Nothing can warm up the body, like that bowl of, hot soup, made of, daikon! Translated…
The rains of the winter seasons are especially, everlasting this year, the continued grayed skies with the drizzling rain, it’d, made the great metro of Taipei moldy. The winter rains are a trademark of the city of Taipei, the filled up precipitations, the drops of rain, dripping from the roofs, gathered into puddles of, crystal clear mirrors, the fogged up dropdown windows of the hotpot shop, are all, classic, in this season of rain, and, there would be the rainbows that showed, in the intermissions between the segments of rains, giving the residents here, some forms of, console.
This winter, other than the never-ending rain, there’s also, the smells of the surgical masks we put on our faces. And, the masks are surely, to become, a shared memory of the generation. There’d been a year’s time now, an entire winter season, and who knows how much longer, that we needed to get out of our homes, with out surgical masks on. At first when we’d started putting these masks on, we’d not known, how long it was going to last, only thought it would be half a month, a whole month, until it’d, extended to, several, months, then, several, seasons to date. And, in the winter seasons, these masks became, a crowd favorite, unlike how in the summers, it could cause us to break out, it’d, blocked out the cold winds, and, the exchange of our own breaths inside the masks became, warm to us. After the panicked summertime, we’d all become, blessed, to have these, surgical masks to wear on our faces.
a crowd-pleaser, a favorite!
And, if on the day we’d taken the buses, the MRT, and the scents of the roads, the people we bumped into, will all attach themselves, onto the, masks, and if we’d gone to the restaurants, then, the smells of foods, all attached, clung on, to the, surgical masks we have over our, faces. The masks carried the scents we encounter from a day-to-day basis, it’s, a track of, my self, the microcosm of this society that I’m, living in right now.
In the winters, my favorite smell was that pot of soup, in the chilly weather, watching the water broiling, taking away, all the cold I’d felt. My favorite foods, chopped up, tossed in, and no worries for if the items don’t match up in taste, so long as the produces are, in-season, it’s bound, to taste, delicious. I’m not a good cook, but I’d known, to pick up two heavy daikon at the vegetable stands, and, found some ribs at the pork stands, with the cilantro that’s free from the vendor, and just like that, I would have, a fulfilling, taste of winter.
The round and plump, juicy daikon are a blessing for Taiwan from up above. And although, the daikons can be found all year round, but the winter daikons, they’d, tasted the best, crisp, with a lot of moisture, stir-fry, soup, pickle, stew, all works. The soups take time to brew, as the pork ribs boiled in the broiling water, turn the fire level down, then, slow-cook it, and during this magical time, the daikon would, be immersed in the soup, but not cooked to too soft. Some liked adding the corn, the mushrooms, but these two, are, replaceable, the daikons are like the stripes of black, and white on zebras, perfectly, matched together, to perfection.
In this noisy world, serving up that bowl of warmth, we’d, walked through this world, not feeling anything negative, compared to the rest of the world, the days on this island, peaceful to a fault.
And so, this, is how soups have that healing property for us all, how something warm in the winters, can not just warm up our bodies, but also, our minds, and our hearts too.