Maybe it was the wonton making, or the Facing East visit, or the UCONN winning (Yes!) but I’ve been nostalgic for homecooked Chinese food lately. It could also be that I’ve taken white rice (well, almost all rice, grains, breads, etc) out of my regular diet and think of it as “special occasion” foods. For these reasons, what a treat it was to find this gem at Twice Sold Tales, which is closing its U-District store and was having a 70% off sale:
Yes, Myra Waldo, food and travel writer, wrote this tasty cookbook of Chinese cuisine in 1968. She also wrote about the flavors of Spain and Africa. It was lovely reading about how to make fried chicken; pineapple fried chicken; steamed fried chicken; and the like. The majority of recipes contain a combination of soy sauce, dry sherry and corn starch. A few use ketchup. And it seems cider vinegar is an integral part of Chinese cooking as well.
Pork Chop Suey is also in here, with an author’s note that, indeed, Chop Suey is not actually a Chinese dish, but a “Chinese-American” dish.
The book, naturally falls open to the “Special Egg Foo Yung” recipe. I think you know what that means. Some lucky family got to enjoy Myra Waldo’s recipe of not just any Egg Foo Yung, but her “Special” Egg Foo Yung. Here is another classic that made me smile:
Yes, apparently we Chinese like fried fruit. I wish I knew.
Despite the chuckles it gave me (and a recipe for hot-and-sour soup, a real true favorite of mine), I was genuinely excited to see a recipe for “Chinese Bread”, which I presume to be the steamed buns you use with Peking Duck, or with which you use in BBQ pork buns and this even the Taiwanese Pork Burger I raved about earlier. There are no photos in this book, so I can’t say for certain. I seriously thought about making them, but then remembered the Asian market I discovered on the same trip to the U-District as the one where I found this thrilling cookbook, and decided I should save the time and just buy them at a store that’s about 3 miles from my house. Whenever it is I get around to enjoying bread again, that is.