The ritual of meals at my home(2nd version)
by Edmond

After some serious thinking about my family history, regrettably, I could not come up with a dish that bears a particular meaning for my family. Instead, what we do to food may be more telling than what we eat in specific.

My mum was from the Chiu Chow (潮州) of Guangdong Province, but now she does not cook any special dish from the region anymore, since she has long accustomed to the Hong Kong society and learned to cook local family dishes. I also pondered over why she did not try to attempt. After some casual conversations with her, I concluded that it is not true that she did not know the cooking nor did she feel bored doing it, just that our home does not have enough space to do since some Chiu Chow delicacies require a good amount of preparation and handling of the food. In early 1990s, our family moved to a 300 square-feet apartment in Li Cheng Uk Estate, with a kitchen so small that my mum could merely turn around. Also, my mum has long been complaining the food in Hong Kong is not comparable to that in Chiu Chow, especially the beef ball and the roasted duck.

My mum is arguably the only one who is in charge of all the meals in the family. Every time when a dish that requires much effort is done, it will not be put on the dining table right away. Rather, it has got to be ‘eaten’ by the gods whom our family believes in.

What she, or sometimes we the children, do is to place the dish in front of the worship cabinet, light up a thin bundle of incense and say our prayers in a soft voice, hoping that we will be rewarded good luck, health, wealth and things like that. The children don’t do it on their own initiative, so the prayers, for most of the time, are empty.

What is even more interesting is that, there is a hierarchy of assigning different dishes to different gods. Usually the ancestors of our Chan family are served with the best ones, for example, fried chicken wings and steamed fish; the God of the Earth has the more common food. However, don’t ask me about how the allocation system exactly works. It only makes sense to my mum’s mind.

Another peculiarity to note is that my mum says the prayers only in the Chiu Chow dialect, never in Cantonese although she is fluent in it. Maybe there are some ideas or wishes that can only be communicated perfectly through the dialect, or the local gods do not understand Cantonese? I learn that while some religions like Christianity are global, some are still local and bound to other cultural customs such as language.

Even though such practice makes little sense to us, the young generation of the family, it does bear certain significance in terms of the sense of identity. It keeps our mind fresh that our root is in my hometown in Chiu Chow while we flourish in Hong Kong. And I believe that, albeit my mum’s unawareness of it, it is a kind of cultural custom that make us feel we are doing the same thing as our relatives in Chiu Chow. Maybe a family connection by the means of religions?
Without any doubt, Chiu Chow has a lot of food that can stimulate your appetite to offer, just that my family has moved to Hong Kong for a long time and abandoned cooking most of the traditional dishes due to the time and space constraint of cooking them. Only essential parts of the original rituals are kept and practiced. I suspect that it is a common phenomenon for most of the families that moved to Hong Kong from mainland a long time ago. And that makes the important local gods of their original places emigrate with the people!

Vegetable Tea
By Anna Wong

INGREDIENTS:
Spinach, cabbage, snow pea, lettuce, celery, crowndaisy chrysanthemum, garlic, bean sprouts, thin bean, dried shrimps, diced meat and squids.

METHODS:
1) Slice or dice all the vegetables
2) Boil the vegetables and mix them well
3) Fry the dried shrimps, diced meat and squids
4) Mix all the ingredients together
5) Boil salt tea
6) Pour salt tea into the mixture
7) Add peanuts, parched rice, salted radish and dried shrimps according to your choice

STORY:
‘Vegetable Tea’ is a famous traditional dish of my motherland - Heifeng County(海豐縣) in Shanwei City (汕尾市). We usually make this dish during Chinese New Year, around the 10th to 15th of the first month of the Lunar Year. Unlike other festival dishes, it is comparatively easy to make. However, it takes a lot of time to slice and dice. Therefore, apart from mommies, other family members would also take part. Once everything is done, we’ll invite relatives and friends to come and enjoy the tea.

