From my numerous trips to SE Asia, you would think the first regional food I would write about is Vietnamese Pho. I will save that for another time because I must first talk about my discovery of CONGEE. I encountered this unpretentious rice porridge on a JAL flight, 30,000 feet in the air between Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam and Tokyo, Japan. Breakfast was being served with precision and grace by the Tokyo crew (who had changed uniforms, yet again). There were always two different kinds of meals, Western with eggs and chicken sausage, or Asian, which was congee with condiments. I am an adventurous eater, for the most part, so decided it was time to try the congee. There was a little packet of dried onions, a boiled egg and a tiny pouch of sesame oil to add to the container of velvety white rice. I ate the egg separately, but dutifully sprinkled the onions and oil over the congee. Initially, I would have expected a rice porridge to be sweet, like morning oatmeal, but the condiments hinted at something very different. AHHHHHHH, what a revelation! The rice was extremely creamy, but there were bits of ginger and garlic that burst in my mouth, waking up my tastebuds in a way they had never been awakened before. How could something so simple be so delicious? And where had it been all my life?
Growing up on the dairy farm in SE Colorado, we kind of knew that some of our neighbors had previously been interred at a Japanese camp nearby but really didn’t grasp that reality as kids. After the end of WWII, several families remained in the area to farm and we grew up with their children. We ate Japanese food, and rice, lots of rice. We learned to eat with chopsticks. Melons (famous Rocky Ford ones) were grown in the Arkansas Valley, along with onions, sugar beets and many other vegetables. There were half underground cellars where we climbed around on sacks of onions, which were awaiting transport to some grocery warehouse. Maybe that is why I like to cook with lots of onions, the smell I remember from those days. Our Japanese neighbors were hard workers and good farmers. It wasn’t until many years later, and an understanding of the history of that time, that I realized how fortunate we had been to learn of their culture and how they quietly settled in and fit in with our rural community.
Fast forward to a lifetime later, when I began to take long-haul airplane rides to SE Asia to visit my daughter who was working in Vietnam. I have now made that journey four times, usually through Tokyo before heading across the South China Sea to one of the SE Asia countries. Two years ago, because of difficult scheduling, I chose to fly through Dubai in the Middle-East, which has now taken me two different directions around the world! I first experienced long-haul flights ten years ago, when I had the opportunity to spend 3 weeks in Australia and New Zealand. There is something about walking onto a plane in one part of the world, spending up to sixteen hours in that same plane, to walking out of the plane halfway around the world that can only be described as “time travel”! I used to take things to keep my hands busy, including making hexagon quilting blocks; but I have now come to see that giant airplane as a very crowded tubular bedroom, and it is best to sleep, sleep, sleep, because jetlag is a serious side-effect of flying through so many time zones.
With four trips to SE Asia, I have been all over Vietnam, to Singapore twice, Malaysia three times (dipping my toes in the Straits of Malacca), Bangkok, Thailand once, and Yangon, Myanmar once, just a year ago. I have seen and done things that would take me years to write about: people, gardens, animals, scenery, and food. Of all the regional food I ate, I have a few favorites, and many of those come from Vietnam – Mi Quang, Bun Cha, and Pho.
Back to the congee: I have learned that it is one of the oldest, most widely consumed foods in all of Asia. And, for every culture and cook, there are about as many ways to make it, including some with meat or fish. Similar to chicken soup, congee will supposedly cure what ails you. I prefer it simple (like JAL), so I have created yet another way to make it: my way, with lots of ginger.
CONGEE: 5 cups of water, 5 cups of broth (I use chicken), 1 cup well-washed, ordinary, everyday rice, 1 tablespoon of finely minced peeled fresh ginger (I heap the spoon full) and 2 large cloves of garlic minced, then sprinkled with a little salt and smeared to a paste with the side of a knife. Bring to a boil, then reduce to a low simmer, uncovered, stirring often to keep it from sticking. It is hard to imagine that 10 cups of liquid will cook down to a creamy mixture, taking about an hour and a half, but trust me, the miracle does happen. Season to taste with salt and stir in about a teaspoon of toasted sesame oil. To add a bit more zing, I chopped up half a tablespoon of jarred sushi ginger and added a tablespoon of the liquid from the jar for brightness. Yum, yum, yum!
The halved cherry tomatoes were sprinkled with unpronounceable seasonings I brought back from Vietnam, then broiled in the oven to blister. Lemon pepper could be a similar substitute. The onions are the fried kind from a can, (often found in the green bean casserole at Thanksgiving), a drizzle of toasted sesame seed oil and a grind of fresh pepper. More yum.
The doll, the scarf, and the small plate under the chopsticks are all from my various times in Vietnam. From the Mekong Delta in the south, to the high mountain village of Sapa in the north, Vietnam has been a country of surprises for me, and I have been enriched by all of it. But one thing I have developed an extraordinarily strong opinion about is FISH SAUCE! It is EVERYWHERE in SE Asia and I DO NOT LIKE IT! I have a tightly closed bottle in my fridge, and I cook with it when it is absolutely necessary, but it is always at arm’s length and well stirred in (all the while holding my nose) – and ONLY because Pho would not be real Pho without it!
