HAKKA CULTURAL FOOD or 客(Kè)家(Jiā)文(Wén)化(Huà)
THE MIGHTY TARO AND ITS MEDICAL USE
Taro (Colocasia esculenta) has been known since before the Han period, primarily grown as a root vegetable for its edible, starchy corm. It speaks for the traditional Chinese concept of “medicine-food homology” (藥食同源), in harmony with today’s diet trends “Food Rx,” namely food as medicine. According to the Chinese herbology volume Compendium of Materia Medica (《本草綱目》, completed in 1578), taro corms are nourishing and benefits the digestive system exhausting from humidity, “[taro corms] comfort stomach and intestines, moisturise skin, stimulate smoothness and free flow. If consumed cold, [taro corms] treat the vexing heat, quench thirst. [Taro corms also] enrich the body and brighten skin, whet the appetite and unblock intestine closure … If boiled with fish, [taro corms] descend the stomach qi which flows against its proper direction, regulate the central qi and supplement depletion.” (寬腸胃，充肌膚，滑中。療煩熱，止渴。令人肥白，開胃通腸閉......和魚煮食，甚下氣，調中補虛. For full text in English, please consult the translated and annotated volume by Dr. Paul Unschuld.) This explains the almost ubiquitous presence of taro root in Cantonese and southern Hokkien cuisine: people there have taro roots as a food-tonic for heat exhaustion. Want a treat in the warm and muggy DC summer? Let’s look at Yuxuan’s Cantonese morsels made from taro corms!
NAMHUNG STUFFED TOFU PUFF (南雄酿豆腐泡）
MAIN INGREDIENTS: tofu puff, taro root, ducat mushroom (dried baby shiitake mushroom), dried shrimp, red pearl onion, scallion, water chestnut, bresaola, duck prosciutto, duck fat, extra virgin olive oil, fish sauce, and granulated sugar.
HISTORY: Hakka Stuffed Tofu is a product of migration: wheat for making dumpling wrappers does not grow in South China. Therefore, the ancestors of the Hakkas substitute the neutral-flavoured tofu for the wheat-based wrappers. In the basic Hakka version, the case is firm tofu, triangular or rectangular, rinsed and drained, dug with chopsticks, then filled with seasoned ground pork or shrimp. First deep-fried, then braising or steaming, stuffed tofu has always been the central piece of a festive feast.
Since the ordinary stuffed firm tofu is available in several Chinese restaurants in DMV, Yuxuan brings a version using tofu puff, a speciality of Namhung (南雄) in the mountainous northern Guangdong where Hakka communities concentrate. Firm tofu cubes are first deep-fried; that’s how light and crispy tofu puffs are made. The filling is unique, too. Instead of using ground meat or shrimp, the Hakkas in Namhung pick shredded large taro root as the main ingredient. Shredded taro root and other ingredients, including dried shrimps, lap cheong (Cantonese dry-cured sausage, 臘腸), and water chestnut to add umami and texture, are stir-fried separately then stirred together after cooling completely. To serve a wider range of customers, Yuxuan substitutes the pork lap cheong with bresaola and duck prosciutto, which go pretty well. Traditionally, the stuffed tofu puffs are steamed or braised on a layer of thick-sliced daikon with a splash of chicken stock: the taro filling will absorb the stock and the juice of daikon, making the cooked tofu puffs plump, juicy and rich in flavours.
Stuffing (釀, Hakka pronunciation: nyiong) is a typical cooking method of the Hakkas. Not only tofu and bean curd, hollowed vegetables, mushrooms, duck eggs, fish and freshwater snails can also be the “wrapper”, varying across the Hakka communities in vast South China. Besides stuffed tofu, the other well-known Hakka dish is “Pan-fried Stuffed Three Treasures” (煎釀三寶), which consists of stuffed aubergine, stuffed bitter melon and stuffed long pepper (a type of capsicum similar to Anaheim pepper). Well, do you come up with the stuffed tomatoes, stuffed bell peppers, stuffed aubergines and stuffed zucchinis served around the Eastern Mediterranean? Greeks’ gemista (γεμιστά), Turks’ dolma, and Arabs’ mahshee (محشی) all literally mean “the stuffed, the filled”. The Israeli-born British chef Ottolenghi has pointed out, “stuffing is an activity suitable for old times, when women spent hours at home but could afford much less.” Though he is talking about his hometown Jerusalem, the cooking technique of stuffing developed among the Hakkas fits well to the trajectory Ottolenghi suggests: Guangdong and Fujian, the destination of the Hakka immigrants, was largely unexploited until the Song Dynasty(11th century), not to mention that most early Hakkas settled in mountainous regions. Stuffing stretch the humble wrapper and filling much further, “with a result that is impressive to look at because of its complexity but is also very delicious.” Today, at the eve of a festival, groups of Hakka women will work together at home stuffing tofu, vegetables and eggs, then serve at the feast with much pride — as their Greek, Turk, Jewish and Arab counterparts do.
