Chinese home cooking in New Zealand over the past 100 years is the subject of Carolyn King's book, Por Por's Cookbook. Charmian Smith reports.
Like many experienced cooks, Carolyn King never makes a recipe the same way twice because she cooks with whatever's available.
It's no wonder she found it difficult writing precise ingredients and measurements for the many recipes in Por Por's Cookbook.
''Por Por'' is the Chinese name for a maternal grandmother and she tells the stories of older Chinese women, some who came to New Zealand in their childhood and others who are second- or third-generation New Zealand Chinese.
Many have done a great deal of community service as well, all have contributed some recipes, and Mrs King, a dietitian by profession, has included many of her family recipes too.
They are for the food these women cooked at home, sometimes adapted to suit what was available locally, like kow yuk (steamed pork and beetroot), which was originally made with taro, and can also be made with potato.
Many of the younger generation, now busy professionals, don't know how to cook these dishes although they may remember fondly Por Por's san choy baos (lettuce parcels) or yu yoon (fish balls) or other favourites.
Mrs King hopes this book will enable them to re-create some of the dishes they remember.
The young Carolyn Wong grew up in Dunedin in the 1950s and '60s.
Her great-grandfather Wong Koon Yol came to New Zealand in 1882, and grandparents on both sides of her family between 1908 and 1920, often the men first and the brides later as they could afford the fare and poll tax which had risen to a 100.
Both her parents, William Wong and Ivy Lowe, were born in New Zealand, but her father was sent back to Canton (now Guangdong) to be educated.
He was well known in Dunedin and, having served in the army and air force during World War 2, had numerous Kiwi mates, she said.
''He got on so well with different people and had friends throughout New Zealand, so I was fortunate. I assimilated a lot easier than some families because of his contacts. But he always instilled our Chinese heritage into us,'' she said.
Her parents ran fruit shops in South Dunedin and St Clair and, as in other Chinese families, the children were expected to help after school from the age of 5 or 6.
At first they opened newspapers for wrapping or took the paper off apples (which were individually wrapped in the 1950s).
Later they would be allowed to serve children who came in to buy a few lollies and gradually they were expected to serve other customers.
It meant they couldn't play with friends or bring them home, and they had to fit in homework around helping in the shop, she said.
''On the other hand, because Dad had been in the army and air force and caught up with a lot of what they called village cousins and made friends throughout New Zealand, as their sons and daughters came to university, my parents always hosted them.
"Then when I went to university, I'd bring my friends home, and especially New Zealand Chinese who were born in other places. That extended to when my daughter went to university.''
However, many Chinese kept to themselves and their fellow countrymen, partly because their English was not good but also because of verbal abuse, she said.
''I can remember when I went to school people would sing out `ching chong Chinaman' to you and things like that. In fact it happened again when Winston Peters was being vocal about telling the new immigrant Asians to go home in the 1990s.
"Three or four of us were walking in town in Christchurch and people came past throwing things on the footpath in front of us and yelling out 'Asians go home'. I struck it again in Hanmer Springs.''
As a third-generation New Zealander, she considers herself no different from anyone else, she said.
''It's only when you get a wee bit of racial - it's always there but we don't think of it, but you can imagine two or three generations back how they coped.
"I think they coped because they became well-respected in the community and were known as trustworthy and honest. The New Zealanders that did befriend them became very good friends.''
Chinese people worked hard because they wanted a better life for their children than they had known in China, she said.
Most of them at that time came from Canton.
When wives arrived from China, they had to learn quickly how to cook and they would be expected to work in the market garden or fruit shop or laundry as well as cook and bring up children.
Life was not easy. Some had come from families with servants and most had very little English so relied on their children to translate for them.
Several of the women whose stories are told in the book say they had to translate for their parents once they'd learned enough English at school.
Chinese women married out of their families and went to live with their husband's families and some of the women describe their mothers-in -law as matriarchs and very demanding.
Education was considered very important and in the 1960s and '70s there were several prominent Chinese doctors and dentists, but by the time Mrs King's own children were at university they had branched away from the medical field and became accountants or lawyers.
''My son, who is an electrician, never liked to study or read a book. He was a hands-on boy.
"He's 38 now, but when he went out, families still wanted their children to marry back into Chinese families and Chinese girls weren't interested in him because the parents wanted their children to be a doctor or lawyer or dentist.
"But now you'll find there are Chinese students in all fields. They have really branched out,'' she said.
She first thought of doing a cookbook while training as a dietitian at the University of Otago but marriage, a move to Ashburton, children and 40 years' working at Ashburton Hospital left her little time.
After she retired and had a couple of years away from dietetics, she finally started the book, recording how Chinese families in New Zealand ate and lived and the stories of some of the older women.
