Every Meal is Shared With You Now and Forever
Bún Bò Huế at Tương Lai (Cabramatta) | 1 August
It's nothing new under the sun to write about how love and food are entwined. How preparing a meal, the deliberate act of taking someone to a restaurant that you enjoy, the times when the scent of a familiar flavour sends you into a wave of emotions... A humanity that has been forever. It's what really made me want to start writing more, although I fear reproducing half-baked diaspora musings. But maybe that's why I do want to record it, precisely because of its eternal and intrinsic nature that transcends time and fuses communities together.
My grandma passed away on Sunday, and food has not tasted the same since. She was my third parent, and my constant. Until the last day that she could stand she would cook lunch and dinner for everyone. After school and work, the first thing that she would ask is whether I was having dinner. Almost without missing a day, she would cook for us. My gut wrenches from remembering the times when I declined and said I would eat later. The times that I've told her I was going out for dinner and her subsequent dejected mood. More than anything, I had declined her act of love. I deserve to feel this terrible, brokenhearted remorse.
She grew up learning to cook with her eyes and her nose. Being the fourth daughter of a Chinese immigrant in British occupied Malaysia, she was prohibited from getting an education by her father. She was basically illiterate, bar the few Chinese characters and basic English words she had to teach herself. I had always considered myself fortunate to be able to indulge in a cuisine many had only later been introduced to. A cuisine that was an almagation of Indian immigrants, Malay locals, many generations of Chinese-Malays and even the influence of British and Portuguese colonisers. She would pound her own spices for curries, cook herbal soups when we came into flu season. So much knowledge through simply absorbing the world around her. Learning the only way she really knew how. I loved her sambal which she would use on a variety of dishes. Nasi lemak. Fried okra. Fried fish. She really loved golden, deep fried delicacies. She introduced me to what Westerners would consider more "challenging" foods. Liver, blood jelly, tripe. I feel so lucky to be able to appreciate these foods. When I had a 2 year vegetarian stint, she would take the effort to cook me a separate dish with no meat. I'm honestly glad I started to eat meat again so I could taste her original cooking before it was too late. I should have known that through her cooking and her hours of preparation, her commitment to make sure we were fed were all intrinsic acts of love. I will never be able to taste it again. I will never be able to repay it.
I ate this bún bò huế after visiting the temple where my family and I have now decided to place her ashes. I had been crying until my eyes had become swollen, and looked bee-stung. I was weepy, still, when they brought this soup noodle out. While it was delicious with its spicy tang and careful notes of fermented seafood, like most of the meals I've had since, it was dampened by the flavour of grief. The thought of being unable to share this with her dulled the usual melody of aromas I would get from that first taste of the soup. If she were with me, I would have asked for a separate little bowl for her to try the silky noodles and bits of Vietnamese ham. Now and until forever, I thought, I could not ever return those acts of care to her. So from that day I promised that every meal is shared with her. I will think of her in every bowl of noodle soup, every bite of curry, even whatever bland work lunch I may have. Tonight is the 7th day since her death, so I poured us a glass of her favourite beer (Guiness) and we served her a little plate of our dinner on the makeshift altar in her room and I feel a little better about it all.
