Homecoming: Reuniting at the table, only to realise I never truly left

by Posted on
A note from Foodthink
Our memories of our mothers always seem intertwined with food and care. Some may have been exceptional cooks, knowing every family member’s preferences and bringing comfort through delicious meals. Others may not have been skilled in the kitchen, yet they were often consumed by the endless chores of the home, doing everything in their power to look after their families. As our mothers grow old, we begin to cook for them and care for them in their illness, learning to replicate their practical wisdom and experiencing the rigours of motherhood and domestic labour through a reversal of roles.

In April this year, the author of this piece returned to her hometown in Chongqing to visit her family, reuniting with her mother and maternal grandmother. With Mother’s Day upon us, let us read her notes on returning home. We wish all mothers peace, health, and the comfort of being cared for.

4.3 Returning Home

In Beijing, between late March and early April, the temperature fluctuated, but the earth and plants had finally absorbed enough warmth. Branches that had remained unchanged for months finally began to sprout buds and blossoms—first the magnolias, then the lilacs—and the air smelled different. Thinking of my grandfather, who had recently passed away, and my grandmother, who had weathered COVID-19, I bought a train ticket home, carrying a bottle of green plum syrup I had preserved myself last May.

●During the Qingming Festival holiday, the underground and trains were packed with people heading home. Looking at the oversized luggage, I wondered what they were all carrying.
●After spending the night on the train, it rained almost the entire way. On the second morning, the train crossed the Yangtze River at Fuling.

Once we arrived in Chongqing, we stayed for a few days. After my mother had finished picking up her medication, the whole family bought tickets to visit my maternal grandmother in Fengjie. The high-speed rail from Chongqing to Fengjie takes less than two hours and passes through Wanzhou; we planned to stop in Wanzhou first to visit my paternal grandmother’s grave before continuing to Fengjie.

●Before any long journey, my mother always makes sure to top up the water in the rim of the pickle crocks. She is incredibly meticulous; she even tucks away the everyday ladles, spatulas, and condiment jars into the cupboards to keep the dust off, reducing the amount of work to be done upon our return.

IV. 10 Visiting the Grave

Qingming had passed, and as it wasn’t a weekend, the cemetery was deserted. Dad had bought a bunch of chrysanthemums, joss paper, and incense, and was walking briskly ahead. I followed close behind, clutching a cloth bag filled with various fruits, snacks, a water bottle, and tissues. Mum, walking more slowly, trailed at the back. The afternoon was hot, the sun beginning to bite with a summer-like intensity; being prone to sweating, I could smell myself turning a bit sour. Grandmother had been gone for eight years. I had visited her grave three or four times, but could never remember the exact location; however, by following the general direction, I found it quickly—a headstone with an epitaph but no photograph. We kept the ritual simple: offering flowers, burning incense, and joss paper. As usual, I prayed for personal health and world peace.

I realised the last time I had come to see Grandma was five years ago. That time, I had brought her a potted plant—narcissus, which she loved. This time, having had no chance to buy anything specifically for her, I decided on a whim to take out all the peanuts and oranges and arrange them before the headstone, knowing how much she loved them. Mum said, “Your grandmother didn’t like apples or bananas,” so I stopped.

4.10 Reunion

Shortly after four in the afternoon, we boarded the high-speed train again. After just over thirty minutes, we arrived in Fengjie.

●Grandmother, photographed in January and April 2023.

Exhausted after a long day of travel, the moment I stepped through my grandmother’s front door and saw her sitting upright on the sofa, my tension vanished.

Catching a glimpse of a figure from across the room, she called out, “Who is it?” I raised my voice in reply, and she immediately recognised me: “It’s Linlin!”

Her right eye is completely blind, her left has poor vision, and her hearing has faded, yet her voice remains loud and full of vigour. Up close, her cheeks are plump and her skin glowing; she rises from the sofa briskly and can walk a few steps without a cane. It is a stark contrast to the listless figure lying in a hospital bed during the Spring Festival.

