China: Its Gastronomic Landscape : Going ‘Home’ for Dinner : Heritage: Returning to an ancestral home in China is also a personal journey to the past. On such occasions, a meal takes on a special meaning.

You can go home again. The question is: What, or where is “home”?

To a Chinese-American, emotional ambiguities are built into any answer. The Chinese experience outside of China has created what has been called a “sojourner mentality.” No matter what economic success emigrant Chinese achieve--and they are famous for their enterprise and work ethic--the pull of the homeland (that is, the natal village) remains powerful.

In my own experience, ever since I was a child growing up in Chicago, my mother maintained that we must return one day to Gu Xiang, “the village of our ancestors.” And as Westernized as I was, I could not deny the emotional attraction of this call. Where one’s ancestors lived and died, where the small family shrines are kept, where the family’s roots were nourished--these are no slight matter.

Thus my mother insisted that before she grew too old to travel, a return to the family home was a necessity. She further insisted that, Westernized as I fancy myself, it was my filial duty to accompany her. I offered no resistance to her maternal demand; the time was ripe for my personal odyssey.

As we journeyed from America, my mother reviewed the family history. She was born April 24, 1924, in Kaiping, in the Foshan region of Guangdong province. Her father, after graduating from Beijing University, was appointed to a position in the salt monopoly--in those days a powerful governmental department. He was the first from his area ever to graduate from a university, his studies made possible by the generosity of his paternal grandfather, who had already emigrated to San Francisco, establishing there what turned into a thriving import-export business.

My family comes from the area called Sze Yup, which in Cantonese means the four districts. During the constant droughts that plagued it during the early years of the 20th Century, its rocky soil could produce only enough food to feed its population for four months of the year. Rice, the staple of southern China, was always dear and, in bad years, unobtainable. To survive, people turned to other trades--traveling to and from the port cities of Macao, Guangzhou and Hong Kong as peddlers, artisans, shopkeepers or simple “coolies.”

In the China of the Last Emperor, change was under way; modern ideas and practices were introduced. My enlightened grandfather, for example, rejected the still-prevalent custom of bound feet and seclusion for his two daughters; he provided for their education instead. They lived with their mother--a marvelously talented cook, my mother tells me--in Guangzhou, while he worked in Beijing and Shanghai.

My mother continued her education in Guangzhou until Hong Kong and the adjacent area fell to the Japanese in 1941. At this point the family returned to the ancestral village, joining my grandfather who, as an official of the Chinese government, had something to fear. From Kaiping, the family retreated even farther to Shaoguan, where they stayed in hiding until the end of the war, returning by stages to Guangzhou.

It was in Guangzhou that my mother and my father met. He was an “overseas Chinese” on a visit from America after finishing American military service in Europe. His family’s history was only a little different from my mother’s. My father’s grandfather had also set out to seek a better life (or at least some money) for himself and his family.

In America, my great-grandfather did so well he was able to send home money for the family to expand its land holdings. Moreover, he brought his son (my grandfather) and his son’s family to America, leaving one grandson (my uncle) to supervise the family property--again, the sojourner mentality showing itself: Roots must be maintained. My one known relative in China is my cousin, the son of the uncle left in charge of the family estate so many years ago.

After what was, by Chinese standards, a whirlwind courtship, my parents were married on June 30, 1948. Soon thereafter, the American consulate in Guangzhou gave my mother the right to emigrate. That is how I came to be born the next year in Tucson, Ariz., instead of a village in Guangdong.

After suffering through war, privation, the disruption of her life and all the social turmoil of postwar China, my mother was happy to start a new life in America. But she was not to realize her own American dream. Eight months after I was born, my father died in December, 1949.

My mother found herself in a precarious situation. A stranger in a strange land, unable to speak the language, she made a meager living for herself and her baby son through unskilled, low-paying factory work. Even after she joined the extended family of my mother’s cousins in Chicago, her lot was one of hard work.

Such thoughts were on my mind as we left Hong Kong on the final leg of our journey. Laden with gifts for my cousin’s family, we went first to Macao, where we crossed the border and rented a car and driver to take us to Kaiping, about four hours away. The countryside is now lush and deep-green, capable of producing three crops of rice per year. On that day, a warm misty rain fell, shrouding everything in a blue-gray haze that made our journey rather dreamlike.

