汕 头DIANA DANXIA ZHENG 郑丹霞Jia!食the fo od of SwatoW — and —the Teo chew dia spora潮 州Introduction 7This was supposed to be a book about the food of a place that no one has heard of. But it’s turned into a story about a shape-shifting cuisine that has spread around the world, going by many names in many languages. In my family, we call it Teoswa. And in the Teoswa language, the most important word is: Jia!Introduction8 Jia!You’re probably thinking you’ve never heard of Teoswa food, but chances are you’ve already tried it, unknowingly. How can that be? Rob: So where is Teoswa?Diana: Teoswa is a region in southern China, centered around the twin cities of Teochew (潮州) and Swatow (汕头); when you combine the first characters of those two cities, you get Teo & Swa — aka Teoswa (潮头). Historically, Teochew has been the more important city, so often the culture — and the food and the language — is known as Teochew culture, especially as it spread outside of China. To this day, much of the diaspora in Southeast Asia uses the term “Teochew,” even if their family roots are technically in Swatow. But Swatow is the larger and faster growing city, so the term “Teoswa” recognizes that. Admittedly, “Teoswa” is not widely known outside of the area, as the very names “Teochew” and “Swatow” are only used in the local language. Mandarin speakers know the area better as Chaoshan, a combination of Chaozhou and Shantou, while Cantonese speakers know it as Chiusan, a combination of Chiuchow and Santow, and the situation only gets more complicated outside of China.The Teoswa geographic and cultural region also includes Jieyang, another rapidly growing city. To be honest, I have no idea why it drew the short stick when it came to naming the region, but Chaoshan/Teoswa ended up being the accepted nomenclature, even though the most famous Teoswa taucheo bean sauces are produced in the Puning region of Jieyang. What’s your personal connection to Teoswa?My dad was born there, in Swatow — he’s a native, and my entire extended family on his side lives there to this day, a tight-knit Introduction 9family scattered all around the city. Actually, I lived there in my grandparents’ house for a year when I three while my parents worked to build a new life for us in America. And while we all waited for word on when — and if — I could join them, alternate plans were laid. If I were to stay in Teoswa, I would be adopted into my younger uncle’s family, and I would have to learn the local language, which I had stubbornly refused to speak in my year of limbo. But after a year, I flew to America to join them, in rural Oregon, then Maryland, then New Jersey.But you never did end up learning the Teoswa language...No, I learned English instead! My parents and I were reunited in January 1993, when I touched down on American soil at San Francisco International Airport. So I assimilated into American instead of Teoswa culture — haltingly at first in Oregon, where my dad was finishing school, and where my 4-year-old self was astounded at all the bountiful, free squab flying around. My parents always laugh when they recount how I chased after pigeons in my first few weeks in the US, yelling in Mandarin, “Catch the birds and eat!” Early record of the author in her natural state: in sweatpants, clutching food.Fresh off the boat and hunting pigeons.10 Jia!Then, assimilation came much more rapidly in Maryland when we moved there for my dad’s first job after commencement, then pretty much completely once we settled in New Jersey, where my sister, Lisa, and I spent most of our childhoods.So it’d be correct to call you a Jersey girl?I do have a deep, abiding love of love red sauce Italian.Growing up in America, did you know anyone else who had roots in Swatow or Teochew?Well, I only knew of two other families in America with roots in Swatow, and they lived on the west coast. Most of my parents’ friends on the east coast, who became surrogate aunts and uncles in the way that frequently happens in immigrant communities, were from many corners of China, but never Teoswa.So you really had the perception that Teoswa was a place that nobody ever left?Absolutely. Part of the reason I wanted to write this book was to explore my dad’s heritage, because I felt like I knew so little about his family and their culture. By nature, he’s not a man of many words, and as I tried to become more of an “American” kid, I had shed the few memories and firsthand knowledge I’d had, along with my pride of being from another culture. Unlike my mom — whose family had lived in multiple parts of China, and whose own parents could fluidly switch between multiple dialects — my dad comes from a clan that’s been rooted in this small corner of China for centuries. And to someone who grew up feeling rather rootless, there was something very alluring about the certainty of their identity and how deep it ran.I also thought the cuisine was relatively unknown outside of southern China, and completely unrepresented in America. I Introduction 11wasn’t far off on the latter — there are only a handful of truly Teoswa restaurants in the US, and one of them (San Francisco’s Teo) was opened by one of those two Teoswa family friends I knew, in order to fill that void.But you had no idea at all about the far-flung Teoswa diaspora?No idea at all — which still floors me. I simply never knew that I was part of a global expatriate community, part of the gaginang (自己人) — that’s a Teoswa word that translates to “our own people.” Of course, there were so many clues hiding in plain sight, in so many of my favorite foods from all across Southeast Asia, and even America.Your dad never mentioned anything?My dad is a very work-oriented engineer and I think, like a lot of immigrant dads, he just didn’t think about it all that much, even though it turns out he’d been casually chatting with Vietnamese restaurant workers in Teoswa for my whole childhood.OK, but before we get to that story, let’s talk about what makes Teoswa food so special.Well, Teoswa food tastes a little different from place to place, because just like the Teoswa people — despite sometimes claiming to be the preservers of unadulterated Tang dynasty culture — the cuisine has adapted to survive and thrive in new environments. Even the tradition-bound branch of the Teoswa family tree that has remained in China is open to incorporating outside influences. An extremely popular mini-chain of restaurants in the region these days churns out Teoswa-inflected variations on Northern Chinese classics. And some of the unique flavors of the cuisine comes from a back-and-forth culinary dialogue, unspooled over centuries, between gaginang in China and overseas Teoswa workers who would periodically return to the mainland from Southeast Asia with 12 Jia!Above: scenes from a market in SwatowTea in my uncle’s homeIntroduction 13new ingredients in tow. But at its core, Teoswa cuisine emphasizes sourcing excellent ingredients, then letting their natural flavors shine and harmonize in thoughtful combinations — not unlike the philosophy behind Californian cuisine here in the US.Given its ocean-hugging location, seafood is understandably a cornerstone of the Teoswa diet. When you walk through the wet markets of Teoswa, you’ll see species of sea life you probably couldn’t even dream up. And everyone seems to be born with strong opinions on how to maximize the deliciousness of any given critter — even horseshoe crab! The Teoswa people are one of the few on Earth who have figured out a way to make the living fossils palatable. That’s not to downplay the importance of other foods, though. Teoswa’s beef meatballs, braised fowl, rice noodles, and inventive uses of vegetables are famous within China. And as in the rest of the country, variety is highly prized at the table. When you sit down for a homecooked meal in Teoswa, you can count on a soup; a few steamed, braised, or stir-fried dishes; perhaps a few pickles or preserves; and always muay, Teoswa rice porridge. Then, you finish with dessert — an actual dessert and not just sliced fruit, as the Teoswa are known to have a sweet tooth. But there are lots of ways to eat throughout the day, not just at sit-down meals. In between eating, there are always thimble-sized cups of strong kung fu tea to either aid in digestion or stimulate the appetite for the next snack or meal. As the Ma family remarks so eloquently in the cookbook Don’t Lick the Chopsticks (page 123), “Tea is to the Swatownese as whiskey is to the Irish and wine to the French.”Next >