My grandmother’s back had long since bowed, making her appear very small. Yet she is remarkably hardy; this was actually her first time ever being hospitalised. At the start of the year, the whole family was shuttling between the hospital and home. My uncles took turns keeping watch at the ward, while my youngest aunt and my father teamed up in the kitchen. At that time, my grandfather could no longer eat anything and even struggled to drink water, though my grandmother fared better and could still manage some soft foods.

●January, in the hospital: my grandfather lies in bed while my grandmother is helped to the toilet by my second and youngest uncles (left); my grandmother insists on holding her own bowl of porridge (right).

After she was discharged, my uncles took turns caring for her, and a home carer was hired to prevent any accidental falls and ensure she was never left alone when others were out shopping or running errands. As robust in spirit as she is in body, my grandmother is fiercely independent and loathes relying on others; her mantra is, “I can manage”.

However, after a lifetime of strength, she is finally beginning to relent. She now eats things she once avoided, simply because the doctor told her she was malnourished.

●My grandmother dislikes getting splashes of soup on her clothes. Before meals, my mother ties an apron around her, just as she used to tie a bib around me when I was a child.
Mum and Grandma hadn’t seen each other for a month or two, and the two of them huddled together, chatting animatedly. My eldest uncle called us to the table, where there was a bowl of *fenzhengrou* (steamed pork with rice flour) that my second uncle had prepared in advance. The pork was a mix of fat and lean, seasoned and marinated before being coated in rice flour and stored in the fridge, ready to be steamed on demand. Mum served Grandma several of the fattier pieces; seeing how much she relished them, I helped myself to a few large lean pieces… my plan to fast a little went right out the window. After a shower, just after nine, I climbed into the bed my grandparents used to share. With several of us lying in one room, Mum stopped the washing machine and switched off the lights.

I slept soundly through the night; Grandad didn’t visit me in my dreams.

4.11 Second Uncle

That morning, having heard I’d returned to Fengjie, my second uncle drove over from the neighbouring county specifically to see us. He first took the family to the public cemetery to pay our respects to Grandad, then headed home to cook.

●The spread on the table wasn’t just for my benefit. My grandmother—the family steward who is ‘reluctant to abdicate’, as we jokingly call her—offered her verdict with a solemn expression: ‘(This meal) caters to the tastes of all the generations.’
●With such a feast before me, the first thing I reached for with my chopsticks was the chilled fish mint salad.
●Grandmother is very fond of broad beans.
●How did Second Uncle manage to make these konjac shreds so flavourful!
●Second Uncle had made a special trip to the market to buy a live chicken, slaughtered fresh. Even from the photo, you can tell it was a ‘cardio-fit’ chicken; the subcutaneous fat is very thin, the meat is a deep colour, and the fibres are fine and tender. I really wish I could take a live chicken like this back to Beijing.
Over the years, my grandparents’ extended family has grown slowly and aged considerably, yet the number of ‘chefs’ has increased, their culinary skills now evenly matched. Still, there is no dispute that the title of head chef belongs to my second uncle; even Mum admits he’s the best. When I was a child, upon hearing I loved sheep tripe, he would go out of his way to buy some and clean it himself; when my skin was prone to breakouts, he heard that snake meat could ‘clear the heat’ from the body, so he would head to the countryside specifically to find some for me.

4.12 Rooting Like a Pig

● Left: The view from my grandparents’ balcony looks out onto the road by the market entrance; I took this during the Lunar New Year. Right: My mother, while exercising nearby, captured a photo of ‘an elder beneath the tree’.

While my relatives often cook at home, they aren’t averse to eating out. There are always those times when you just can’t find the inspiration to cook or don’t know what to prepare; after all, improving one’s culinary skills requires exploration and a taste for variety.

