The Tastes of Soups

The memories, you’re trying, to replicate here, translated…

My processes of soup drinking, stemmed, from my memories. to me, on a cold day, drinking a bowl of just cooked up Hong Kong style soup, experiencing the heated liquids, trickling into my throat, that, is, a small kind of blessing that my life needed.

Both my grandparents on my father’s side are Cantonese, and, they’d, believed, that ancient style of soup drinking to keep oneself health, and, since I can remember, I’d had soup every single day.

see if i needed more salt, NOT my photograph…

My grandmother would cook up a pot of filling Hong Kong style soup, sometimes, it’s pork ribs with fish gelatin, and, the Chinese herbs with shell fish, or with the Chinese medicinal ingredients. The key to the Cantonese style soup making is in the “patience of cooking”, each pot of soup needed to be slow cooked for two whole hours, for all the ingredients to act together. Every time I’d smelled the soups, cooking in the kitchens, I’d started, looking forward to supper; and, as we all sat down for supper, my elders would always speak in Cantonese, “Soup first”, they’d, stressed on how the soups warmed up our stomachs, it being the best way, to stay healthy, and that, was the clearest memory I had, of drinking soup daily.

Later on, as my grandmother died, my mother too, learned to slow cook the soups, and, it’d, restarted my life with soup again. From the beans and pork ribs, to the jicama with fish, my mother had always made the delicious soups for me. And now, it’s, my turn, to learn to make the soups, and started, cooking my own flavors too. I’d gotten used to making a pot of soup for myself each and every single week, and, in the process of making soup for me, I’d missed my two teachers, my mother and my grandmother so.

the variety of soups, not my photo still…

Xun Jiang once stated, “the true tastes are the memories of one’s own life”. This line exemplified my need for soup, and, I’d loved soup, from the memories of my own life, I’d, patiently, watched the fire, to make the same savoring tastes I’d remembered, and yet, nobody cooks the same way, and, I can only, create my own flavors, and not, replicated the tastes in my memories.

The soups I’d made became a revelation from the heavens. We must, look forward in life, to NOT just, copy the actions of others, everybody has a different taste, and that, is the right way of how soups should BE savored.

So, in attempting to make the soup like your grandmother and mother did, you weren’t able to, but, you’d, made your own flavors, and, that, is what life is all about, it’s NOT about copying someone, to make something, but, to stem out from what you’d known, and, make your own things, oh, and, enjoying some soups daily too.