PILLARS OF THE COMMUNITY

A very good day ending in a hot cup of mandarin ducks (鴛鴦 'yuen yeung'; mixed strong coffee and milk tea). Which I made at home. It's a very HK thing, and quite suitable, seeing as I started the day with a tasty meal at a chachanteng with a very Hong Kong name. Where the table behind me was speaking Toishanese, to which I listened in without understanding much seeing as all my Cantonese is basically movie-learned, and there are no movies in Toishan dialect.

After my post-meal pipe I headed over to Walgreens where the nice home town girl asked me whether I needed a monthly pass or ready cash on my transit card. Ready cash (現金 'yin kam'), because I use it to get outside the city. She's one of two exceptionally patient and extremely capable young ladies there, who put up with all kinds of stuff from the local elderly Cantonese, querulous Mandarin speakers, high wired white meth freaks, and dense tourists who are upset that this isn't like they expect in Kansas, Paris, or Milan, sorry.

That particular Walgreens is probably the best in the city. Most of Chinatown probably shops there or relies on it for snacks, medications, and certain essential supplies, and those people outnumber the problem cases from the drug-infested "hotels" in North Beach. That store is a pillar of the community. They tend to employ people who are quite capable of understanding me when I speak Cantonese, which, in a way, is essential. As I'm sure you'll agree. Being able to clearly grasp what middle-aged Dutch American eccentrics are saying is something which many more establishments should concentrate on. Even though in this city we're a demographic of maybe one. We're never-the-less important! All one of us.

Yeah, um.

Further up the street I purchased some high quality salt fish (梅香鹹魚 'mui heung haam yü'). Which is also important. Though I didn't really need it, but at some point maybe soon I'll want to do steamed pork patty or Hokkien-style stirfry vegetables at home, or something stronger flavoured which will demand a very hot sambal. Fried rice is also a distinct likelihood. The shop lady and I discussed all the wonderful things one can do with salt fish, why, it's almost like the Wizard of Oz in a small stinky lump! It's wonderful! This is something I might not mention to my doctor at Chinese Hospital, because of well, things.
Salt fish (鹹魚) is also a pillar of the community.
Precisely like Dutch Americans.

Much of what I like to eat is not approved of by members of the medical profession, strictly speaking. Salt fish, fatty pork, layers of cheese or rashers of bacon, red-stewed meats, delicious pastries, snacky things ...

Hokkien lor mee, Penang style, is a strongly flavoured noodle dish which is excellent in a hot climate. Enough flavour to excite the heat-exhausted palate. As a snarky poster in Chinatown states, "no salt, no sugar, no msg, no tasty!" The amount of soy sauce, dried and fermented seafoods, and high-cholesterol fatty meats, AND shrimp AND a hard-boiled egg, pretty much guarantees that your doctor will question your sanity. If not your very understandable appetites.

Umami!

Claiming that the chilipaste you added is a vegetable high in fibre and vitamin C will not assuage his or her concern. I have yet to meet a doctor who accepts that assertion as medically sound. American medical schools are rather backward in that regard.

The key to Penang style lor mee, by the way, is both tamarind pulp and thickening, which is usually cornstarch, in the soy based sauce that the meats were simmered in. That's why you can't see the garlicky chilipaste that's also in there. Adding fresh sambal on top of your serving is still recommended. Abundantly. Hou chiak e!



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