In Chongqing, it is genuinely difficult to have a bad dining experience. The people here are passionate about food and have discerning palates, meaning restaurants with poor craftsmanship rarely survive. However, aside from weddings, funerals, and hosting out-of-town guests, my family seldom indulge in formal feasts. Our daily routine consists of a bowl of noodles, rice noodles, or wontons from a small eatery, or popping into a roasted meat shop to buy some sliced pig’s ears or snout to add to the family meal.

There are several roasted meat shops just below my grandparents’ flat; one in particular is acclaimed city-wide, earning the approval of even my grandfather and second uncle, both of whom are incredibly picky. Early this year, in the dead of night, my mother received a call stating that my grandfather was critically ill. She woke us all up. At around 3 a.m., as I stumbled downstairs in a daze, I passed by that shop and saw someone tidying the plates and bowls—I couldn’t tell if they were just closing up or preparing to open for the day.

My second uncle was the head chef again today. Despite the table already being laden with a lavish spread, he still ventured downstairs to have the shopkeeper slice a portion of pig’s snout, specifically requesting that it be cut as thinly as possible. While the snout looks fatty, it isn’t greasy at all—even I, a lifelong devotee of vegetables, couldn’t resist the temptation.

● The roasted meat shop downstairs; as evidenced by the digital clock on the wall in the left image, it is already open for business before 7 a.m.
● The pig’s snout my second uncle bought from the roasted meat shop downstairs.
After returning to Beijing, I found myself constantly reminiscing about that pig’s snout dish. Northern pork simply cannot compete with the Southern variety, but the dipping sauce was easy enough to replicate. So, while I asked my mother to visit the roasted meat shop and ‘apprentice’ herself to learn the secrets for me, I tried to concoct my own version: using sugar and vinegar as a base, which got me reasonably close. When I reached out to my mother, she sent a few voice notes over WeChat: “The reason this sauce is so good is that they use Sichuan pepper powder rather than Sichuan pepper oil. Think about it: oil floats on the surface of the liquid, so when you dip the meat, you only get the oil and none of the other seasonings (like the sugar, vinegar, and soy sauce). It ends up tasting greasy and lacking in flavour. With pepper powder, that isn’t an issue.” As it turns out, my mother is the one with the most experience in the kitchen.

4.12 The Wet Market

My grandparents’ home is right next to a wet market in the county town. The surrounding environment isn’t exactly clean, and it’s quite noisy, but it is incredibly convenient; if you’re missing something, you can just step out of the door and sort it out immediately. This isn’t limited to food; there are plenty of hardware stores, general shops, and clothing boutiques. In this small mountain town, the roads are narrow and the pavements even narrower; walking along the street is a shoulder-to-shoulder affair, making it impossible to move quickly. My plans for running went out the window, so I spent my spare time wandering the streets, browsing and asking about prices just to burn a few calories.

From a distance, you can smell the meat patties and pan-fried potatoes from the street stalls—absolutely mouth-watering. However, I’d been eating so well at home that I simply couldn’t fit any more in. Eventually, I wandered back to the wet market, feeling it was the most interesting place to explore. There are always plants here I don’t recognise and all sorts of vegetable vendors—familiar, yet strange.

