Xi’an Famous Foods: chef Jason Wang didn’t know how good he had it in China until he moved to the US
- In his cookbook, Xi’an Famous Foods, the New York City-based restaurateur recalls the foods he enjoyed as a child in Shaanxi province
- The book includes recipes for dishes sold at Wang’s eateries, including for liang pi noodles, rou jia mou and a variety of dumplings
As Jason Wang writes in Xi’an Famous Foods (2020), he didn’t really appreciate the life he had when he was living in Xi’an, with his extended family, before his parents decided, when Wang was aged eight, to move to the United States.
He describes eating cumin-dusted lamb skewers cooked over charcoal in the Muslim Quarter. “Those lamb skewers were almost the only thing I would eat as a kid. They were irresistible to me – smoky, savoury, spicy, with a touch of char, snapping with crushed cumin seeds. Every other dish I tried paled in comparison.
“And yet, the food would be there, a daily constant, just like the red scarf I wore to school every day and the morning salute to the Chinese flag. On weekends, I’d walk to school, hum the Chinese national anthem, learn some grammar and math, and walk home for lunch with my grandfather, who always had a bowl of lamb pao-mo ready for me.
“After a nap, I’d head back to school again, and then arrive home just as my mother put on a pot of hong shao ribs and started washing rice for dinner, all the while yelling at me to practise piano. On weekends, I’d go to my grandmother’s house, where I watched my aunt tend to the garden, harvest eggs from the chicken coop, and pick loquats and walnuts from the trees framing the front door.
“I didn’t know how good I had it.”
Then Wang’s parents announced the upcoming move: “I’m excited, expecting annual trips to Disneyland and a magical elixir known as hot chocolate […] We’re dropped into the snowy woods of Michigan, and I see my childhood of concrete and smoke replaced with cookie-cutter houses, painted red and blue and yellow, with porches and lawns and the tallest oak and evergreen trees I’d ever seen. My life turns into a ‘coming to America’ reel […]