Aug 17th, 2022 Wednesday Sunny
What is your earliest memory of something yummy?
Mine was this dish, noodles (lo mein style) with tomato sauce and scrambled eggs – an extremely common dish in my home country. According to my mom, the very first time I tasted it, I could barely use chopsticks, but I exclaimed “how can there be something so delicious in the world?”, which made my mom super happy. I was only three years old at the time.
Time flies. I started middle school. Meanwhile, my parents got busier and busier with their work. There were times that they would both go on a business trip and had to leave me alone at home for a few days. Born as a foodie, I did not want to eat the same leftover for a week, so I asked to learn to cook something for myself.
My parents were a little concerned, naturally, about food safety and the safety of the kitchen. Still, they were convinced that learning to cook something simple is an important aspect of growing up, so my mom agreed to teach me – tomato and scrambled egg noodles, because it is the most foolproof and forgiving dish they can think of (no cutting/cooking meat, eggs are hard to undercook, and it does not matter whether tomatoes are under- or overcooked since they can be eaten raw anyway).
It worked out! I was very proud of myself for being able to cook a real dish, however simple it is, and I devoured it like a hungry cat 😛
Ever since then, this dish has become my standard go-to dinner whenever my parents were both away from home. I even served it to my best friend in middle school, claiming it to be my “signature dish”.
Another decade passed. I moved to this city, in a completely different culture. Endeavoring to fit in but inevitably feeling homesick sometimes, I often craved this dish, the flavor of perfectly balanced sweet and tangy tomatoes as well as the slightly chewy noodles. Unfortunately, on this unfamiliar land my attempt to prepare this dish proved more challenging: maybe the tomatoes were not the same variety as those from my hometown, maybe the noodles were not freshly made, maybe I did not get the seasoning right…it just did not taste the same.
After a few cycles of experimentation, expectation and frustration, I gave up. I would rather not spoil my happy memory of this dish by making do with a lesser version of it.
Then I graduated and started working full-time. I also bought a house with my husband. Last year, in our backyard, we decided to try growing one of gardeners’ favorite vegetables – tomatoes. We picked Amish paste for its superb quality as a sauce tomato, and these vigorous plants did not disappoint. The first few sun-ripened tomatoes filled the whole dining room with the aroma of late summer, and we were so excited!
When I shared the good news with my mom, she said, “you should try making that noodle again. You know, maybe the naturally ripened tomato is the key.”
And she could be right – after all, my mom always used to buy vegetables from street vendors or weekend markets, and the produce you could find there typically were from nearby farms and quite likely harvested the day of. They were usually so ripe that they would go bad in the refrigerator if not eaten within a couple of days.
So I gave my earliest favorite dish another chance.
Voila! The full-bodied tomato flavor bursting in my mouth, combined with the smooth yet savory bits of scrambled eggs – the memory of summer nights from my childhood engulfed me, like a wave of nostalgia. I could almost hear my mom’s voice in the kitchen, hustling to bring more plates onto the dining table. I could almost see my dad sitting on the couch, frowning at the performance of tennis players on TV.
“Dear, this IS yummy! Now I understand why you loved it.” said my husband.
All of a sudden, I was back in my own house, with a purring cat on my lap and a silly husband by my side, licking his lips as he chomped down the noodles.
Tomato and scrambled egg noodles – I am glad I found you again 🙂