W hen Hu Youzhen was in middle school in the 1970s, one of her most anticipated home-
cooked treats was often a spoonful of pork fat hidden at the bottom of her bowl, served with her father’s affection and melted by the warmth of the rice on top.
Hu, who grew up in the county of Wuxue, Hubei province, as the oldest of four children, was given this special treat without her siblings’ knowledge because she had to walk 10 kilometers each way to and from school, where she boarded during the week. Her father, an alcohol distillery manager, thought the campus diet—mostly rice and 1 fen soup from the canteen, plus pickles brought from home—wasn’t enough to keep up her strength for her studies.
Whenever Hu found the glistening treasure in her rice, she would glance at her father, who would then throw back a look that “told me to keep it on the down low, so as not to upset my siblings,” Hu, now in her late 50s and an English teacher at a Beijing university, recalls. There wasn’t always
enough to treat everyone in such a big family. “It was an age where we didn’t cook much We thought lard with rice was the most delicious thing in the world.”
马加爵
犯罪心理分析Pork fat mixed with rice (猪油
分水器拌饭)—consisting of a chunk of jade-like solidified lard melting
盲文图书on a steaming bowl of rice, often completed with a dash of soy sauce and sprinkles of scallions—is not a culinary invention that any region in China cares to boast as its representative cuisine. But that doesn’t stop writers from devoting passionate words to its flavors. In 2014, Nanjing Normal University
Press published Fatty Meat, a collection
of essays from around 100 authors who
wrote about what this decadent cut
of pork meant to them. In the essay
“Revolutionary Fatty Meat,” author
Chi Li recalled receiving a jar of lard
as a token of gratitude for her work as
a laborer and teacher in a small village
in the 1970s. Painting a vivid picture
of enjoying a small piece of lard with
a bowl of steaming, newly harvested
rice, seasoned with scallions and salt,
on a snowy day, she writes, “One bite:
suddenly, the mountains and waters
were clear and beautiful, the wind
gentle and sun charming, and the
world became so lovely.”
Many people in China who lived博尔赫斯
through the era of planned economy
and state-rationed food supplies in the
mid-to-late 20th century recall waiting
in long lines to buy meat and cooking
oil, both rare commodities that had
石家庄雾霾治理to be purchased with “meat stamps.”
Anxiously eyeing the fattiest piece of绝世好简历
pork hanging in the butchery window
is a distinct memory for many, due to
its scarcity. “You needed connections
to be able to buy fatty meat,” writes LARDER THAN LIFE A taste of opulence that supported generations
of Chinese through an age of scarcity
一碗猪油拌饭，何以让几代人心心念念？
TEXT BY SIYI CHU (褚司怡)
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