February Guest Author Ann Mah: Home is Where the Jiachangcai Is
Thursday, February 11th, 2010
Like most children of immigrants, I grew up eating the food of the country my parents had left behind. And, like most children of immigrants, I didn’t appreciate it one bit. Our nightly Chinese dinners of spicy tofu or flash-cooked greens, lion’s head meatballs or winter melon soup were just another oddity that made me different from my peers. Out to dinner with family and friends, the table heavy with an array of Chinese specialties, my brother and I would eat Taco Bell burritos, which we’d picked up on the way to the restaurant.
By the time I was an adult, I ate my family’s food with enjoyment, though, unlike my mother, I never craved it. When my husband and I prepared to move to Beijing, I was certain of only one thing: culture shock wouldn’t strike at the dinner table.
To my surprise, the Chinese food of China proved to be entirely different from the food I’d eaten growing up. Beijing’s Northern diet was rough and ready ; humble and more robust than the delicate Cantonese dishes my father cooked. At lunch with local friends, I wolfed down jiachangcai — “home-style dishes” — that were nothing like what I’d eaten at home as a kid.
When I left Beijing after four years, I wasn’t surprised that I missed the food. But I was shocked by how much I craved it — not just delicacies like Peking duck, or soup dumplings (though I loved those, too) — but the simple, homestyle dishes of those friendly lunches. I kept thinking of one in particular: scrambled eggs with tomatoes, a dish so basic almost every Chinese person knows how to whip it together. Easy enough to recreate from memory, I make it now on nights when I don’t have a lot of time to cook. Paired with a bowl of rice, it’s hot, savory, and comforting, at once exotic and familiar.
Scrambled eggs and tomato
2 tablespoons vegetable oil, divided
4 eggs, beaten
1 teaspoon minced ginger
4 tomatoes, cored and cut into chunks
2 teaspoons sugar
salt to taste
In a large skillet, heat one tablespoon of oil over medium heat. Add the eggs and scramble hard. Remove from pan. Add another tablespoon of oil, when hot add the ginger and sizzle until fragrant. Add the tomatoes, stir in the sugar and season lightly with salt. Reduce heat, and cook until the tomatoes are cooked and broken down, but still chunky. Raise heat and add the eggs, stirring to combine. Taste and adjust seasonings. Cook until heated through. Serve with rice.