Wonton Soup, and Uncle Bill’s Chow Mein, as well as more elaborate dishes as Sweet-and-Sour Whole Fish and festive bamboo-leaf-wrapped Jeng. Special occasions and family gatherings were marked by steaming trays of dim sum and pork-filled Bao, Low Hop Joe’s glistening Soy Sauce Chicken, and the magnificent Boned Stuffed Duck. In chapters ranging from “Comfort in a Bowl” on soups and jooks to “Fish and Seafood” and “Bearing Gifts,” which features foods for holidays and family celebrations, the authors cover the range of traditional Chinese cooking as it was prepared in their childhood homes. The more than 120 recipes and variations offer careful explanations of unfamiliar techniques along with suggestions for replacing hard-to-find ingredients and lowering the fat count of many dishes, and each recipe and story is illustrated with Ellen’s delightful watercolor paintings.
With a comprehensive glossary of ingredients and detailed listing of equipment and techniques, Every Grain of Rice is a perfect introduction to the art of Chinese cooking and a moving celebration of food and family.
Every Grain of Rice: A Taste of Our Chinese Childhood in America Specifications
There's something of a warning for all readers in this book: blend too well with the American melting pot and you may lose the way things tasted when you were a child. Such was almost the case with Ellen Blonder and Annabel Low, who grew up together in Chinese families in California.
"For all the time we spent helping in the kitchen while we were growing up," Blonder writes, "we missed the next step of mastering the recipes on our own; we lost our connection to the old ways of cooking. We can teach our daughters how to deal with corporations, but we couldn't pass down the simplest technique for dealing with taro root."
While compiling a collection of favorite family recipes meant as a wedding gift, Blonder and Low realized there was a deep hole in their heritage: when push came to shove, they really didn't know how their parents had prepared a lot of their favorite foods. Fortunately for their families and any other families that open and use this book, their rediscovery developed into a gem of a book.
Blonder's illustrations alone are worth the price of the book. The reminiscences open up a chapter of American immigrant history too often hidden, and the recipes and careful instructions for assembling the dishes bring the special foods of a particular village in China to anyone's table.
There may well be better Chinese cookbooks on the market, but Every Grain of Rice is special for the implied invitation to sit down and eat with the two authors, their families, and all their ancestors stretching back in time to the place where the recipes were originally developed. Invitations like that don't show up every day. The experience may turn readers back to their own favorite foods, and their own heritage, and encourage them to save what they can while the information is still available. That, in and of itself, is a very special sauce to add to any dish. --Schuyler Ingle
