Short Essay 1

Dayuan Zhao

1133-27 MWF 12-2

Prof. Eric Leake

04/01/12

753 words

                                           

The Most Significant Meal in My Life

            If you want to ask me what is my most memorable thing in my hometown after I came to the U.S.  I will tell you that is Chinese food. Since there are so many differences between Chinese and American food type, I cannot adapt to the eating habits here in a short time. What I want to talk about in this essay is one of the most emblematic meals in my hometown in northeast China -- sour pickled cabbage stewed pork spareribs. 

My home is located in Liaoning province, in very high latitude of China; the climate there is similar with Minnesota. When winter is coming, the temperature is extremely low. That leads people’s diet habit changes. More families will cook some hot soup to keep them warm. They would buy many Chinese cabbages and make them into sour pickled cabbages. The way to do this is very typical as following. You need to buy a big clay jar, and put some water in the jar to help cabbages ferment; then put twenty to thirty cabbages in to the jar. It is somewhat like cheese’s product method. After one and half month, you can open the jar.

 Sour pickled cabbage tastes very special. Almost Chinese who live in south part of China cannot even try them and feel terrible about it. It tastes very sour, and the mouth feel of Sour pickled cabbage is crisper then simple cabbage. It is a fabulous material to make soup. The commonest way is stewed it with pork spareribs. The method to make this meal is very easy, you just add some water, condiments and oil in to the pot and stew. When it is almost done, you should put some caraways on the top of soup. In every small restaurant in Shenyang, you can pay twenty yuan to buy a bowl of sour pickled cabbage stewed pork spareribs. It looks like lots of cabbage strips with some pork spareribs and caraways, because of the ferment, those leaves on the dish became yellow. As far as I am concerned, sour food fits me well. I cannot have soup without vinegar. When I eat this meal, I always eat it up with two to three bowls of rice. In some way, you can say sour pickled cabbage stewed pork spareribs is my favorite Chinese food.

There is an interest phenomenon would appear in store cabbage period, every family lives in same block will put their cabbage one by one and make them look like a big rectangle or triangle, when you overlook from the window, every family’s cabbage garden is in a special shape. Once, my classes was over, then I back home and found that one of my neighbor’s cabbage garden was be putted like a smile face.

Another reason why I miss this kind of food this much is before I came to the U.S., my mother always cooks it for me. In my family, I think my mother is the best chef. She is always very busy and does not have time to cook dinner. So when the weekends are coming, my happy time is coming along with the weekends. When she cooks dinner in the weekends, at least five dishes would be eaten up. Sour pickled cabbage stewed pork spareribs is the most frequently dish appears on our table. My mother also makes some change to this meal in her own way. Because I like eating fish ball, she always put some fish balls or shrimp balls in the bowl. I really miss our family dinner time. I can staying with my parents and talking about the latest funny things with them, meanwhile eating the delicious food makes by my mother. That is most memorable time at now in my heart.

All in all, sour pickled cabbage stewed pork spareribs is one of my favorite foods. There are so many amazing foods in China, almost every province have its own food series, every food series also have hundreds of specific cuisines. It is really hard to choose which one is your favorite. But I think more important thing is not the foot but the culture behind the cuisine. Chinese centuries-old food history is different with American’s; Chinese always want to make food more delicate, American food providers pay more attention to save consumer’s time to do other things. I think Chinese attitude is fits me better.