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Post by douglaslam on Dec 22, 2008 7:10:20 GMT -5
If you ask me what is the best thing I had tasted, my answer is not going to be lobster, abalone, shark fin or Peking duck. It is the humble rice cooked for infants starting on solids in Guangdong.
This rice preparation is neither jook(congee), nor conventional boiled rice. The end product is paste-like in consistency..It is simply rice, with perhaps a postage stamp-sized piece of minced pork or fish, a little light seasoning, add water and that is just about all you need.
The secret ( hardly a secret at all) is in the actual cooking. The ingredients are put into a steaming porcelain container with a tight fitting lid. It is then placed in the simmering ash of a fuel stove, for a slow,even all-over low heat cooking.
We, the older kids always know when it is time for the main meal of the day for the neighbour's baby. Two or three of us would gather and watch as the nursing mother takes the container from the fuel stove, lift the lid to cool it off. The moment the lid is lifted, a tantalising aroma would permeate every corner of the room. We watch in silence, salivate, and swallow hard. The mother coaxes the baby to eat as we gawk, wish and pray that the baby is not too hungry, and enough would be left for us to have a taste. No one dares to leave for fear of missing out.The mother knows quite well what we are waiting for, and out of the goodness of her heart when the baby can't eat any more, she then tells us to finish it off. She needs not ask twice. We fight each other for what is left. The is just heavenly, it is so smooth, and tasty.
This simple rice preparation would meet every criterion on taste, nutritional value, ease in ingestion and absorption. Nothing is lost in the cooking process. Bless our womenfolk for its creation. It is something Heinz or Campbells can not hope to replicate.
Members and visitors who were born in China could perhaps remember something similar. If you have one or both parents come from China, do ask them what they could remember, and corroborate on what I remember. This is one for Henry to put to his mother also.
Douglas, Sydney
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Post by Henry on Dec 22, 2008 9:24:34 GMT -5
Douglas,
You missed your profession - you should have been a Chinese cookbook writer - your description is mouth-watering. I will be in New York City on Thursday and I will ask my mother about this baby food.
What I do remember when I was probably 4 years old is that when I was sick, my mother would get some rice, a lot of fresh ginger, and some other ingredients and fry them up in the wok and then place this mixture in a cloth and then she would twist the cloth tightly around this mixture and then rub my body with this cloth containing the mixture - sure did smell. I'm not sure if it helped me - I'll check with mom.
Since, my materal grandfather was an herb doctor, mom brought some herbs with her from China. Once, I fell and split my head which probably required stitches, my mother just took a handfull of what looked like a handful of grey sand and slapped it directly on the wound - it stopped bleeding and then she bandaged it and later on, it healed and stitches were not necessary. Hmmmm...., Chinese medicine may not be approved by Western standards, but, I think the Chinese have cures that work and have been developed over thousands of years of refinement.
Henry
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Post by douglaslam on Dec 22, 2008 17:42:05 GMT -5
Henry, I have a lot of faith in our forebears' collective wisdom. You mother left China when she was barely twenty years of age, yet she retained so much of the conventional wisdom and knowledge passed down from generation to generation. She is remarkable. My wife just could not hold her own against her mother in cooking, home remedies or anything else. I fear something might be lost to future generations.
Douglas
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Post by Woodson on Dec 22, 2008 18:30:31 GMT -5
My sister made them for her kids after they were introduced to solids via the traditional western fare. Fish and pork are inexpensive in the West but not in China, certainly not during the 50's. I remember having to queue at the village butcher shop for a piece of pork. And it was for special occasions, such as New Year. Chicken is another rare treat. Come to think of it all meats were rare treats.
Douglas, do you remember the time when there was an oil shortage? I think that would be 1952 or so. We tried to make oil from the peanut we harvested from our plot of land near a hill. We harvest yam from there also. Yam wrapped in tin foil and roasted in an open fire was a winter delicacy.
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Post by Ah Gin on Dec 22, 2008 22:26:22 GMT -5
Fellow travellers,
Ah, food, glorious food. Comfort food, peasant food. Picture this. A simply attired gentleman walked into a realativly upmarket restaurant in Kaiping. He just arrived at Kaiping, after a 3-hour journey from the New Gold Mountain. Famished. Proceeded to order "yellow eel pot rice". Seems to take for ever. Must be something to do with the "relativity of time". Good old e=mc sq. At long last, it came. Large pot. How would he finish the pot of rice, all by himself? Amazingly, he did. To the bottom of the pot and hit real pay dirt -- the lovley crusty rice stuck to the bottom of the pot, (can't do that with a electric rice cooker can we?) with the juice from the yellow eel, soya sauce. This can't go to waste? "Ah liang nui, please bring me a flask of hot water. Please soak the burnt rice for me". Liang Nui looked at the overseas Chinese yes, it was that obvious -- dressed simply he may have, but there we something about this Chinaman that said he has travelled far and wide. Besides, who in his right mind would ask for a flask of hot water, to soak up the rice. Surely not in THIS good looking restaurant? The ABC did not care what the rest of the world thought. It was enough to enjoy something from his childhood days. Ah, Fan Chiew.