Our driver located the family house, and my mother and I walked through the gates of the field into the courtyard where we were met by our assembled relatives, joyously, shyly, haltingly, formally and spontaneously all at once. They led us into an ample stone house with grayish stone floors and dark brick walls, cool and yet glowing with warm hospitality. Photographs of the American members of the family, sent by my mother and other relatives throughout the years, were on display.

To announce our arrival to the village, my cousin and his son set off strings of firecrackers. I remember thinking how natural it all seemed. Because I speak our Cantonese village dialect, I felt quite at home with the language, with the people and with my mother in that house. It really was as if I had been there before.

The highlight of our first day was the banquet prepared in our honor. As with all special events in China, the sharing of food is an integral part of the celebration.

It began with the ritual washing of the rice. The best rice, grown right in the family fields, had been set aside for this occasion. Rinsed several times, the rice was carefully drained on a bamboo flat basket. A water pump, linked to the well directly below the house, brought fresh water to the kitchen. My cousin went to a small pond near the house to net some grass carp for the meal--only the freshest fish would do.

And what a banquet it was. There were 11 courses, all cooked separately in two large woks. Most of the food was home-grown, and all of the relatives--20 members of the extended family--had helped in the preparation. We enjoyed bitter melon stir-fried with lean pork. Chinese water spinach, freshly plucked from the garden, was cooked with fermented bean curd.

Lean pork was stir-fried with soy bean sprouts (the authentic recipe called for pig’s intestine but, unsure of my cultural adaptability, they had substituted lean pork). A delicious stew of dried oysters and bean curd sticks, halfway through, was a delight. We also enjoyed some of the best longbean dishes I have ever had--sweet and crunchy, served with silk squash and crisp cloud ear fungus.

Throughout the meal, we drank a clear rabbit broth, laced with spices and medicinal herbs--there is no sharp distinction in Chinese cuisine between the nutritional and medicinal. Another bean curd dish, this time red-cooked bean curd, was followed by red-cooked carp, the fish that just minutes before had been swimming in my cousin’s pond.

Along with the special rice, we also had a braised goose dish and platters of roast pig and roast duck that had been purchased especially for the feast, since roasting is rarely done in Chinese homes. The presence in the menu of so much meat and poultry demonstrated that this was indeed a special occasion, one that allowed for indulgence and demanded extraordinary fare.

Before this memorable banquet, I joined my cousin in performing another important ritual. As the oldest male descendants of the family, and since I was returning home, we poured wine into cups and offered it to our ancestors, bowing three times toward the family shrine as a sign of respect. Food was set aside as an offering to the spirits of the departed--just in case they were hungry. Whatever food the spirits do not eat is consumed by the family.

This ancestor worship, scholars say, lies at the root of religion in China, and it has served until very recently as the principal support for the type of family life that has existed in China for millennia. In agricultural societies, where so much depends upon the unpredictable vagaries of nature, these appeals to lost fathers are understandable. It is believed that the bodies of the dead (who are buried in family field plots) or their ashes (as in my family’s practice) mingle with, and favorably affect, the agricultural gods or spirits of the soil. Thus, the living are bound together with the dead in a common enterprise.

Many such thoughts crowded in on me as my mother and I took our leave of the family, after spending two days exploring the area, and returned to Hong Kong, this time by way of the Tan Jiang River. As we sailed along the beautiful river, I imagined that this was the route taken by many of my own ancestors as they left China seeking better opportunities, bearing with them their culture, their cuisine and their history, as well as their hopes and fears.

How sad it must have been for them to leave their ancestral home. How much they must have longed to return.

And, for me, how deeply I had been enriched by the experiences of my own personal journey. A piece of my heart is forever in Kaiping.

