I took some screenshots of this video, about âleftover womenâ in China, women who are unmarried and over the age of 25. I took screenshots every time someone said something that created a picture with the subtitles that justâŠ. resonated with me. Something women can truly understand.
-take your meds if you havenât
-eat something if you havenât
-go outside and get some fresh air if you havenât and are able to
-smile, youâre alive and thatâs pretty neat
The winner of Glamour's 2016 essay contest shares a story of heartbreak and in-the-kitchen healing.
Iâm so tired of white guys on TV telling me what to eat. Iâm tired of Anthony Bourdain testing the waters of Korean cuisine to report back that, not only will our food not kill you, it actually tastes good. I donât care how many times youâve traveled to Thailand, I wonât listen to youâjust like the white kids wouldnât listen to me, the half-Korean girl, defending the red squid tentacles in my lunch box. The same kids who teased me relentlessly back then are the ones who now celebrate our cuisine as the Next Big Thing.
I grew up in the Pacific Northwest, in a small college town that was about 90 percent white. In my adolescence I hated being half Korean; I wanted people to stop asking, âWhere are you really from?â I could barely speak the language and didnât have any Asian friends. There was nothing about me that felt Koreanâexcept when it came to food.
At home my mom always prepared a Korean dinner for herself and an American dinner for my dad. Despite the years heâd lived in Seoul, selling cars to the military and courting my mom at the Naija Hotel where she worked, my dad is still a white boy from Philadelphia.
So each night my mom prepared two meals. Sheâd steam broccoli and grill Dadâs salmon, while boiling jjigae and plating little side dishes known as banchan. When our rice cooker announced in its familiar robotic voice, âYour delicious white rice will be ready soon!â the three of us would sit down to a wondrous mash-up of East and West. Iâd create true fusion one mouthful at a time, using chopsticks to eat strips of T-bone and codfish eggs drenched in sesame oil, all in one bite. I liked my baked potatoes with fermented chili paste, my dried cuttlefish with mayonnaise.
Thereâs a lot to love about Korean food, but what I love most is its extremes. If a dish is supposed to be served hot, itâs scalding. If itâs meant to be served fresh, itâs still moving. Stews are served in heavy stone pots that hold the heat; crack an egg on top, and it will poach before your eyes. Cold noodle soups are served in bowls made of actual ice.
By my late teens my craving for Korean staples started to eclipse my desire for American ones. My stomach ached for al tang and kalguksu. On long family vacations, with no Korean restaurant in sight, my mom and I passed up hotel buffets in favor of microwaveable rice and roasted seaweed in our hotel room.
And when I lost my mother to a very sudden, brief, and painful fight with cancer two years ago, Korean food was my comfort food. She was diagnosed in 2014. That May sheâd gone to the doctor for a stomachache only to learn she had a rare squamous cell carcinoma, stage four, and that it had spread. Our family was blindsided.
I moved back to Oregon to help my mother through chemoÂtherapy; over the next four months, I watched her slowly disappear. The treatment took everythingâher hair, her spirit, her appetite. It burned sores on her tongue. Our table, once beautiful and unique, became a battleground of protein powders and tasteless porridge. I crushed Vicodin into ice cream.
Dinnertime was a calculation of calories, an argument to get anything down. The intensity of Korean flavors and spices became too much for her to stomach. She couldnât even eat kimchi.
I began to shrink along with my mom, becoming so consumed with her health that I had no desire to eat. Over the course of her illness, I lost 15 pounds. After two rounds of chemo, she decided to discontinue treatment, and she died two months later.
As I struggled to make sense of the loss, my memories often turned to food. When I came home from college, my mom used to make galbi ssam, Korean short rib with lettuce wraps. Sheâd have marinated the meat two days before Iâd even gotten on the plane, and sheâd buy my favorite radish kimchi a week ahead to make sure it was perfectly fermented.
Then there were the childhood summers when she brought me to Seoul. Jet-lagged and sleepless, weâd snack on homemade banchan in the blue dark of Grandmaâs humid kitchen while my relaÂtives slept. My mom would whisper, âThis is how I know youâre a true Korean.â
But my mom never taught me how to make Korean food. When I would call to ask how much water to use for rice, sheâd always say, âFill until it reaches the back of your hand.â When Iâd beg for her galbi recipe, she gave me a haphazard ingredient list and approximate measurements and told me to just keep tasting it until it âtastes like Momâs.â
After my mom died, I was so haunted by the trauma of her illness I worried Iâd never remember her as the woman she had been: stylish and headstrong, always speaking her mind. When she appeared in my dreams, she was always sick.
Then I started cooking. When I first searched for Korean recipes, I found few resources, and I wasnât about to trust Bobby Flayâs Korean taco monstrosity or his clumsy kimchi slaw. Then, among videos of oriental chicken salads, I found the Korean YouTube personality Maangchi. There she was, peeling the skin off an Asian pear just like my mom: in one long strip, index finger steadied on the back of the knife. She cut galbi with my momâs ambidextrous precision: positioning the chopsticks in her right hand while snipping bite-size pieces with her left. A Korean woman uses kitchen scissors the way a warrior brandishes a weapon.
Iâd been looking for a recipe for jatjuk, a porridge made from pine nuts and soaked rice. Itâs a dish for the sick or elderly, and it was the first food I craved when my feelings of shock and loss finally made way for hunger.
I followed Maangchiâs instructions carefully: soaking the rice, breaking off the tips of the pine nuts. Memories of my mother emerged as I workedâthe way she stood in front of her little red cutting board, the funny intonations of her speech.
For many, Julia Child is the hero who brought boeuf bourguignon into the era of the TV dinner. She showed home cooks how to scale the culinary mountain. Maangchi did this for me after my mom died. My kitchen filled with jars containing cabbage, cucumbers, and radishes in various stages of fermentation. I could hear my momâs voice: âNever fall in love with anyone who doesnât like kimchi; theyâll always smell it coming out of your pores.â
Iâve spent over a year cooking with Maangchi. Sometimes I pause and rewind to get the steps exactly right. Other times Iâll let my hands and taste buds take over from memory. My dishes are never exactly like my momâs, but thatâs OKâtheyâre still a delicious tribute. The more I learn, the closer I feel to her.
One night not long ago, I had a dream: I was watching my mother as she stuffed giant heads of Napa cabbage into earthenware jars.
She looked healthy and beautiful.
Michelle Zauner is a writer and musician in Brooklyn.
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