My parents came to Hong Kong in 1979, a year before the abolishment of Reached-base Policy. They got married in 1981 and lived in a cottage around Lam Tin District. Two years later, they were relocated to the Temporary Housing Area (臨時房屋區, THA) close to Richland Gardens at Kowloon Bay. Each house is divided into tens of tiny flats, with one flat per household. Many fellow townsmen lived nearby and we gradually formed a small community within this area.

During Chinese New Year, my parents and I used to visit grandparents in the Mainland. We usually stayed there for a week and came back before the vegetable tea gathering. My parents continued this tradition in Hong Kong. They asked some neighbors to help. Since our house cannot accommodate so many people, we usually put the table in front of our flat and ask neighbors to enjoy the tea under sunshine. It was like the old days in their homeland.

The clearance of THA begins from early 90s and the last was demolished in 2001. In 1993, we were arranged to a public housing flat in the fifth new town (新市鎮) - Tsueng Kwan O. Most of our neighbors moved to different districts such as Kwun Tong and even Tsing Yi. Only a few live nearby. In the first year, we invited them to join our vegetable tea gathering. And we went to their flats as well. But later on, only those live close to us came. In recent years, only our family members join this gathering.

Originally, this dish served many functions apart from filling stomach. It gathered townsmen together after migration. They could exchange information and news. Let’s say if someone within the group needed help, they could discuss and organize during the gathering. However, this function cannot last and the community was shaken and broken down.

Fish Maw Soup
by Ranae So

Fish maw soup is an excellent dish in the Hokkiens’ menu, especially for the wedding banquet and celebrating some Chinese festivals. It is mainly made up of deep fried fish maw (the air bladder of large fish), dried scallop, lean meat, chopped green onions, white pepper, salt and water (see the following photo).

Photo of Fish Maw Soup

But do you know who the Hokkiens are? And why do they treasure the fish maw soup so much in the menu?

Hokkiens is marine habitants who are originated from Fujian province in China. We can find the similar ‘boatprint’ in Southeast Asian countries, like Taiwan, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Burma, Thailand and Indonesia.

In Hong Kong, they mainly scatter in the New Territories (for example, Taipo, Sai Kung and Tai O) and Aberdeen. The majority of them speak Chew Chau Hoklo or Hakka Hoklo. The language diversity is attributed to the ancestries and provinces originated from. But nowadays, many Hokkiens are resettled in the public housing estate . They are able to speak Cantonese as a kind of lingua franca .

Fish maw soup is one of the Hokkien dishes that open up one of the gateways for the non-Hokkiens to understand the ethnic history and development of the former. In fact, when I talked with my mum about the dish, she was so enthusiastic about sharing the information of the traditional Hokkien wedding ceremony and her personal experience of the arranged marriage. Undeniable is it that her feeling really influences me on how I value marriage and finding partner.

Hokkien is a patriarchic minority group. Men are always perceived as superior than women and are qualified as the only asset successor. When Hokkien woman gives birth to daughters, some of them would decide to drown the girls or sell as child brides in the old days. Obviously, it is the common scenario in Chinese society that women’s status is inferior compared to men. A lot of gender inequality can be found.

I think my mum’s story can show a tip of the iceberg about the Hokkien women’s choice of marriage. When my grandpa passed away, she became the only breadwinner in her family. At that time, she was only 12 years old. She had to work in the factories and sojourn in her relatives’ houses although she got the elder brother who was supposedly capable of earning a living to release the financial burden. Unfortunately, he had low incentive to work. But my grandma did not blame the laziness of my uncle instead of arranging marriage for him and needed my mum to do all housework, cook and serve the guests during the wedding ceremony.

Few years later, my grandma was rebuked by the relatives about her apathy on my mum. They suggested that my mum should get married. However, she never thought of finding a partner and did not want to marry someone who she was not familiar with.

But my grandma attempted to commit suicide to force my mum to accept such unreasonable decision. Before wedding, she only met my father twice.

