By Uyen Hoang
Uyen, her siblings, and her mother at Trung Tâm Công Giáo in Santa Ana. She is the closest to her mother, perhaps in more ways than is pictured.
Recently, I have been missing my mother. I don’t find her love in embraces and kisses; it exists within stainless steel pots and pans. It is a more full/filling kind of love.
Today the gnawing at my stomach eats at my soul and whispers to be fed. So I embark on a journey to recreate memories and feelings in a swirling pot of soup. Today I am making canh chua cá, sweet and sour fish soup.
A perfect balance of flavors, whose vibrant colors painted my childhood with light green slippery okra, a taste on my tongue that was so similar to falling down playground slides. That golden pineapple was sweet as sunshine on Sunday and the softness of stewed catfish reminded me of my mother’s breast, the nest where I would doze listening to the sounds of her cải lương. The wispy clouds of steam from the pot were just like the sound of her singing lullabies in that Vietnamese opera style, the notes reaching higher and higher, dancing from her lips to the ceiling. All of the parts of this the soup she had made with ingredients grown from the garden of her life, soil given to her by her mother.
This soup was the one that I desired to make.
Determination, desperation, and trepidation guided me to a 99 Ranch, familiarity in any strange place. Standing bathed in fluorescent flickering lights, I strained to hear my mother’s voice in my mind for direction to lead me to the ingredients that she uses. Instead I hear her proud voice declaring that no one can cook like her. None of her daughters can coax the flavors out like she can.
I search for her recipe in the catacombs of my mind, but the memories are inaccessible. Armed with Internet recipes, I weave through crowded aisles, finding everything I need. Except fresh pineapple.
Shit.
I guess canned pineapple will have to do. But will it?
I lean back to hear stern chastising from my mother, but I hear nothing.
Back in my lair, like a witch and her brew, I peer into my pot. Could I concoct some magic that brings me closer to my mother, memories, and soul? Can I recreate the love that I have been raised on? A fearful tasting of broth, moment of truth and… damn. Another miss. But I had found the tamarind and rau răm! Was it the canned pineapples? Was it the fucking canned pineapples? Was it…?!
I don’t really like my soup. Or any Vietnamese cooking that I do. It is always just so… subtly off. It is maddening to seek flavors I can’t describe but can’t live without.
So is this Vietnamese food? Or am I a Vietnamese woman who cannot make Vietnamese food?
Tired of my offbeat flavors, I feed my lover my soup. Not just to finish off another stock of mistakes more quickly, but because I have been taught to love through food by the queens in my life; my mother, aunties, and grandmas.
Although, if I am completely honest, it is also partly because I don’t want to reminded of my deficiency at every mealtime for an entire week because, just like those queens in my life, I cook enough to raise armies. I sit in nervous silence watching my lover raise the spoon to her lips. She turns to me and smiles.
“It’s really good!”
I ask again just be sure. A gentle kiss and clean bowl was the response, everything consumed. Everything except the canned pineapples. And not because she knows about my problematic canned pineapples, she just doesn’t like fruit.
The soup was no good to me, but it nourishes her. The cries from my heart, the gnawing at my stomach grew quiet and content, purring, beaming with satisfaction. And even though I am still hungry, I am brimming with this full/filling love.
About the Author: Uyen Hoang (she/hers) is currently a graduate student pursuing her Masters in Asian American Studies and Masters of Public Health at UCLA. Hailing from Garden Grove, Orange County, she is the middle child of five in her immigrant Vietnamese American family. She likes puppies, peonies, and is not lactose intolerant, which is important because she lives for cheesy puns.