● Along the roads leading to the market, there are always itinerant vendors. Some wander about with baskets on their arms, others crouch in available gaps with their carrying poles, or park their little tricycles and mini-vans by the roadside… Returning to the south during this season coincides with the arrival of new garlic and tender broad beans. Regardless of the size of the stall, everyone is head-down, peeling beans and garlic, their hands never still.
● This man sits alone by the roadside amidst the hustle and bustle, without a single shout of advertisement; he sells only a basket of roots for stewing, and leaves as soon as they are gone.
● A single carrying pole, two baskets, a set of scales, and a straw hat—exactly as it was thirty years ago.
● Fried dumplings, pan-fried potatoes, and tea eggs. It has been a long time since I have seen one of these old-fashioned honeycomb coal stoves.
● The “digua” I ate as a child wasn’t the sweet potato known in the north. Its formal name is jicama; native to Mexico and Central and South America, it can be eaten raw and has a sweet, crisp taste similar to water chestnut. I never would have guessed it was actually a legume!
● It was the first time I noticed spring onions being sold this way; I thought it was for the convenience of gardening enthusiasts, but it turns out it was for those who only need the white parts. To the right of the onions are “yangyu guoguo”—dried potatoes, a method of preservation I rarely see elsewhere.
● On the left is “small garlic”, also known as wild garlic, which my father loves. Chopped and mixed with a few seasonings, it makes a perfect side dish. My father also likes to add some for flavour when eating “cai doufu”. And what is “cai doufu”? After grinding soybeans, they are boiled without filtering, with chopped greens added; it can be drunk as a soup or eaten with rice.
● The roots and leaves of fish mint. I prefer the ones on the right. Taken in January.
● This pot of fermented sweet rice is almost sold out.
● The yellow liquid is corn milk, processed in the same way as the ground soybeans.
● The market is even more abundant during the New Year; all sorts of pig offal, already cleaned and ready for those preparing the festive feast to take home and braise.
● During the New Year, the butchers singe pig trotters and tails by the roadside. My mother says the skin must be singed before boiling to ensure it remains tender.
● At New Year, live chickens are also brought out to be sold on the street.

I didn’t know where to look; I wanted to buy everything I saw, yet dared to buy nothing, for I wasn’t the one cooking and feared getting in the way.

Eventually, unwilling to go home empty-handed, I remembered my mother mentioning that the “pickling jar needed a bit more ginger”, and my uncle had remarked, “young ginger is a bit expensive these few days, wait a while.” I figured buying young ginger would certainly be the right move.

Back home, I peeled and washed the young ginger, placing it in a bamboo basket to drain, then carried it out of the kitchen and onto the table to keep it away from any oil. My father walked past and took a glance: “You didn’t buy this ginger well; the fibres are a bit too coarse.”

I felt a secret joy; my father had finally stepped out of the words on the page and back into the details of daily life.

● In a few short years, my father has gone from a complete novice to a chef. In this meal, the loofah and meatball soup and the tiger-skin green peppers are particularly delicious. The pig trotters my mother bought from outside are also astonishingly good.

IV. 13 Farewell

I am returning to Beijing today. I bought a midday train ticket, simply because I wanted one more home-cooked meal. I packed my bag early in the morning; compared to when I first arrived, it was now heavier with a few wheat cakes, navel oranges, and the brown sugar sachma my grandmother had repeatedly urged my eldest uncle to buy for me.

After breakfast, I took my usual stroll downstairs. I spotted some fresh fennel in a basket carried by an elderly woman; I bought a bunch and took it home, declining a plastic bag.

Seeing it, Mum and my uncle said, “This is lovely, put some in the pickling jar,” and Dad added, “You could also pan-fry it into *baba* cakes.” It was rare that I’d bought the right thing; not one of the three ‘head chefs’ had a complaint. (Note: *baba*, bā bā, are cakes or dumplings made from crushed glutinous rice or other grain flours, often mixed with finely chopped vegetables.)

● Leftover chicken soup from the day before, updated with loofah and enjoyed once more.
● To keep stir-fried pork kidneys tender, a generous amount of oil and high heat are essential; the remaining oil in the pan is kept to cook noodles, adding a wonderful fragrance.

Usually, my grandmother’s mealtimes are very strict, but on this day, lunch was brought forward by an hour to accommodate my schedule. My second uncle doesn’t care for pork kidneys himself, yet he stir-fried some specifically as a farewell for me, perhaps remembering my love for them as a child. His skill remains, but the pork is different now; we all lamented that today’s pigs aren’t what they used to be. In the past, pigs were fed on forage and swill—leftover food and soup—whereas now they are fed on commercial feed.

It was time to leave. My grandmother, who rarely ventures out, stood up from the sofa and insisted on seeing me off at the door; no one could dissuade her. My mother leaned in and whispered, “She and your grandfather always liked to stand in that exact spot whenever they saw someone off.” I nodded. “I know.”