Every time when I hear her story, I always have questions on my mind.

• Do I need to find the Hokkien man to marry with? But some of them are educational deficit, bumptious, and conservative in sense that they do not support gender equality…

• If I keep solitude, will my parents suddenly force me to receive the arranged marriage just as same as their case?

• Should we preserve the culture of the arranged marriage as a kind of symbol of recognizing the Hokkien-beings?

• Will the Hokkien wedding tradition decline when the younger generation is losing interest to learn, understand and conserve the culture?

• When the Hokkien children tend to Hongkonger-like, are they proud of their ethnic identity?

In the recent decades, Hong Kong is raising tempo to cosmopolitanize and globalize. Global and local citizenship override the significancy of the ethnic identification. The older Hokkien generation encounters many cultural shocks that they are forced to forgo their tradition means of production and living styles, but provide human capitals to blossom the Hong Kong’s economic growth. However, their efforts are always omitted the sight. Some of them easily become marginalized population.

Because of the majority population with low literacy, a lot of employers hire them as unskilled, part-time or temporary workers. The employment security is relatively low.

So they transfer their own dream and efforts of rearing child. They want their next generation to have a brighter future than them, neither working in fishing nor construction, logistics and manufacturing industries. But when their younger generation is heavily influenced by the mass culture and value, the maintenance of the ethnic identity and cultural inheritance is difficult to start. Where are their homes? Boat? Public housing estate? Hokkien identity? Or Hong Kong citizenship? It is really questionable.

Supplementary Information
(1) Cooking Method of Fish Maw Soup :

• Soak dried scallop and fish maw with a bowl of warm water for 2 hours. Squeeze out any excess water.
• Slice lean meat into small pieces
• Put dried scallop, fish maw and lean meat in a pot. Boil for one hour on medium heat.
• Add pepper, salt and chopped green onions when heat turns off.

(2) A Brief Summary of Hokkien Wedding Activity
In Hokkien culture, the wedding ceremony always lasts for 4 days.

Day 1:

• serve the relatives with meals to drum up any physical or financial supports on wedding, for example, preparing the Chinese wedding rite and ensuring enough number of people to participate in ‘rowing boat’ activity on next day to carry the brides to the groom’s families, and so forth.

Day 2:

• rowing boat in the morning and banquet in the evening

Day 3 (optional):

• serve the relatives with meals to thank their devotion to the whole wedding

Day 4:

• the brides’ first visit to their families after they get married

1) The colonial government implemented a series of land and economic policies for economic restructuring in 1970s and 1980s, removing the labour force from primary industry to the secondary/ tertiary sectors.
2) Lingua franca means the common language used by different groups for communication and exchange information.

Pomelo Skin with Oyster Sauce
蠔油柚皮

資料提供: Kitty Ma

材料
- 蒜頭
- 豉油
- 蠔油
- 糖
- 柚子皮

功效： 健胃化痰、潤肺止咳

製法：
1. 去除柚皮的苦澀味
2. 以火輕彈柚皮的表面, 然後挖/刨去表面的「青」
3. 用水將柚皮浸軟後, 用力將水份揸乾, 以除去柚皮的苦澀味
4. 將3.反復做多次, 直至大部份苦味除去 (* 據聞這需要幾天的功夫~)
5. 爆香蒜頭, 放入已軟身的柚皮
6. 加上豉油及蠔油炆煮, 最後加糖

*** 快速制法: 柚皮featuring 半自動洗衣機!! ***

蠔油柚皮是近乎無本生利的菜式, 成本低微, 但為了去除柚皮的苦澀味, 就需花上很多的力氣和時間。為了免除這煩複, 又費時的工序, 老爸 --- 明哥忽發奇想, 利用舊時十分普遍的半自動洗衣機代替人手處理柚皮。年輕的你可能不知道什麼是半自動洗衣機。這款洗衣機呈長方形, 身高及腰, 由兩個圓筒組成, 高速旋轉以產生離心力, 在一邊注水洗滌, 然後人手拿到另一邊去水乾衣。