Regards, Ah Gin
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Post by Ah Gin on Dec 22, 2008 23:04:14 GMT -5
Ah, meant to add the Chinese words: Fan Chiew 飯燋
and Toisan Yellow Eel earthern pot rice 台山黄鱔煲仔飯
Regards, Ah Gin
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Post by douglaslam on Dec 23, 2008 0:26:51 GMT -5
Woodson, ahgin, Yes, we coveted for the blubber to obtain oil. Pig fat mixed with rice was a great treat. Who cares about cholesterol. Sweet potato and yam baked in a fuel stove ash was really special. In the mid-50s, every grocer shop in HK used to help send food parcels to nearby Guangdong counties. The parcel usually wrapped in fabric so that the wrapper could be used for clothing. How things had moved on from the disastrous 50s. Even with a modern electric rice cooker, you still get fan chiew. just like Ahgin's character, I won't allow it to be thrown out. I'll be tucking into some yellow eel "bo jay fan" sometime next April in Hoiping. Lunch is on me, any one cares to join me?
Douglas
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Post by raymond on Dec 23, 2008 1:35:13 GMT -5
Days of Yesteryears.......
On the topic of "fan chiew".......we're a big family in the US (7 boys), so Mom used to make a huge pot of rice for every meal.......when all the soft granules of rice were all eaten up (we rarely had leftover rice) along with the meat and vegetable dishes, we used to all eagerly wait for the "fan chiew". Mom would either add water to the burnt rice bottom and reboil it until it turns into a soft, hot pleasant mush with a burnt aftertaste so pleasing to the palate.......or Mom would simply skip making a mush and break up the crispy burnt rice crust with her spatula and handed each of us a piece to delightfully chomp on like crackling rice cake treats......down-home style, country style......so good and delicious either way......."fan chiew"........
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Post by helen on Dec 23, 2008 3:49:29 GMT -5
We also enjoyed the crunchy rice - from the bottom of the pot - Mum soaked hers with her tea. can't get it for love or money these days!
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Post by douglaslam on Dec 23, 2008 22:36:20 GMT -5
There is something about bringing up children in China that is not agreeable with me. Some mothers used to, and probably still do, chew up the food, spit it out on a spoon or fingers and then feed it to the child. It is like a wolf regurgitating for her cubs. This is probably done out of ignorance or in the belief because the baby comes out of her womb, therefore it is part of, or an extension of herself . There can be no harm in what she is doing. Can any members recall seeing this done to their siblings, to someone's child, or remember being fed that way.themselves?
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Post by laohuaqiao on Dec 24, 2008 2:04:44 GMT -5
In Taishanese, fanjiu 飯燋 is called nung 農(with a fire radical, meaning burnt), and adding water to it it becomes nungjook 農粥. Do other Siyi dialects use these terms? The best thing to go with nungjook is yam. When you cook the rice and the water starts to boil, put the yam in the same pot with the rice and let the two cook and simmer together. After the rice (fan) is scooped out and only nung left at the bottom of the pot, mashed the yam on top of the nung. Then place the pot over a high flame and allow the nung and yam to heat up before adding water (you know it is at hot enough when water sizzles upon the first contact with pot and you can smell the aroma carried by the water vapor) and continue to heat the pot until water comes to a boil. Serve immediately if you like nung to be crunchy or wait a bit longer if you prefer it softer. IMO, with or without yam, this is the only way to make nungjook; however, in a restaurant adding boiled water will have to do. My parents will only cook rice with a pot on an open flame, they will never use a rice cooker or an electric range. The 3/16" thick cast-iron pot they use has been with the family for at least 70 years and it makes perfect nung just about every time.
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Post by douglaslam on Dec 24, 2008 5:24:33 GMT -5
laohuaqiao, My mother-in-law, can vouch for that. and swears by its earthy goodness and taste. She says there is a variation with sweet potato or pumpkin, according to taste or availability. I ask her to give it a try, but she say it is best done with high heat and smoldering embers. The gas range can't quite measure up. So it is off to the national park with an open flame stove, can't do it in a city flat. That means it is in the too hard basket.
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Post by raymond on Dec 24, 2008 7:11:32 GMT -5
laohuaqiao,
My parents are from Xinhui, and I can concur with you that we refer to "fanjiu" as "nung"......and we even refer to the burnt rice and boiled water mixture as "nung" as well, which correctly should have been referred to as "nung jook".
Raymond
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Post by Henry on Dec 24, 2008 7:52:20 GMT -5
Raymond, Laohuaqiao et al,
Growing up and living in the back of a Chinese laundry in Manhattan and Brooklyn in New York City, my sisters and brother also love "nung".
Later, after I was on my own and before rice cookers, my quickie dinner was a pot of rice - when the water started to come to a boil, I'd toss in 5 or 6 Chinese sausages (fung-chang) and some salted duck eggs and sometimes a a stick of the cured pork belly (lop chang). After the rice was done, I'd pull out the eggs, the sausages etc - cut up the sausages and toss them back into the rice pot and really mix it well and have the eggs on the side. Rude and crude, but delicious bachelor food.
Henry
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Post by tyuti1668 on Dec 24, 2008 8:34:19 GMT -5
燶 is also "nung" & same meaning in standard Cantonese Douglas, That semi-solid 糊仔 ("gu kia"in 隆都 dialect) baby food is defeated by Heniz's cereal in the delta area in GD -Some mum even ask in "baby forum" how to diy the traditional 糊仔 ;D ;D ;D Remember that 金錢圈 the "Coin" in CNY & non-"廣府人" tradition during "Ghost Festival": eating Zongzi (just like the Fujian ansetory's tradition ) Induction cooker solves the Western gas/electric range's problem to Chinese cooking. Many modern apartment in 隆都 w/Induction cooker only. The "single" standalone 2kw cooker is quite popular in the "village" migrants use to make "quick" meal & locals uses to boil soup. air-cond + "these" power hungry appliance cause serious volt drop in village ~200v during summer
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