Lin-Liu, Jen - Serve the People: A Stir-Fried Journey Through China

[oyceter]

After living in China for a few years, Jen Lin-Liu decides to take a class in Chinese cooking and ends up interning at fancy restaurants and noodle stands, all the while dealing with class, gender, and race in a rapidly changing nation. The book's a combination of memoir, food journalism, and China studies, and it includes recipes.

My very favorite parts were, of course, about the food, particularly Lin-Liu's stint as a noodle-maker, in which she worked at a street-side shaved noodle stand! Though I also loved a look at the fancy Shanghainese restaurant she later interned at, part of me wished she had done a working tour of many different street stands and/or small, hole-in-the-wall restaurants. But mostly, I loved reading about making dumplings, the quest for the perfect xiao long bao in Shanghai, discovering Huaiyang cuisine, and adventurous eating. She tries dog, yes, but the meal that probably takes the cake is one that serves penis in everything. I got the impression that the meals including dog and penis and whatnot were considered weird by Chinese standards as well, whereas ones including offal or various internal organs or fish heads are not. I am guessing this holds in Taiwan as well, as I do not know anyone who's eaten the first two and many people who have eaten the latter, myself included.

Also, fish head is tasty.

The bits when the author learns more about China's history and the aftermath of the Communist Revolution were interesting to me, but slightly less so, possibly because I've heard a lot of stories of the Cultural Revolution growing up, and possibly because I was just in Shanghai this summer. I do like the way she writes things up, but there's always the barrier of her Chinese-American childhood and class, as even her paltry salary as a journalist in China put her solidly in the upper-middle class. The class issues are particularly emphasized when she is in cooking class, as it's a vocational class for an non-prestigious, difficult job.

She also writes about migrants from more rural areas coming to Beijing to try to make it and how they're frequently talked about like immigrants (legal and illegal) are talked about in the US. And, well, there's a lot of stuff in the book. There was an incidence of ablism that was disturbing, and there's the class thing, but I did think that Lin-Liu was trying to think about these issues, as well as think about her own role as a Chinese-American woman living in China.

And did I mention the food? Reading this made me so hungry and homesick that I went through old trip photos to drool.

Comments

[loligo.livejournal.com]

Also, fish head is tasty

My grandmother would take me and my sisters fishing when we were little, and then afterwards she'd fry up all the fish. So we were accustomed from a young age to seeing fish served with the heads on and didn't think anything of it, but we still wouldn't *eat* the heads, and my grandmother would just roll her eyes and then neatly pick all the meat off the heads for herself.

She also served a roasted pig's head for Christmas one year, and regaled us with stories about her and her five siblings fighting over who got to eat the pig cheeks.

[oyceter]

Hee! I may have been horrified by fish heads when I first moved to Taiwan, but it was so long ago that I don't remember. Mostly I disliked fish with heads because it meant having to pick the bones out. But the one of my friends taught me to eat the cheek in elementary school, and I've always tried to grab it since.

Hey, they serve pig cheeks in Taiwan restaurants! My mom really likes them. I think they are ok but sometimes too chewy.

[keilexandra]

Fish head is VERY tasty. I've never had dog or penis or whatnot, so there's another data point for ya.

Eeee xiao long bao! My mom's in China right now... I so envy her fooding choices.

[oyceter]

Hee! I have to admit, I can't eat the eyeball yet, but I will gladly pick around the entire head to get at random bits of meat.

I cannot wait to go back to Taiwan in December now.

[(Anonymous)]

I grew up on fish eyeballs, so it's all good. XD Although I don't eat a lot of internal organs just because I'm picky about taste and texture. (Tongue and feet are good, ears/stomach/liver are not. Don't ask me why, I just eat what tastes good.)

Food Politics

[(Anonymous)]

How do you find the time to do this along with all your other work, m'dear? Impressive catalogue of reviews you have in your archive =) I forgot if you said you liked Jennifer 8 Lee's Fortune Cookie Chronicles...which one had better food descriptions?

--E.S.

Re: Food Politics

[oyceter]

Ah haha... I don't really have the time, but I do it anyway ;).

I found the Lee interesting but a bit shallow, especially in terms of racial history. She definitely touches on the role Chinese restaurants have to play with Chinese immigrants trying to make it in the US, but I feel she tries to brush over a lot of the ugliness. I also though the Lin-Liu had better food descriptions, just because the Lee is more on Chinese-American food, which I'm not very fond of. The Lin-Liu, on the other hand, had me totally drooling and missing Taiwan so much.

[laurashapiro.livejournal.com]

So glad you enjoyed this. (: I thought of you constantly while reading it. I loved the way the personal stories of the various cooks were woven into the book.

I agree that there were some problems, but it seemed to me like the author wasn't complacent about her class and the issues that it brought up. She was less self-aware about the ableism.

[oyceter]

Yeah, I did like that she at least thought about some things, even if she didn't necessarily do stuff about them. And OMG the food descriptions....

[laurashapiro.livejournal.com]

YES. I craved the noodle soups especially. NOM NOM NOM.

[daedala.livejournal.com]

(Followed in from the community.) Yes, but how were the recipes?????

[oyceter]

Um, I don't cook very often, so I skimmed them. Mostly they looked like recipes you don't get from a standard cookbook, although I am also not sure what a standard Chinese cookbook is either! They seemed to range from simpler, homestyle cooking, to a few fancy dishes from the Shanghai restaurant, but since I didn't try any of them, I can't say how they turn out, sorry =(.