10-20-2020
L is an quiet elementary school pupil, she likes drawing, and has a very sweet smile.
When I saw that L enjoyed eating rice with HuiGuoRou quietly, I naturally talked about rice: “Rice is plain and has almost no taste. Because of this, eating other dishes with rice will boost their flavor.”
L smiled shyly, her smile reminded me of another 2 year old little girl who also liked to eat rice. I said to myself: “Rice seems one of the foods that can be accepted by children easily.”
I continue talking about rice: “In Chinese restaurants, I always order steam cooked rice, not fried rice. This way I can better enjoy the flavors of the main dishes.”
The fact that rice can easily boost the flavors of other dishes brought two other personal stories to my mind.
The first is the reason why I don’t add sugar to HuiGuoRou
HuiGuoRou is one of my signature dishes and is also my son’s favorite dish. In our family, we always eat HuiGuoRou with steam cooked rice.
One time many years ago, I added a bit of sugar to HuiGuoRou while cooking it. My son asked me after taking the first bite of the HuiGuoRou: “Mommy, did you cook the HuiGuoRou differently today? Because today’s HuiGuoRou tastes different from before.”
I replied: “Yes, I added a bit of sugar today. Do you like it?”
My son shook his head and said: “I like the HuiGuoRou without sugar.”
Maybe the plain steam cooked rice sharpened my son’s taste buds with HuiGuoRou.
Since then, I never add sugar to my HuiGuoRou.
The other story is about the time that I ate German Pork Shank a few years back. Tangentially to my son’s sharp taste buds with HuiGuoRou, a few years ago I thought German Pork Shank was not as good as my hometown Zigong’s Niufo HongZhou, which may be related to that I was having flavored mashed potato as a side dish instead of plain rice.
I have been eaten rice for more fifty years, as I remember how rice is capable of boosting the flavors of other dishes, I only grow fonder of it.