ORH NEE (TARO ROOT PURÉE, 芋泥）
MAIN INGREDIENTS: taro root, rendered goose fat, mineral water, granulated sugar, gingko nuts for topping.
HISTORY: You can’t miss this if you are a fan of mashed root vegetables or beans! While the savoury taro root purée is common in Fujian Province, the sweet Orh Nee, normally topped with nuts and dried Chinese jujubes, is a classic three-ingredient Teochew (a seaside city in southern Guangdong) dessert: betel nut taro root, cooking oil and syrup (fine water and granulated sugar). Traditionally, Teochew people use liquid lard for the oil, which is made from rendered fresh pork fat fried with garlic. To serve a wider range of customers, Yuxuan substitutes rendered goose fat for the lard, which also brings the treat to the next level — in the Cantonese signature dish “luk ngo” (碌鹅, braised goose, usually with a layer of taro roots in the bottom of the pot) and the Hakka dish “steamed goose and taro”, the unexpected hit is always the taro roots cooked in goose fat, soaked in its juices. Isn’t it a Chinese equivalent of the cassoulet in Mr. Palomar’s imagination, in which goose fat is an essential ingredient? A full, lilac, aromatic scoop of the Orh Nee will awaken an immediate fantasy not so much of appetite as of eros in you as in Mr. Palomar, “from a mountain of goose fat a female figure surfaces, smears white over her rosy skin, and he already imagines himself making his way toward her through those thick avalanches, embracing her, sinking with her.” (Calvino, I., Mr. Palomar)
NOTE: Sorry, we don’t offer a vegetarian version for this dish, because we haven’t found a vegetable oil or a combination of it that keeps the products as fragrant as animal fat-based ones.
HAKKA CULTURE or 客(Kè)家(Jiā)文(Wén)化(Huà)
As the Chinese characters for Hakka (客家, “guest families”) indicate, today’s Hakkas are the descendants of immigrants from Central Plains (中原) to southern China. The southward migration in China started as early as the Sixteen Kingdoms (十六國，4th-5th centuries) when the agrarian Central Plains were torn by wars against northern dynasties established by nomadic people and peasant revolts. By the same token, the chaotic period after the collapse of Tang Dynasty (or 五代十國, Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period, 907-79), the Mongol conquest of Song China (13th century) and the Ming-Qing transition (late 17th century) also witnessed waves of migration to northern Guangdong and western Fujian (Hokkien), forming the germ of Hakka communities scattering in these regions nowadays. The newcomers were registered as “guest households” (客戶) in the tax registers and land cadastres in the Chinese Empire. They resided with southern Han people while maintaining their ancestral traditions, which differentiated the Hakkas from native Cantonese and Hoklos (also Banlams, 閩南人).
Besides warfare, climatic fluctuations in the Central Plains were the other motivation behind southward migration: these dynastic wars and migrations coincided with three of the four coldest periods in ancient China, which led to poor harvest of grains in The Central Plains. Correspondingly, though taro corms were a food staple in central Chinese cuisine for its satiety before the 4th century, as mentioned above, taro also gradually retreated from the Yellow River basin due to its (sub)tropical nature. It is not difficult to imagine that taro claimed an important place in the cuisine of both Hakka ancestors from the north and native southern people. Interestingly, thanks to the sufficient rice yield of South China, taro roots had taken up the role of vegetable in southeastern Chinese cuisine from the Middle Tang onwards. Taro roots are harvested from midsummer to early autumn, but the season can stretch from February to October if further south, i.e. Taiwan. Particular varieties reflect their regions, as do the recipes. Today, many of southern Chinese people’s best-loved foods are characterized by taro root of the local variety.
“I won’t pretend that I am a scholar on Hakka, even on ancient Chinese history,” Yuxuan confessed when we asked her why she came up with taro as the nub for this initiative, “However, my research focusing on the early modern northeastern Mediterranean, where the Ottomans, Orthodox Greeks, several Latin dynasties and orders of knights, Jews all intersected, prompts me to reflect on my own cultural background from a new perspective. Like the Greeks, Turks, people in the Levant and even Italians share lots of ingredients and a culinary repertoire, the consuming of taro corms throughout the centuries also involves a profound narrative, including agrarian-nomadic tensions, the texture of ancient Chinese society, and geographic transformation in China. In other words, taro corms give us a handle on the underlying dynamics of Chinese history. The mastery of taro corms of several regional communities in China attests to their ongoing interactions through which the nation was built; at the same time, it witnesses the Hakkas’ attempt to preserve their heritage while adapting to a new cultural environment, a delicate balance undertaken by immigrants, any time and any space.”
Blog prepared and edited by Yuxuan Cai
History Ph.D Candidate at University of Cambridge