DEAR LITTLE PIGGY WIGGY

While waiting for the light to change, I heard the girl next to me scream "Tanya, hey Tanya!" It startled me (some of us don't deal well with sudden noises), and I was glad she didn't have a deeper less femmy voice, lest whomever think it was me. "Tanya, I love you Tanya, you hog!" Okayyyy, is "hog" the next teenage lesby term of endearment? Or can we all use it?

And if so, what are the permissible circumstances?

Personally, I would have thought "little piggy-wiggy" would have been sweeter, but I am not au courant. No longer 'up on juvenile love, lust, and hormonal idiocy. Sad, I know.

In any case, I did not know who among the Cantonese of various ages across the street might be Tanya, so I'm just guessing that "you hog" was affectionately meant. These things are obviously on a 'need-to-know' basis, and perhaps everyone in her school fondly considers her as a perfect 'hog'. The dear little piggy-wiggy.

I too am fond of hog. Particularly five flower meat, that being a cut of streaky pork from the belly flesh. Goes great with preserved vegetable (梅菜，雪菜) as well as rice wine, soy sauce, ginger, and black mushroom. Long simmered. Melt-in-your mouth tender.

Do you have a nickname for your significant other?
Is it "plum vegetable knock meat"?
梅菜扣肉。

With taro also can, (芋头扣肉 'wu tau kau yiuk'), but most often you'll encounter it on a bed of preserved brassica (梅菜), mui choi kau yiuk. Very Hakka, very Canto, universally loved.

Note that the illustration has nothing to do with either dish. A canal that could be almost anywhere. The Netherlands has lots of canals, so does China, and old town Jakarta too.

At it's simplest, the hunk of meat is browned in a hot pan skin side down after blanching briefly to firm it up, then drained, and put to simmer whole, or cut into large chunks or thick slices, with garlic, ginger, star anise, a hefty jigger of sherry or rice wine, a dash of soy sauce or dollop of oyster sauce, and water or broth, for an hour or two, or put in the steamer.
Rinsed snow vegetable, or taro chunks, or even potato wedges, can be added.

Not being fond of taro, I don't have any tips on how to prepare it.
Or how long to cook it either.



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