Traditional activities involve lighting the menorah, spinning a dreidel to win chocolate gelt (chocolate coins), and enjoying fried foods. A new candle is lit each night of Hanukkah to represent the miracle of the Hanukkah oil, which lasted for eight nights though it was only expected to last for one. While Hanukkah isn’t considered to be one of the most important Jewish holidays, its proximity to Christmas has made it visible in popular culture. It’s always nice to wrap up the year with our favorite traditional holiday festivities, and what holiday festivity would be complete without food?! In fact, it was the absence of Chinese influence in our home that fed my curiosity about our family history and my appreciation of the small cultural consolations we kept.Īnd while my upbringing was, for the most part, American as apple pie, this cake is the perfect representation of who I am-made with American ingredients, but Chinese at heart.The first night of Hanukkah begins tonight, and we’re so excited to celebrate with all of our loved ones. I was never ashamed of my heritage I was always Chinese-American, never one or the other.
It sounds silly but this cake, like the tiny jade pendant I wear around my neck, makes me feel a little bit more connected to my roots. I have yet to find one person, Chinese or not, that doesn’t love it. I proudly carried it to every elementary school potluck, and once requested it in lieu of a traditional birthday cake.
My mom and I have always loved this about this cake, that its components are familiar, but it still somehow has a distinct Chinese flavor. All things that most people keep in their kitchens, staples of an ordinary American life. When I was nine, I carefully wrote a baker’s note in blue gel pen on the worn recipe card she kept in her little wooden box. I loved lifting the lid on the bamboo steamer and seeing the perfectly domed cake nestled in wax paper, releasing a fragrant, almond-scented cloud into the air.įlour. I would help my mom beat the egg whites into glossy peaks until my arms got tired, and sometimes she would let me add the tiny red dot of food coloring in the middle for good luck. Rather than being baked, this cake was steamed, which lent it a nice fluffy texture. The sponge cake was always a favorite of mine soft, pillowy, and lightly sweetened. But I would always eagerly await the end of the meal, which promised two things: the gifting of cash-filled red envelopes, and dessert. Our kitchen table proudly boasted my grandma’s hand-folded wontons, chicken marinated in soy sauce, and sticky rice. Out would come the giant silver wok, the wooden chopsticks, the flowered rice cooker. The only exception was once a year on Chinese New Year when, in order to maintain some pretense of cultural compliance, we would have Chinese food with the whole family. It wasn’t that our mom wasn’t a great cook we just weren’t interested in anything besides chicken nuggets and PB&J. At my parents’ wedding, my mother wore two dresses-the traditional white ‘80s Barbie-doll dress, and the red silk qipao, but the latter was mostly symbolic rather than superstitious.įood-wise, our tastes were rather one-dimensional.
My exposure to Mandarin as a child was limited to the folk songs my grandma taught me phonetically, and a doll named Ling that spoke a couple of phrases when you squeezed her hand. I had both a Red Egg party and a sweet 16.
I was given a Chinese name at birth, but I still feel self-conscious trying to pronounce it. I was born in San Francisco to parents who had never been to China themselves. This piece turned out to be deeply personal to me, and this is one of my favorite desserts (and still the only cake I'll eat to this day), so I'm very grateful for the opportunity to share it with all of you! I'm very in favor of anything that allows people to evaluate their relationship with their heritage, but to connect them through family recipes and traditions is brilliant. Just like each person and family is unique, so too are the family recipes that create the flavor of our childhoods and home. There is so much unspoken emotion connected to food that is related to heritage, love, pride, and identity. We want to explore the relationship to family through food, specifically through recipes that have been passed down from member to member. HAVE YOU EATEN YET? is a collaborative zine for femme and non-binary POC. A couple of months ago, when my friend Elyse asked me to contribute to HAVE YOU EATEN YET?, a project she and her friend started as a collection of family recipes and stories, I knew exactly what I wanted to write about.
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