food for thought

Photo Courtesy of Prince Roy

Given the season, I could fill a post describing items currently jockeying for space in my refrigerator: pucks of pie dough, turkey, pumpkin puree, stout carrots, half a celery root, jars of jam, leeks, and cranberries.

They're like star actors in a play, and each time I swing open the door of the fridge they look at me as if to say, "Are we on yet?"

Many of these ingredients will headline in dishes that are steeped in this country's Thanksgiving tradition, while some will be transformed into dishes that are specific to my family. For instance, it wouldn't be Thanksgiving without my grandmother's carrot souffle and cranberry sherbet.

These two particular recipes live on simple 3" x 5" cards that my grandmother typed out and gifted to me when I graduated from college, presented in a throw-back metal recipe box. Today's
"metal recipe box" might be a laptop, but in my kitchen, I make space for both.

In China, the direct translation for the word "computer" is "calculation machine," or in slang, "electric brain." When I was first learning Chinese, I loved the literal approach the language took with these 20th century technologies. (A telephone was a marvelously named an "electric talking machine.")

China straddles the worlds of antiquity and modernity, and often it is the chords of culinary tradition and memory that link the two. The New York Times published an article this month about the state of cuisine in the Chinese province of Sichuan, known for its feats of edible heat. In particular, the article was tracing contemporary restaurant trends in the capital, Chengdu, where eager diners can shell out big bucks for soft shell turtle at upscale establishments, or stick to the Chinese equivalent of a greasy spoon, where hot pot and fiery tofu dishes rule.

While it took thousands of years for the potato to make its way from Peru to the imperial kitchen in what was then referred to as Peking (scholars figure potatoes reached China in the 17th century), spuds are now a staple and China is the top producer of potatoes in the world. The potatoes cultivated in early settlements in New England arrived by way of Europe. Before industrialization, food was the stuff of globalization.

Today, a plate of tu dou si (which translated into English reads "potato threads") captured in the photograph above, is as comforting to a Sichuanese as a serving of mashed potatoes is to this Seattleite.