I won't include the recipe because I can already hear Uncle Roger's (rightful) indignation but the first steps involved frying the (firm) tofu and preparing the sauce. I've never cooked or eaten tofu before, so this was an interesting experience and turned out quite well.
#Jing mei personality plus
This recipe came out of improvisation and reading many others in the end, my husband and I teamed up and used the ingredients mentioned in the chapter (tofu, ginger, scallions, red chili sauce), plus soy sauce (a little on the heavier side, since I can't handle too much spice), capsicum and toasted sesame seeds. Rather than trying to be authentic to a dish that I probably wouldn't be able to procure many ingredients for, I decided, instead, to be authentic to the words in the book, which don't mention the name of a dish. I can't pretend to know anything about Chinese cuisine what I've eaten in India is our own spin on it, a hybrid sometimes called "Indo-Chinese". A Google search yielded many variations, but as only four ingredients are actually mentioned, I figured she was keeping it simple. The catch was that I didn't know what exactly a "spicy bean curd dish" was, despite the list of ingredients that Jing-Mei provides as a clue. There are many things I could have chosen to cook from this book, but the tofu scene stood out to me the most in its softness and compassion – though mentions of food are abundant and it implies nurturing, there aren't many instances of it being described as such in The Joy Luck Club. She always said things that didn't make any sense, that sounded both good and bad at the same time.Īnd finally, food becomes the central metaphor for the clash between Jing-Mei's origins and her upbringing, as she expresses her disappointment at having to share hamburgers and apple pies instead of her "first real" Chinese feast. You thinking different.' She said it in a way as if this were proof – proof of something good.
The story always grew and grew.įood also reveals Jing-Mei's character, according to her mother, for who else would choose for themselves the least appetising, potentially unlucky crab? Those two feet became six eggs, those eggs six chickens.
She traded that gruel for two feet from a pig. She turned that rice into a pot of porridge. Sometimes she said she used that worthless thousand-yuan note to buy a half-cup of rice. Even her mother's stories of those times involved alternate endings centred on the food she could (not) afford. She learns how her mother made the best of war-torn Kweilin by attempting to turn the poverty of ingredients into rich meals, even if symbolically. Meals involving multiple characters become tableaux revealing inequalities of culture and status.įor Jing-Mei, who finds herself replacing her mother at the mah jong table, food is also about stories and memories. There is beloved street food, a tense restaurant meal, a traditional Chinese feast-that-wasn't, eating disorders, and a distaste for ice cream. Food causes confusion (and friendship) in a fortune cookie factory food causes pain, scalding hot in the middle of a heated argument food threatens, when leftover rice or a split watermelon determine the nature of a future husband.
In the first chapter, we find a competition between soups, an equal division of wonton, a feast, and dyansyin foods for fortune and luck – even if in a watered-down version – which formed the heart of the Joy Luck Club founded by Jing-Mei's mother Suyuan in China.
It is also during this scene, at the end of the third section of the book (side note: how wonderful is the symmetry of the chapters?!), that Jing-Mei finds herself closer to her mother through shared irritation caused by a trickling sink, hostile neighbours, and a hissing tomcat.įood plays a thoughtful, if not predominant, role in this novel on many levels. It is this matter-of-fact simplicity that endeared me to this scene there are no pretences or grand attempts, and only four ingredients are mentioned. I like the smell of it: ginger, scallions, and a red chili sauce that tickles my nose the minute I open the jar.
#Jing mei personality how to
Throughout the book, I got the feeling that she wasn't particularly culinarily inclined – perhaps it was her lack of interest in (and knowledge about) the differences between black sesame seed soup and red bean soup or the way she admired Auntie An-mei's deft wonton-making or her queasiness and escape during the preparation of the crab dinner.īut I'm making this mostly because I know my father loves this dish and I know how to cook it. Jing-Mei's cooking is nurturing, and nostalgic, but she explains the act with humility.
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