● Left: This photo was taken by my father as I said goodbye to my grandmother. Right: March 2015, returning to my hometown to visit, bidding farewell to my grandfather and grandmother. As I walked downstairs, I looked back to see them standing there watching me, and I quickly took this photo. In the past, people would stand like this by the railings of a ship’s deck to wave goodbye.

Actually, it would have been very convenient for me to take a taxi to the high-speed rail station, but my second uncle insisted on driving my parents and me. Parking spaces near my grandparents’ home are highly sought after and difficult to access, so my uncle parked further away; he set off to fetch the car as soon as he’d finished the morning shopping. Throughout the morning, my grandmother asked several times, “What time is the train?” and “What time is it now?” Eventually, she simply had someone bring a stool to the doorway, where she sat alone, watching for my uncle’s return.

My father joked in my grandmother’s ear, “My dear, it’s not like the old days of catching boats; trains are punctual and won’t leave early.”

Perhaps my grandmother remembered a time when, while seeing someone off at the pier, she watched the boat pull away from the shore and stamped her feet in frustration, rushing to the dispatch office to demand they call the boat back. In those days, steamer services on the Yangtze were infrequent; if you missed one, you would have to wait at least another day.

● A scene from the 1981 documentary *The Yangtze* by Masashi Sada. Masashi Sada (the small figure on the left) walks along a narrow path carved into the sheer cliffs of the Yangtze Gorges. My grandmother once walked such roads. She told me that in the past, the currents of the Yangtze were swift and the reefs numerous; if a wooden boat was fully laden, travelling downstream was dangerous. Thus, passengers would usually be offloaded first to “take to the land” and walk the mountain paths, boarding the boat again once they had passed the reef-strewn waters.
● The peak in the centre of the image is known by locals as “Peach Mountain”. As a child, whenever I saw Peach Mountain while travelling by boat, I knew we were nearly at Fengjie. Source: Documentary *The Yangtze* (Masashi Sada, 1981).
● The pier of Fengjie County town in 1981. When I sent this to my mother, she told me that the archway at the top of the steps is called “Yidou Gate”. Source: Documentary *The Yangtze* (Masashi Sada, 1981).

Historically, transport in the mountainous region around my hometown relied primarily on waterways; no railways passed through, and the winding mountain roads were both bumpy and slow. Motorways have only been around for a short time.

In the past, travelling from my hometown to Beijing meant either heading down the Yangtze by boat—which required a coach transfer to bypass the Three Gorges Dam before catching a train from Yichang—or travelling by water or road upstream to Wanzhou or Chongqing to fly. Both routes were time-consuming and cumbersome.

● Taking the high-speed rail through Fengjie, the train spends only a few seconds outside the tunnels, so you have to be quick if you want a photo. Here, the train is crossing a bridge over the Meixi River, a tributary that flows into the Yangtze at this point. Beneath the mass of cumulonimbus clouds on the left are ‘Taozi Mountain’ and the Qutang Gorge. Photographed in July 2022 and January 2023 respectively.

Last year, the small county town where I grew up—long a blind spot on the railway map—was suddenly connected by high-speed rail, a leap forward that felt almost miraculous. This particular stretch had been an arduous and slow undertaking to build; with a bridge-and-tunnel ratio of over 95%, the train spends most of its journey gliding through the darkness of mountain tunnels.

The high-speed train sped east, piercing through the Daba Mountains to the plains of Central China, then turning north, reaching Beijing in just over six hours.

Stepping out of the station, the familiar sounds of my home dialect faded. The Mandarin echoing through the metro speakers sounded foreign, yet I felt one step closer to my next journey home.

Foodthink Author
A Hao Lan
Desiring both the freedom to travel light and explore the world, and more time to spend with family, the superpower they crave most is the ability to be in two places at once and to teleport.

 

 

 

Photos provided by the author

Unless otherwise stated, all photos were taken in April 2023

Editor: Ze’en

Published by Foodthink