明哥「物盡其用」, 利用半自動洗衣機一邊浸軟柚皮, 一邊抽乾水份, 就是這樣反覆做多次, 替祖母省卻了很幾天的功夫。

蠔油柚皮的故事
祖父年青的時候背著小檔子賣粉麵, 後來成家立室, 便與祖母開始大排檔的生意。大排檔位於長沙灣菜市場(現址蔬菜統營處), 雖然算是「走鬼」大排檔, 但亦有13張大桌為附近的工廠和屠房工人提供三餐。
以前的人常說前鋪後居, 大排檔算不上正式的鋪子, 而祖父一家八口, 包括我的爸爸和姑姑們, 就住在大排檔旁邊搭建的木屋。大排檔的食客大多是打工仔, 因此菜式和價錢都很大眾化, 例如蠔油柚皮就是其中一味廉價, 又健康的菜色。

那個在我還未出世的時代, 爸爸和姑姑們都有在大排檔幫忙, 每一個都是廚藝高手, 能炒能煮。後來棚屋失火, 排檔和家園毀於一旦。大排檔便「走鬼」到沙田的芽菜坑(大概是現在沙田文化中心附近)重新經營。之後, 子女們各自成家立室, 再加上政府收地和公屋安置, 大排檔的生意便結束了。

CIP4 Family Dishes with family history –
“Salted and Smoked ma yau fish” (臘馬友魚)
– By Siu Law

I can name myself as a Cheung Chau person (長洲人) because early in 1907, few years after HK was rented to British government for 99 years in 1898 as colony, my great great grandfather together with my young great grandfather moved to HK from Gwangdong Zhongshan. The reason for why they choose to stay in Cheung Chau was anonymous, but for sure some of their friends or business partners were there. Anyway, soon after they move to HK, my great grand mother also followed them and clearly marked my family’s migrating point. Since then, my great grand father get married in HK, my grandfather’s generation as well as my father’s generation was born in Cheung Chau. They rarely go back to Zhongshan and had no direct liaison with relatives there. Although my generation was not born and lives in Cheung Chau, I treat Cheung Chau as my “hometown” and share an obvious Cheung Chau person identity as my father does, simply because my “ancestor house” is there and I need to go to Cheung Chau for tomb sweeping, all my ancestors since my great great grandparents’ generations buried there.

Cheung Chau is a small island. It is a fishing village and not much farmland can be found. According to historical information, Cheung Chau became a gathering point for fishermen since Ming Dynasty and the land market (市集) was developed in Ching Dynasty. When my ancestor came to Cheung chau, there were just around 3000 fisherman and 5000 people living in the land. Although we are not fishermen, our family dishes relate closely with fish products. The reason is simply because fish products are so common and easily access in fishing village like Cheung Chau. Until now, you can still see many seafood / fish related products stores everywhere, like shop selling dried shrimp, salty fish, maw, dried shrimp paste, special kind of fishball…

As a Cheung Chau people, I like eating seafood related products, e.g. dried shrimp paste with steam pork and fishball. When I ask my father about our family dishes, most of them related to seafood products like maw that would only eat in celebration time, “salted and fresh” fish (鹹鮮魚) in daily meals. But what surprised me is to know about “salted and smoked ma yau fish” (臘馬友魚), which I had never tried before, is also an important family dish and could even reflect the development and changing of HK society.

Most of us know what is salty fish (鹹魚), coz we could easily found them in the market. But “salted and smoked fish” (臘魚) may not be so common, as we could only found “salted and smoked” duck or sausage but not fish in the market. As for “salted and fresh” fish (鹹鮮魚), it maybe a common method for us to keep fish for more days, similar method could be use to store meat as well. Anyway, all of the mentioned stuff is for preservation needs and reflects a different duration of preservation period. Salty fish could keep for the longest time among the three method, follow by “salted and smoked fish” and lastly the “salted and fresh” fish (鹹鮮魚).

