Little White Lies

I promised there would be homemade pork buns. The occasion was a cocktail party in Brooklyn to celebrate and send off a good friend to Stockholm. All that was asked of me was to bring some sort of hors d’ouevre that I thought the guest of honor would enjoy. Knowing my Swedophile friend’s palate pretty well, I deemed the pillowy-white, slightly-sweet meat buns to be the most appropriate snack to bring to the party.

The day of the party came a little too quick and Monday morning found me in the kitchen with my laptop scouring the internet for the best recipe. One written by Japanese food blogger Makiko Itoh on JustHungry.com seemed the most fitting and I immediately made a shopping list and went to work.

Not realizing that Chinese-style roasted pork (char siu) needs a lot of time to marinate, I made the not-so-proud decision to jump on a train to Chinatown to buy some prepared roast pork from a busy meat market on Grand Street. I asked for two pounds, received the usual pat on the back for being a white guy that speaks Chinese, and rushed back to my kitchen to begin making the dough.

The preparation went smoothly. Requiring quite a bit of flour and yeast, the dough was easy to work with and quick to rise. I chopped up the pork and tossed it in a wok with fresh ginger, scallions, and shiitake mushrooms. Adding flour and corn starch to the mixture seemed to meld the flavors together to make a cohesive, spicy filling for the buns. The process of stuffing the dough with the pork filling and pinching a seam to close each pastry was time-consuming but enjoyable in a Zen-like sort of way.

After I was finished I had rows and rows of little soft buns ready to be thrown into a pot to be steamed before being served to the guests. Nobody had to know that the pork concealed in each cloud-like pastry was not prepared in my kitchen. It was my secret.

Upon arrival, the buns became an interesting conversation piece. Curious guests poked at them, asked about what was inside, and ate them once they were properly steamed.

And then my moment of (un)truth arrived.

One of the guests politely inquired as to how the pork was prepared. And almost automatically, with false confidence, I explained how I started the night before, marinating the pork in honey and spice before slow-roasting the succulent meat for hours in my oven. Another pat on the back followed, though undeserved, and the party continued eating the buns with romantic visions of a home-cook carefully and patiently completing every step of the pork bun process by hand.

Why did I lie? Well, it’s complicated. Aside from more selfish reasons, my main reason for lying is the same reason parents lie about Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny. It’s also the same reason little bits of information are fabricated by schoolteachers, politicians, and celebrities: people love a good story.

Had I told the guests I had cheated a bit in my preparation of the pork buns, they may have enjoyed them less. So I told them exactly what I thought they wanted to hear. I didn’t want to let them down.

As small and insignificant as this untruth may seem, this situation got me thinking. I’ve always thought of myself as a realist. I never planned to make my children believe that Santa Claus is an actual living person that delivers gifts via the living room fireplace. If I do carry on that Christmas tradition, I want them to know that Santa is just a fun story and that I am actually the one leaving them the gifts. I want my children to also question the motivations of highly-worshipped historical figures like Christopher Columbus, George Washington, and Rosa Parks.

But this pork bun lie has proved that maybe, when put in the position of a storyteller with open-eared and wide-eyed listeners aching for a good narrative, I may just give in to the urge to suspend reality in favor of a good story.

Turnip Cake

It would have made more sense for me to make a carrot cake. Everyone loves a carrot cake, especially topped with a thick layer of cream cheese frosting. The last time I made a carrot cake it was consumed before it had time to set and cool properly.

Last Sunday I made a turnip cake. Unlike my immediately popular carrot cake, the turnip cake was a tough sell. It’s been four days since I made the cake and more than half of it is still sitting in my fridge.

The turnip cake, a traditional dim sum dish, is not sweet but savory. A white turnip is chopped up and combined with rice flour, Chinese sausage, shiitake mushrooms, and dried shrimps. This mixture is poured into a cake pan, steamed for an hour, sliced into small rectangles, thrown into a pan to fry, then topped with a bit of cilantro and hoisin sauce.

I was introduced to this peculiar dish years ago as a young Mormon missionary in Brooklyn’s Chinatown. Missionaries in my area were often invited by Chinese church members to join them for dim sum. We all thought this was a friendly gesture but now I think we were invited to be the entertainment. Our Chinese friends found it amusing to call all sorts of strange dishes to the table just to watch us corn-fed American boys struggle with the new flavors and textures.

At one of these dim sum lunches I became the victim of a cruel joke. A fried chicken, all parts still intact, was ordered for the table. I was told that that Chinese people savor the chicken’s head as the most delectable part of the bird. Not aware that I actually believed them, my friends placed the bird’s head on my plate. Everyone was stunned when I trustingly bit into a deep-fried chicken brain.

Once initiated I was willing to try just about anything new in Chinatown – jellyfish tentacles, chicken feet, and even fried frog legs. And now I understand the joy of introducing these strange culinary traditions to my unacquainted friends. This is why I went to all the trouble to make something not so immediately loveable such as the turnip cake.

I was invited to have dinner at a friend’s apartment Sunday night. I brought the freshly steamed turnip cake to offer as an appetizer. I fried small pieces to the right amount of crispiness and tried to plate my creation to look as enticing and friendly as possible. I watched and smiled as my friends poked nervously at their plates, wishing the turnip cake was actually a carrot cake.

Ugly Food

During my holiday visit to Utah I met a friend at one of Salt Lake City’s few teahouses for dim sum. We ordered dish after dish, most of them standards, including ha gow (shrimp dumplings, siu my (pork dumplings), and cha siu bao (roasted pork buns). All of these tasty bites came to the table in traditional wooden baskets looking cute and delectable. There is something very festive-feeling about dim sum. Just about everything comes wrapped like a present inside a dumpling, bun, roll, ball, or wonton.

We also ordered a dish the Cantonese speakers call "ha chong fun". In English it translates as “shrimp rice roll”. Consisting of shrimp wrapped inside a roll made of ground rice, there is nothing cute or attractive about this dish. In fact, it usually looks sort of wet, slimy, and inedible. I’ve been out with many friends who refuse to eat this dish, complaining about the slippery, gelatinous texture.

But today my friend and I are feeling tolerant and will eat just about anything (although this time we decided to forgo the highly hideous-looking chicken feet).

My chopsticks nervously attempted to transfer one of the long, white rolls to my plate. This dish is as stubborn as it is unattractive. After many badgering attempts I had a mutilated clump of ha chong fun on my plate. It now looked even uglier sitting there in a puddle of soy sauce with pieces of shrimp exposed through the roll’s puncture wounds. The unsightly appearance of the roll took away any excitement I had about eating it.

Like many dim sums before, I had forgotten everything about the way it looked as soon as the roll got to my mouth. The shrimp was surprisingly fresh and crisp while the ground rice was perfectly chewy and gummy. Clean and precise flavors filled the mouth as this ugly duckling of a rice roll transformed to reveal its true value.

Are we willing to forgive our food for being drab, unattractive, or messy? Does an attractive presentation enhance a meal or does it confuse the eater into thinking something will taste better because it comes wrapped in a dainty-looking dumpling? Ugly food can be the most delicious food to grace our palates but many are unwilling to look past the appearance of food.

After leaving the restaurant I thought about wearing a blindfold the next time I sit down for dim sum. I might even give chicken feet a second chance.