The Taste of Love

I was sitting in the Korean BBQ restaurant in Denver where was 12317km (7653mile) away from my hometown (Kunming, China). My friend Bubble recommended me that the rice in stone pot in this Korean restaurant was great.

When the waiter putted my dish in front of me, I knew what Bubble said before was true. In the stone pot, all materials were raw except rice, such as raw egg and vegetable. The stone pot had heated before chef putted raw materials into the pot. As a result, the dish was cooked in a natural way with natural container. “By this cooking style, almost all nutrient of this dish would be kept.” Bubble explained to me. I have to admit that the rice in stone pot is a healthy, colorful and attractive dish with a relative high price.

“It still could not compete with my grand mom’s Jiangyoubanfan (a Chinese rice dish).”, I thought. Even most of people love the rice in stone pot and spend lots of money on it, I think it’s as plain as many other rice dish I tried. Because I could not find the taste of love in the rice in stone pot.

When a group of peoples listen to a same song, some of them would cry, some of them won’t. Because human’s brain is a magic loom and wave our memories, feelings and thinking into one part. For example, there is a connection between food and human’s spiritual world. Take myself as an example, Jiangyoubanfan (rice mixed with soy sauce) that is cooked by my grand mom always could make me feel warm, relaxing and be loved. Moreover, I believe I could be brave enough to face anything with grand mom’s Jiangyoubanfan.

When I was about 3 years old, both of my parents were busy and almost didn’t have time to company with me. My mom was an engineer who had to work in other areas. She only could come and visit me for couple days once a year. My dad was a solder and he was busy too for preparing his lawyer examination at that time. Grand mom was the only person who took care of me and I always feel warm, relaxing and being loved when I lived with her. Every time when I sad, nervous or missing my parents, she would cook Jiangyoubanfan for me and talked to me. In that period of time, my family’s income was much lower than today. Additional, Jiangyoubanfan was only a dish with cheap material and simple process.

She didn’t teach me how to cook Jiangyoubanfan, however I stand by and watched every time when she was cooking. In my memory, grand mom could control the heat, water and time perfectly when she cooked rice. As the result, rice was always sticky, soft and sweet. Vegetables would be cut into small cubic. After the rice was cooled down, she would pour soy sauce, chili oil, and sesame oil in to the bowl with cool rice, as well as salt and vegetable. After stirring and mixing, I could start to eat.

 In the whole process of making Jiangyoubanfan, she was smiling and I could feel that she was putting her love into the dish to warm me. When Jiangyoubanfan was done, the rice became dark brown and colorful vegetables looked like beautiful shining diamond. The good smell of sesame oil would spreading and I could not help grabbing my spoon and started eating. Sticky, soft and sweet rice was more attractive by adding various delicious seasonings and fresh vegetable. I love it so much and I never left any piece on the bottom of my bowl. The feeling of lonely, sad, nervous would be replaced by satisfied, warm and happy. After I finished, my grand mom would wipe soy sauce from my mouth and huge me. That is exactly the taste of love and it’s the best taste on the world. Even my parents have much higher income and we could buy many other expensive food now, I still think Jiangyoubanfan is the best food ever.        
I was keeping missing my grad mom after I went to University of Denver. I especially felt sad and nervous when I heart she was sick those days. I could not fly to be with her immediately because the distance between she and me is 12317km. I want to look for some dishes that might have the similar flavor with Jiangyoubanfan. I hope I could get comfort from those food. However, I was disappointed because I could not find the taste of love.