HONGSHAO WANYU

(Red-Cooked Grass Carp

With Tangerine Peel)

1/2 ounce dried tangerine or citrus peel

2 1/2 to 3 pounds firm, white-fleshed fish such as rock fish, cod, halibut, haddock, scrod or red snapper, or sole, cleaned and left whole

2 teaspoons salt

1/4 cup cornstarch

2 cups peanut oil

2 tablespoons finely chopped garlic

3 tablespoons finely chopped ginger root

1/4 cup finely chopped green onions

3 tablespoons rice wine or dry Sherry

1 tablespoon yellow bean sauce

2 tablespoons dark soy sauce

1 tablespoon sugar

6 tablespoons chicken stock or water

Soak tangerine peel 20 minutes in warm water or until soft. Rinse under running water and squeeze out excess liquid. Finely chop and set aside.

Make 3 or 4 slashes on each side of fish to speed up cooking and allow flavors to penetrate. Rub fish on both sides with salt. Sprinkle cornstarch evenly on each side of fish.

Heat wok or deep saute pan until hot. Add oil and heat until hot. Deep-fry fish on each side 5 to 8 minutes until brown and crispy. Drain fish on paper towels.

Pour off all but 2 tablespoons oil from wok and reheat. Add chopped tangerine peel, garlic, ginger root and green onions. Stir-fry 30 seconds. Add rice wine, bean sauce, soy sauce, sugar and chicken stock.

Return fish to wok, spooning ingredients over top. Cook, covered, over low heat 8 minutes. When fish is cooked, carefully transfer to serving platter and serve at once. Makes 4 servings as part of Chinese meal or 2 as single dish.

CHAO DOUYA

(Stir-Fried Soy bean

Sprouts With Lean Pork)

1/2 pound lean pork

1 teaspoon rice wine or dry Sherry

Light soy sauce

1/2 teaspoon sesame oil

1/2 teaspoon cornstarch

1 1/2 pounds soy bean sprouts or mung bean sprouts

3 tablespoons peanut oil

2 slices ginger root, crushed

1 teaspoon shrimp paste

Chop pork into small, coarse pieces and place in small bowl. Mix in rice wine, 1 teaspoon light soy sauce, sesame oil and cornstarch.

Wash sprouts in cold running water, picking out wilted pieces or darkened sprouts. Drain well.

Heat wok or large saute pan over high heat until hot. Add 2 tablespoons peanut oil. Brown ginger root. Remove with slotted spoon. Add pork and stir-fry 2 minutes. Remove pork with slotted spoon.

Reheat wok and add remaining 1 tablespoon peanut oil. When very hot, add shrimp paste and stir-fry 10 seconds. Add soy bean sprouts and 2 teaspoons soy sauce. Continue to stir-fry 4 minutes. Return pork to wok and mix very well with sauce, continuously stir-frying 1 minute. Give mixture several good stirs, turn onto platter and serve. Makes 4 servings as part of Chinese meal or 2 as single dish.

DOUJIAO ZAI CHAO

SIGUA YUNER

(Longbeans Stir-Fried

With Silk Squash and

Cloud Ears)

1 ounce cloud ears

1/2 pound Chinese longbeans or green beans

1 pound silk squash or zucchini

2 tablespoons peanut oil

2 tablespoons finely chopped shallots

2 tablespoons coarsely chopped garlic

2 teaspoons finely chopped ginger root

2 tablespoons oyster sauce

2 tablespoons rice wine or dry Sherry

2 tablespoons light soy sauce

2 teaspoons salt

1 teaspoon sugar

1/2 cup chicken stock

Soak cloud ears in warm water at least 15 minutes. Rinse several times in cold running water to remove any sand. Drain thoroughly.

If using Chinese longbeans, trim ends and cut into 3-inch segments. If using green beans, trim ends and cut in halves.

Peel off tough outer skin of silk squash and cut at slight diagonal into 2-inch pieces.

Heat wok or large saute pan over high heat until hot and add oil. Stir in shallots, garlic, ginger root, cloud ears and longbeans. Stir-fry 1 minute. Add silk squash, oyster sauce, rice wine, soy sauce, salt, sugar and chicken stock. Cook, uncovered, over high heat until vegetables are tender, about 5 minutes. Serve at once. Makes 4 servings as part of Chinese meal or 2 as single dish.