The Meat Cakes that My Grandmother Makes

and no, not my photograph…

Savoring these memories here, translated…

Recently, my younger sister often mentioned how our grandmother would used to make these meat cakes, the words she’d loved to say were, “had I know, I would’ve learned from grandma, while she was still healthy, her meat cakes, nobody can beat.”

After my parents, my younger brother and I heard, we’d all felt the same, and felt, somewhat sorrowful.  Because my maternal grandmother is aging, and her health, ailing by the day, and, it’d been, almost, ten years, since we’d had some homemade meat cakes by her, meaning, that this delicacy is about, to be lost, forever.

My father also told of this elderly woman who’d pushed her cart in his neighborhood, vended the radish cakes in his childhood neighborhood, and that since he was a young child, the elderly woman had started, selling, and because she’d used the BEST of materials and ingredients, all the neighbors would buy from her.  It’s true, the elderly woman can sell her radish cakes for so very long has a reason, the stir fried cakes, tasted amazing, biting down on it, and the scent of the radish would fill up the entire mouth, so savory.  My father said, that the tastes had not changed in decades, and every time he’d tasted this food, it’s, as if, he was, back into his childhood years again.

My grandmother’s cake, was very different, from the cake of the elderly woman, grandma had made meat cakes, very smooth in taste, and the scent filled fillings, as well as the cake itself was, amazing, no need for extra sauces to spice it up.  I’d still recalled, that there was, fried onion in it, minced pork, mushroom, dried shrimp, etc., etc., etc., and grandma would always cook the separate foods one by one, and, she was very, secretive in cooking, it’d taken up almost an entire day for her to do it.  And, when the sunset came through the windows, the ordinary looking cakes would get plated and brought onto the tables.  As we picked up a piece, placed it in our mouths, it’s, as if there’s magic, making us want to get more and more, and we’d even gotten so intrigued, to ask her, how, did you manage to make these cakes so delicious?

There’s a traditional Taiwanese saying, “when grannies made meat cakes, things are to fall”, some say, that it meant losing money for business; and some say, that the cakes that were flattened would taste the best.  Whichever way it is, grandmother cooking the cakes, it’s an art form, it’s also, a “memory”.  And now, there are, less and less who would use the traditional methods to make these cakes, and, you can only buy the machine made cakes out on the markets, and, the tradition was, disappearing, slowly.

I think, I should learn how my grandmother makes those cakes with my sister one day, so I can, keep this amazing taste on the tips of my family members’ tongues.

And so, this, is what your grandmother’s food made you feel, and, I’m sure, that she’d used the regular ingredients, and, what made her cakes so yummy is because she’d put her heart into making them, because she’s cooking for her family, that, is why her heart is in the process of making these cakes, which is what’s making these cakes so yummy!