The first CNY…
“HAPPY LUNAR NEW YEAR!”
It has been difficult to summon much enthusiasm to respond (if at all) to these greetings, and I’m trusting that those who love me will understand.
Little C helping to make stuffing for the goose.
Little C knew that I did not wish to celebrate CNY because of my mum, and has been very empathetically keeping her handmade CNY decorations to her room. I also kept to my plan to avoid cooking the usual fare for Chinese New Year. I roasted a goose. My cousin made a great gravy. We had potatoes and salad on the side. It certainly didn’t feel like a CNY celebration, just a regular family gathering.
But I was fooling no one - I teared up at every small reminder. Like when I walked past Pek Kio market a few days back and saw everyone stocking up.
My mum would also have been busy buying dried goods like Fat Choy, my dad’s favourite Ho See (dried oysters), and Lup Cheong (the only time of the year she’d allow my dad to indulge). And, she would be preparing her signature dish - Chap Chye.
She’d always self-effacingly explain that it wasn’t that her Chap Chye was better than others, but that it was the only decent dish she could cook (and bring to potlucks) compared to our very talented maternal relatives. I love her Chap Chye and miss it terribly.
I learnt so much from my mum, following her to the wet market ever so often when I was younger.
Much of my relationship with food and wet markets can be traced back to my mum -
my love for cooking (she took full advantage of her Skills Future credits for numerous cooking classes)
my unyielding need to have vegetables at every meal (it feels incomplete otherwise)
my preference to ‘just wing it’ when I am cooking (she tries to follow recipes but would always make tiny adjustments each time she cooked so that each rendition was always slightly different from the last)
my desire to go to wet markets for the freshest ingredients
my proclivity to chat with vendors or other customers at the market, in the hope of learning more about the ingredients
As I walked past the vegetable section alone, I recalled all the little things she taught me about food -
buying lotus root caked in mud is better than the cleaned ones as they are more likely bleached
mushrooms and sweet potatoes are incredibly healthy
as is having a variety of colour in our diet
Bentong ginger sells at a premium and is well worth the money
mustard greens are delicious! They are also not in the family of cooling foods, hence better for me.
I try to pass on this knowledge to little C when we go grocery shopping. While she is comfortable in the kitchen and keen to help out where she can, she is unfortunately still unimpressed by wet markets and avoids them if she can. Hopefully she will one day experience the joy my mum and I shared when we visited wet markets together.