It is not common for normal family to make salty fish (鹹魚) cause we need a very sunny places and takes very long time to dry it. On contrary, it is very easy to make “salted and fresh fish” (鹹鮮魚), you can simply paste some salt on the meat and keep it in the fridge, and can enable the meat to keep for 1 – 2 days. The freshness would still be there together with the salty taste when you steam it. Then how about “salted and smoked fish” (臘魚)? The making method is similar with the “salted and fresh fish” (鹹鮮魚), but what makes it difference related to the drying part. After putting the salt in the fish, you need to put it in a cool place and let the wind to dry it for few days. As there is a spacious roof in my Cheung Chau home, it could enable the drying process go smoothly. But why I have never tried this important family dish before? I think maybe because fridge is so common nowadays, so we no need to use the “salted and smoked” method to store fish anymore. But for my father’s generation during his study age, it is obviously not the case.

As mentioned, Cheung Chau is only a small island. There was no English teaching medium school in my father’s study period. In order to seek a better education, my grandmother managed to send my father and all his six siblings to city area to further their secondary studies. My father is the third child, by the time he went to Wan Chai to study secondary school, my big Uncle and big aunt was already studying in Shau Kei Wan and Tsim Sha Tsui respectively. Unlike nowadays’ convenient and efficient travel, people need to take very slow ferry to Central, and it would be too tire for students to go outside and come back to Cheung Chau daily. To settle this problem, they need to stay in relatives’ home as “visitor”, in my father’s term it calls “搭食搭住”. It is also uneasy to find a big house to cater all the siblings, that’s why my father and siblings were scattered into different relatives’ home in different location. While my father lives with his uncle in North Point, my big aunt lives with her aunt in Hung Hum. My father commented my generation are very lucky because we can live together and take care by our parents in study period.

We all know 50 years ago’s Hong Kong is not a rich society, people are comparatively poor and many people are living in the same flat. People’s bonding and human relationship is also stronger than nowadays. It’s lucky but also common for people to live with relatives when they are in needed. In my father’s case, living with relatives could also save some money for rent. In order to compensate his uncle, my father recalled whenever he and his siblings went back to Cheung Chau for weekend holiday, they would gives some “salted and smoked Ma Yau fish” for their relatives as “rent”, because Ma Yau is a cheap and common food sauce in Cheung Chau. City people have comparatively less chance to access to fish.

To conclude, we are lucky in nowadays as we could easily access to so many things and foods. However, something is also missing under the fast development. Human bonding is not as strong as previous generations. When I heard about my father’s story, it also reminds me about the Ethnic Minorities in nowadays HK. When one new family migrate from their home country to HK, they must found to live near their relatives, that’s why, we can see a Little Nepal in Jordan area, a little Thailand in Kowloon city, as well as a little Pakistan in Yuen Long. Human bounding is still strong for the EM, but how about the local Chinese in our generation?
______________________________________________________________

Ingredients (To be modify)

• Ma Yau Fish x 1 pcs
• Salt

Methods

• Wash and clean the Ma Yau Fish
• Put some salt on the fish
• Put it in a cool place and dry it properly with wind
• Steam the dry fish when you need to eat

香港文匯報
[2004-09-19] 杜亦有道：冷佬和鶴佬

阿杜

　潮汕人在香港老一輩人家口中分為「冷佬」和「鶴佬」，寫起來有大篇文章，一般而言，屬潮州、揭陽、 潮安、汕頭一帶之「正宗潮州人」被通稱「冷佬」，「冷」唸ROUND高半度聲的「冷」音，近似粵人稱「冷衫」毛「冷」之「冷」，而汕尾、海豐、陸豐、澄海 一帶近閩南地域者，則被稱為「鶴佬」，但切勿以為是鶴山縣之「鶴」，而是近「學習」的「學」音。

