Jenny Lao-Phillips
The Americans have apple-pies on the Fourth of July, and that got me wondering on National Day a few days ago: What food do we consider our national food?
When we think of any Chinese festivals, there are always auspicious foods related to the tradition, like moon cakes for Mid-Autumn Festival, or dumplings for Lantern Festival and Winter Solstice. But there is no special food for our National Day. Technically speaking, all festive foods are related to the tradition and legends of the related holidays, and National Day is not a traditional festival. But as the city of gastronomy, how can we not have something celebratory for our National Day?
The reason for having apple pies or hamburgers and hot dogs on the American Independence Day is not because these foods have any special meaning, but because they are usual family foods in America. Therefore, if we have to choose some kinds of food to share on our National Day, they have to be down-to-earth and representative of the Chinese family. On this line of thought, for Chinese, especially for those in Southern China, we must get back to our basic kinds of food, often jokingly considered our four greatest inventions: 粥 juk, 粉fan, 麵 min, 飯faan: congee, vermicelli, noodles and rice.
Of these foods, central to the everyday lives of Chinese people, congee seems to have the longest history. It is believed that the earliest record dates back over 4000 years, and the growing of grains that are used to make rice today, some say, dates back 7000 years. However, our ancestors had not refined rice to be eaten as it is now, so the grains were boiled with large amounts of water – what we call congee nowadays.
The significance of rice and congee to our everyday lives cannot be better stated than by the popular Cantonese saying, roughly translated as: “We’ll have rice together if there is rice, and have congee together if there is only congee”. This saying is used to show one’s commitment to friends or family, implying a promise to sharing prosperity or suffering through poverty together. To have rice to eat everyday refers to prosperity, with no worries about food and basic needs. So, there is no doubt about the centrality and representation of rice to our everyday lives.
However, noodles also have a very long history in the Chinese tradition. Although written record dates back only a bit less than 2000 years, there are archeological findings of our ancestors having noodles or vermicelli more than 4000 years ago. Although named differently, we usually refer to all kinds of noodles and vermicelli as ‘noodles’, in the same way that spaghetti, penne, linguini, are all referred to as pasta.
Aside from being an everyday family dish, especially in the northern part of China, noodles also have an auspicious representation. We often have noodles during birthdays because it represents longevity. Longevity in Chineseis 長壽 “cheon sau”. Cheon means ‘long’, and sau means ‘birth’, and has a similar pronunciation to ‘slim’, so eating noodles which are long and slim signifies longevity. Also, in some places, the longevity noodle eaten on one’s birthday is specially made. And I use singular ‘noodle’, because it is made of one very, very long noodle to represent extremely long life.
Although congee and rice have a longer history in our nation, vermicelli and noodles offer more than everyday comfort food. So, of our four greatest inventions, which should we choose for our national day food? Rice or noodles? Or perhaps, just for the National Day, we can come up with a dish that contains 粥 juk, 粉fan, 麵 min, 飯faan all in one.
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