Dim Sum and Death
Eating and sampling all sorts of cuisine is a form of enjoyment for me. I embrace diversity and variety. With that reason, I am a blessed person being in Singapore. With its myriad of flavors and tastes, I am spoiled for choice. The food that I will be talking about is one that is close to my heart. It is a food that has taught me the value of family.
I will be writing about Dim Sum.
Dim sum is a Cantonese cuisine prepared as small bite-sized or individual portions of food. It is traditionally served in small steamer baskets or on small plates. Dim sum is also well known for the unique way it is served in some restaurants, whereby fully cooked and ready-to-serve dim sum dishes are carted around the restaurant for customers to choose their orders while seated at their tables. Eating dim sum at a restaurant is usually known in Cantonese as going to “drink tea” (yum cha, 飲茶), as tea is typically served with dim sum.
Dim sum is my comfort food. It is the food that brings back memories of my childhood and of
my family.
When I was young, I would go for weekend dim sum to a specific restaurant, at the now defunct great world city with my family. Family in this sense of the word was all 16 of us. Aunties, uncles, cousins and grandparents. We would sit around a huge circular table and order a plethora of dishes. Har Gow, Siew Mai, Chee Cheong Fun and Char Siew Bao,Dan Tat, Cha Siew Soh, Low Bak Ko, Pei Dan Zhok and more would be brought to us on a metal cart and be placed on a revolving platform in the middle of the table. We would share food and laughter amongst all the other families who were also there for brunch. It was a weekly gathering and it bonded us.
My grandfather was a man who loved being in the company of people. He was friendly, loving and family-oriented. I know that I have digressed, as the topic has now moved on to my grandfather but bear with me as I will soon get to explaining how this mishmash of food has taught me life lessons. Dim sum is in a way an analogy for my family. Everyone is different and we all bring something special to the table. Some dishes complement the others while some are more of a stand-alone dish. Taste is after all, subjective. However when one dish is missing from the table, the meal seems incomplete. One cannot do without the other.
Ever since my granddad’s passing, which was a decade ago, that tradition of going for a weekly dim sum feast has now ended. I guess in a sense, it brings back too many memories of a time when everything was good and happy ; back when the table of dim sum was full.
Perhaps the notion of incorporating the topic of death into a book about food may seem morbid. However it is really about allowing the memory of the deceased to live on through food. Death is inevitable; this book may also serve as a reminder that everyone’s time on earth is temporary and that we should spend more time with our loved ones.
Dim sum signifies happy times. It is nostalgia at its finest. And it also brings back memories of my grandfather. He exemplified equality. Back in an era when sons were thought to be more precious than daughters, this man defied that notion and insisted that all of his children, male and female were equally important. The love and impartiality that he had for his family is admirable. And that is a piece of him that I take with me everyday.
Dim sum is a catalyst for bringing people together. Dim sum means ‘touch the heart’.