When she was a child, she and her sister and brothers would have toast for breakfast and sandwiches wrapped in brown paper for lunch like everyone else at school, but when they came home there would be something like macaroni soup.
There's a slightly different recipe in her book contributed by Dolly Jack, she says.
In the evening there would always be a rice meal, usually a bowl of rice with three dishes, stir-fried vegetables with a little beef or pork, steamed egg and a soup with a pork-bone stock and a vegetable such as marrow or watercress added.
However, if you worked in a market garden, you would have rice and perhaps a couple of other dishes for breakfast, lunch and dinner, she said.
At Chinese meals each person has their own bowl of rice and other dishes are placed in the centre of the table and shared.
Chinese used to cook and eat whatever was available: the meats that Kiwis wouldn't eat, such as liver, kidney, trotters, oxtails and pork bones.
Many kept chickens and several of the women interviewed remember they did not like to kill chickens or ducks, pluck them or remove the innards.
However, there was little alternative in those days.
They would also drain the blood as steamed chicken or duck blood was a tasty, jelly-like delicacy.
Like many people in the past, they wasted nothing.
Like other people, they also grew their own vegetables, including Asian greens, and gathered nuts and caught fish, she said.
On Sundays, extended families would share a meal.
Often they would get together to make items that took time to prepare, such as dumplings, wontons or rice parcels.
''Three generations would be making them all together. It was a common way of sharing family eating occasions together.''
Nowadays, people tend to go out to Chinese restaurants for big family celebrations instead of cooking for 20-30 people.
However, in Ashburton choices were limited so she always cooked for family occasions.
Tomato steak
Serves 4-6
Almost all the Por Pors interviewed said that the tomato steak recipe is a favourite dish of the younger generations. They all wait eagerly for the tomato season each summer. When asked to develop a recipe for hospital use in my student dietitian year, I chose to make this dish and it became very popular with both patients and staff.
Ingredients
8 tomatoes, cut up into quarters
2 slices root ginger
½ tsp salt
a shake of pepper
4 Tbsp sugar
1 tsp light soy sauce
2 Tbsp canola oil
cornflour for thickening
400g rump steak, sliced and marinated
Marinade
2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
1 tsp salt
shake pepper
1 tsp cornflour
1 tsp dark soy sauce
1 tsp canola oil
Method
Heat pan until hot, add 2 tablespoons of oil. Stir-fry marinated steak until brown. Set aside in a bowl.
In pan add ginger and tomatoes, stir-fry for 2 minutes then add sugar, salt, pepper and soya sauce. Thicken with 1-2 tsp cornflour mixed with a tablespoon of water. Finally stir in steak. Garnish with strips of egg omelette, and stir-fried slices of green peppers.
If serving as a lunch meal place tomato steak on top of cooked rice, otherwise serve as one of the dishes for the dinner meal.
Variations
1. Add 1 tablespoon of dried black beans when stir-frying the tomatoes.
2. Substitute steak with 200g bacon cut into small pieces.
3. Six fresh mushrooms sliced and stir-fried can be added to the tomato dish before thickening.
Rice Congee, jook
Serves 8-10
Congee is also known as rice porridge.
''A comfort food'', when family members are unwell a pot of jook is made. It is often one of the first foods for a baby and it is what we make for our elderly. It can be served for breakfast, lunch or supper.
I like to make a crockpot full of jook at a time so that we can have a meal, put some in the deepfreeze and give some to my Kiwi neighbours. It's great for a car-load of visitors on a cold day.
Note: Use short or long grain rice, or a mix of glutinous rice with short or long grain.
Ingredients
360g rice
2 tsp salt
2-3 large slices ginger
4 litres boiling water
3 dried scallops
1 pork hock, or ham bone or 6 pork bones
Method
Wash rice, place in crockpot or slow cooker with other ingredients. Cook on high for 4 hours. Or cook overnight on low heat for 10-12 hours.
Skim off any excess fat that comes to the top of the congee, adjust seasonings. Thin with extra boiling water if you want a thinner consistency. Cooked salted eggs can be added before serving. Serve with a garnish of finely chopped spring onions or slices of roast pork or ham.
Variations
1. Fish congee
Make plain congee without the meat bones. Slice diagonally 500g fresh fish fillets or use 2 dozen fresh oysters and marinate with salt, pepper, light soy sauce, 1 teaspoon of finely chopped garlic and a teaspoon of finely chopped ginger. Add fish or oysters to the cooking congee a couple of minutes before serving.
2. Chicken can be substituted for the fish. Marinate with the same seasonings as with the fish recipe and add in the last 5 minutes of cooking.
Read it
• Por Por's Cookbook written and published by Carolyn King is available from the University Bookshop or online at carolynking@clear.net.nz
