Childhood Memory Eating Memory: My

Childhood Memory

Eating memory: My first taste of Chinese food

My sense of taste has provided me with some of my most provocative and potent early memories. I can distinctly recall the first time I ever ate Chinese (well, really, Chinese-American food) with my family as a young child. I don't remember if my parents regularly ordered Chinese take-out before. But eventually, the night came when I was finally deemed old enough to endure the cuisine's heat and power. There was a vague sense of anticipation and joy in the air as I rode with my father in the car to pick up the dinner. Although my mother was a good cook, the words "let's eat out" or "let's order in" always made my little heart leap with joy. I loved the plastic playground at McDonald's, the shiny toys of a Happy Meal -- often I was too excited to eat, but I adored unwrapping the food from the paper packaging, happy food that seemed uniquely designed for my clumsy, happy childish hands.

The Chinese take-out place was different than the sanitized environment of McDonald's. It was a mere strip mall, with only a counter, a serious, sweating man giving out bags to customers and brightly-lit pictures of strange lumps of food on shiny clusters of rice adorning the walls. The whole place glistened and gleamed and smelled with something delicious, something I had never smelled before. I wasn't sure if it would be good, but I knew that my father seemed happy and excited as he took a large, brown paper package, oozing with oil -- our order was ready. The man turned away, without a thank-you to us, intent upon answering the phone to usher the next order through to the kitchen. I felt proud and important holding the brown sack, a gigantic lunch bag in my eyes, slightly above my lap as I rode home. I knew I was doing something useful, protecting the seat of the car. (My mother was very fussy about the car when I was growing up, and I remember having to take about a million napkins whenever I got an ice cream cone).

Then at home -- the anticipation grew. From the stapled sack my father drew a seemingly infinite variety of little containers, some as small as a doll's handbag, others almost as large as a bowl. From their compressed, symmetrical contents huge hunks of smell and color burst forward -- this one was sweet and sour pork, I was told. Another container was alive with writhing noodles -- Lo mein still bent in the shape of the white paper. Another was General Tso's chicken. I felt as if spilling the contents onto paper plates was more like a conjuring trick, rather than making dinner. "Try a little," said my mother, hesitating, wondering if I would like it. It was like an explosion of flavor in my mouth. I always thought I didn't like chicken, especially with vegetables, but this was different. It hardly seemed like the same animal, no pun intended, as what I was usually served. Even more wondrous were the little pockets of fried goodness called egg rolls. These were filled with vegetables like shredded cabbage and the spices made the green things delicious, rather than a pain to eat.