　同是潮汕語系人，已分「冷佬」和「鶴佬」，「冷佬」之由來是潮州人唸「人」為「冷」，「冷佬」按字義而言是「人佬」，意思重複了，皆因潮語說「人」為「冷」，就被廣府人叫為「冷佬」。

　而「鶴佬」則因為他們和福建南部語系相通，在穗港一帶海陸豐人和福建人來往者多，就被本地人通稱「福佬」，但潮閩語系沒有F音，姓馮的被叫姓「洪」，「福佬」唸成「鶴佬」，於是就有「鶴佬」此稱之誕生，因此「鶴佬」也是潮汕人之一，和鶴山之「鶴」無關。

　至於香港市井間對去吃街檔潮州小菜和吃潮州粥稱為「打冷」，則和「打潮州人」完全無涉，「打」者是「進行式」，和「打主意」、「打番份數」，乘計程車為「打的」差不多，吃潮州東西就被叫作「打冷」了。

　香港父老另有一說法，謂早年之潮食大牌檔多在灣仔春園街、柯布連道等一帶交通暢流點，晚上坐車出街 尋吃的人，在此一帶路上打了幾個轉Round，打鰦幾個「冷」都仍只是見潮食檔口，那就只有坐下吃碗「潮州妹」（稀飯「糜」之音）和點幾味鹹菜魚、鹵墨 魚、豬大腸等平民小菜果腹，於是後來就把吃潮州小食稱為「打冷」。此時之「冷」是兜個圈之Round「冷」，而不是潮州冷「人」之「冷」了。

《龍舟陸上扒：由鶴佬婚俗看族群身份的認同》（摘要）

　　我們以原居於大埔元洲仔的鶴佬人為基礎，以文獻搜尋、訪問及實地考察為考察方法，走訪了香港大學圖書 館和香港歷史檔案館，找到許多珍貴的政府年報和歷史檔案，從中發現不少鮮為人知的歷史資料：例如在徐帶妹女士的訪問中，我們發現傳統鶴佬婚禮中有不少有趣 的儀式，當中以扒龍舟接新娘的儀式最為特別；另外在1956至1960年的漁農處周年報告中，我們發覺於1958和1959年短短兩年間，大埔鶴佬漁民按 年增加百分比分別高達63%和52%，原因竟和中國現代史上的「大躍進」時期有關；透過與廖迪生教授的訪問，我們引證鶴佬婚禮是一個本地創發的傳統，更是 一個團結鶴佬族群的重要途徑。

　 　既然鶴佬婚禮的傳統是隨著時代的變更而被發明，但原來這被發明的傳統是以象徵的方式表達，這跟霍布斯邦（Hobsbawm，2002）在《被發明的傳 統》指出，當被創造的傳統是對新時局的反應，卻以與舊情境相關的形式出現的說法如出一轍。現時鶴佬婚禮中的種種用品，不論是一支紅電筒，一個水壺，又或是 一個紅夾，都有其象徵意義，一般人或許不會留意這些用品，但它們卻是鶴佬人致力保存傳統婚禮儀式和其精神所遺留的絲絲痕跡。鶴佬人的婚禮傳統一方面隨環境 轉變而被發明，另一面則由外界對水上文化的認識而再被重新發明。但不論是任何一種，鶴佬人均透過此，再一次鞏固自己族群的身份。

　 　鶴佬人的傳統婚禮儀式盛大，在都市化的急促步伐下，儀式大為簡約，亦被鶴佬人創發出獨有的傳統文化，而鶴佬婚禮之重要性在於這婚俗儀式竟能維繫鶴佬人， 身為香港四大族群之一，鶴佬文化透過婚禮的儀式得以薪火相傳，意義深遠。鶴佬婚禮既為鶴佬文化傳承之重要橋樑，亦絕對是香港重要非物質文化遺產之一。

資料來源 :http://www.wscss.edu.hk/np/3_studentworks/designed_topic/11/b11_n02.htm