Life will not change no matter which part of planet I am in. The same old house chores to do: washing the mountain high laundry, shopping for food, cooking, vacuuming + moping the never clean floor, yelling "can you girls please clean up your mess" a thousand times, go to sleep NOW, etc.....
While I stayed at my mum's place during the last summer vacation, I worked as usual, and that's what I called, GREAT LIFE. Honestly, being able to "maintain" the same quality of livings across the globe can't be a better deal.
Yet, there is a difference. The food that you can find in the market has a distinctive difference. I love wet markets! I love to find things that I have never seen or eaten before. When I went to Wanchai market, my eyes were always screening for fresh and unique stuff, or things that I couldn't get in Japan.
This time, I spotted 沙葛 (Kudzu) and 夜香花 (Night Blooming Jasmine). In Japan, Kudzu are well used in many 和菓子 (Japanese cakes) such as 葛切り (Kudzu Kiri) or 葛餅 (Kudzu Mochi) where both turn the Kudzu gluten into some glutinous cakes. However, Night Jasmine is not so popular in Japan.
As the name says, Night Blooming Jasmine, so it blooms at night and closes during the day. At night, its sweet fragrance will be released as its name depicts.
Grandma used to cook winter melon soup where a bunch of Night Blooming Jasmine will be added to enhance its fragrance. Oh, how much I missed that.
As soon as I spotted Night Blooming Jasmine, my eyes widened. Pretty much liked how my younger daughter spotted an ice-cream shop where she would flap her hands up and down, yanking on my T-shirt or even rolling on the floor until she got one. Except that I am a fully grown up now and won't exercise my basic instincts to get what I want.
I asked for 2 taels, paid HKD $8, thought that was pretty cheap. Next thought, how much did grandma use to pay for it? That would be more than 30 years ago event and could anyone tell me?????????????????? Contented and my next challenge came up.
How should I cook it? Dump it into winter melon soup like grandma? Naah........ that would be too boring. So, I gave it a thought and considered the current weather, then came up with a bashing down the heat dish.
花香菜脯沙葛粒
Basically this dish contained of the following:
菜脯. Preserved white radish. Cooling vegetable.
Celery. Another cooling vegetable.
Carrot. Another cooling vegetable.
Kudzu. Another cooling vegetable.
Night Blooming Flower, a cooling flower, too.
So I concluded that this dish is a "summer" dish to cool down your body heat during the hot and humid HK summer. (My conclusion! ha ha ha...)
My dear dear sister gave it a look and asked, "So this white cubes are Kudzu.... hmm...." I believed she had never had it before.
She easily wrapped up her first bowl of rice then headed for her second refill. I asked in amazement, "You are having a second serve?". Why was I so bewildered? She is as skinny as a stick and I have never seen her refilling for rice.
My heart went a bit sour at that point. Poor thing must be missing home cooking badly or may be she was so badly fed by HK eateries....... This old Chinese saying popped up from my mind immediately, "若讓小兒安，三分飢與寒". So may be starving her a bit may not be a bad thing though! Wahh Kaaa Kaaa............ (What kind of sister am I!!!!! ha ha ha... ke ke ke...).
After I wrote this article, a "foodie" friend (she is a REAL food pro) told me, "do you mean 沙葛 instead of 粉葛" as I wrote "粉葛" in the beginning. That shone light over my head as I only had "粉葛" in my mind but what I really meant was "沙葛". The reason being, I only thought about the medicinal purpose of Kudzu where all Kudzu have similar healing functions, yet, different types of Kudzu offers different textures in taste.
I have to say, I am such a "一碌葛" (meaning a piece of Kudzu). Why? Cantonese is a very interesting language where it uses heaps of objects to describe a certain kind of behavior or person. Especially when it comes to "swearing words". For example, if someone says you are a piece of Kudzu "一碌葛", that means you have no response and non-alert. Just like me, I always think I am a huge piece of 葛根, day dreaming all day.
When I wrote this blog, all I had in my mind was Kudzu roots as （葛根）, its cooling function that is suitable in summer as well as good to people with high blood pressure. Its （辛涼解表） (cold-pungent diaphoresis) function can help to reduce fever. It can also reduce neck pain and stop diarrhea, etc... I kept thinking 葛根湯's 葛根, where it was made from the white powdery Kudzu "粉葛".
Thanks to her, it woke me up from my dream. Wake up Wake up, Tokyo C9!!! In HK, there are 2 common Kudzu roots (葛根)。
1. Powdery Kudzu (粉葛) where it is a long cylindrical shape root. As its name depicts, it is very powdery. Yet, it has more fiber and not that crunchy. We Cantonese normally use it for soup.
2. Sand Kudzu (沙葛） where it is a fusiform shape root. Its skin can be easily peeled off leaving its snowy white root. Very juicy and crunchy. We normally use this Kudzu root for stir-fry.
Although both Powdery Kudzu (粉葛) and Sand Kudzu (沙葛）are of the same Kudzu root (葛根) family with similar medicinal functions, its texture differs greatly.
I sincerely thank my professional foodie friend pointing this out and please let me know if there's any "weird" or not making sense stuff in my blog going forward! I normally type out in the middle of night where my brain only half functions leaving lots of spelling, expressions, faulty content stuff, etc... ha ha ha.... The main thing is continuity. I want to jot down what my family taught me so I can pass on these words to the next generation. C9, ADD OIL!
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