CHAPTER III.CHINESE COOKERY.
The housekeeping was likewise simple. My grandmother was the head of the family during her husband’s absence, and she had always the management of the minor affairs of the entire establishment. She it was who assigned the duties and superintended the work of the servants, and the employments of the daughters, and the daughters-in-law. We had a hired cook, several maid-servants and a man-servant, so that there was never a need that the ladies of our family should soil their dainty hands or weary their delicate feet. My grandmother, however, had her own ideas about work, and used to arrange that her daughters should not be idle or ignorant.
The hour for rising was between six and sevenA. M.The children of the household had to go to schoolat seven; and the men had business to attend to.
As soon as day dawned, the servants were stirring. They swept the brick floors, and having heated some water, they would go to wake their respective mistresses, placing the warmed water before them for the morning toilet. As each emerged from his or her slumber, greetings were scrupulously exchanged. We Chinese say “Early morning!” instead of “Good morning!” The servants were then sent out to market to buy the materials for breakfast. Let us follow them.
After winding in and out through narrow streets flanked with blank walls, the monotony broken only by doorways, we come to the business portion of the city. We emerge into a scene of life and animation. Men and servant-girls are either on their way to market or returning, carrying wicker baskets of eels, fish, pork, vegetables. Here are incense-shops, butcher-shops and grocery-stores, fish-stalls and vegetable-stands. The stone pavement is slippery with mud. The din is deafening. The present stage in the development of trade in China does not admit of one price for one’s wares.The seller and buyer must wrangle for minutes over a few mills. Time is of no consideration. A man will go through and through the market, listening to what others are giving, pricing everything for himself, and at the same time beating the price down so low that the hawker will not agree to sell.
Our servants having, after much haggling, procured the wherewithal for breakfast, let us return to our kitchen and see the meal prepared. Your first exclamation is sure to be, “How smoky it is! Oh, stifling! Let us come away!” Well, this kitchen certainly is not so cosey and neat as American kitchens usually are. The smoke does not go out by chimney, but through the skylight and wherever it finds an outlet. The walls are black with the accumulation of years of soot. That large stove in the corner is built of brick. The smoke issues through an aperture in the back and curls upward through the opening into the clear sky. On the top of this stove is a large round iron spider about three feet in diameter. In this rice is cooking. Straw being cheaper, is burnt in this stove instead of wood, and some one is required to feed thefire constantly. Turning to the left, we see little clay stoves, on which food is frying in spiders, or boiling in earthen pots, over a wood fire. Grandmother and her daughters are superintending the various preparations. Vegetables are cut into bits and boiled with pork or mutton, making a soup. Greens are boiling. Fish is steaming, frying, or stewing with or without vegetable. Meat is cut fine; when the spider becomes heated lard is put in it, then pieces of onion, then the shred meat, and all is stirred till well embrowned; then turnips, potatoes, and sometimes other vegetables are added and, after boiling water is poured in, the whole is left to simmer and stew. All food, we observe, is cut in pieces before being cooked, or else before serving. For no knives, no forks, are used.
At tenA. M.the tables are set; those for men either in the wings, or in their rooms; those for the women in their common sitting-room or parlor. Each table will seat eight persons. No table linen is used. Chop-sticks and spoons are placed before each place. The food is brought in large bowls or plates. Rice is carried to the table in a woodenpail or wicker basket, from which it is served in small bowls. The servants summon the inmates to breakfast. The younger ones do not presume to sit till their elders are seated; then after making a show of asking permission to eat, when the elders gravely nod assent, the breakfast begins. Soup is taken first; then each person, holding the chop-sticks in the right hand and the bowl of rice in the left, lifts his food to his mouth, pushes the lumps in with the sticks, alternating this motion with picking meat, fish or vegetables from the dishes which are common to all. One must take only from that side of the plate which is nearest to him, however. It is a breach of etiquette to reach over to the opposite side. When one finishes, he bids the rest to “eat leisurely,” which is our mode of saying, “Excuse me!” The Chinese invariably wash their hands and faces after every meal.
Tea is drank about the same time. It is taken without milk or sugar. Coffee is not common in China, and we are not accustomed to drink cold water. Tea is the national beverage and is taken to assuage thirst at all times and occasions as water isin America. At noon a lunch of cakes or pastry may be served. The majority of people are satisfied with two meals a day. Supper, or dinner, is served at fiveP. M.
In the interval between the two meals, the ladies of our family sewed, spun flax, embroidered or received company, that is, their lady friends who come in sedan-chairs, some to make short visits, some to spend the day. Guests were regaled at noon with confections and pastry, but tea was always presented to a guest soon after arrival. It would have been uncourteous to omit it. In the evening, after the lamps were lighted, the ladies, young and old, would sit down to a game of dominoes, tell stories, or gossip.
A peculiar feature in Chinese domestic arrangements is that when sons are married they continue to live with their parents, while daughters, when married, are expected to live with their husband’s parents. Such an arrangement often causes a deal of trouble, and most of the domestic infelicity in Chinese home-life is ascribed to it. But the custom has been handed down from time immemorial,each succeeding generation being educated for it. It sometimes happens that the mother-in-law and the daughter-in-law are suited to each other and live pleasantly together; but this presumes that both entertain exalted views of duty and are blessed with forbearing natures and yielding dispositions. The Chinese say that all depends on the son and husband; if he be dutiful to his parents and strict in family discipline, he can prevent domestic broils; if he only shut his ear against the complaints of his wife, peace will be preserved. But the son and husband is apt to lean to one side or the other, so either harbors resentment towards his mother or acts unjustly towards his wife. The father usually steers clear of the trouble, though he sometimes acts as peacemaker. Then again if the mother-in-law gets along well with one of her daughters-in-law, it is not certain that she can with the rest, or that the latter can get along peacefully with one another.
“Every family has a skeleton in the closet,” it is said here in America. It is no less true of Chinese families.My grandmother’s was a character that inspired respect; so she had little trouble in the management of her large family. She had administrative talent of a high order, and therefore a fair share of household happiness fell to our lot.