My mother was born in Hunan, China, grew up in Taiwan, and immigrated to the U.S. in the early 1960’s, first to Houston (“where I have a Jewish mother”), then to Atlanta where my dad was studying at Georgia Tech.
As a fourth and fifth-grade then a gifted program teacher, she was beloved by her students. She was a creative sparkplug in the classroom, incorporating multidisciplinary or complex subjects like aviation, bridge-building, world trade and/or Chinese literature when other teachers stayed with more traditional topics, and even more popular on the playground, as she taught (and played) sports like Chinese dodgeball and Double Dutch jump-roping. More than once, she was selected Teacher of the Year. Reflecting wistfully,"Under today's bureaucracy and policies, I probably couldn't teach or do half of the things I did, for fear of liability or parental complaints."
My mom invented fast food Chinese long before Panda Express ever came along. She told friends, “I worked full-time as a school teacher, had three kids, and they didn’t sell tofu or soy sauce at the local Winn-Dixie grocery store back then. Who had time to make dumplings for dinner!” She also preferred a cast iron skillet to a wok. After 40 years, she still uses the same skillet which is a permanent fixture on the stove. "Woks are wobbly and didn't work well on the electric stoves popular back then."
My favorite dishes included: “Pepper Steak n' Fries," Scrambled Eggs & Grits w/Preserved Radish," “Five Spice Rutabaga" and “Hot Hunan Catfish.” Instead of soda, we drank honey water and made honey popsicles. Baked items, like bread or pastries were virtually nonexistent. Fruit was dessert. Kind of like Atkins pre-Atkins. According to my mom, she was "not really a great cook, but fast." And she cooks fast "because I'm hungry and recipes make me dizzy!" But don't ask her to bake. "I prefer to cook a 5-course meal than make a cake!"
At the urging of her friends (and frequent dinner guests), my mom taught the first community school Chinese cooking class in the area. Even though I was only ten, I helped her and we did it together. The hardest part was creating the recipes since there were none. I sat perched on a stool beside her and the blazing cast-iron skillet with ingredients flying, trying to scribble “pinch of this, pinch of that” on an index card while my mom created. After teaching school for 15 years (and a divorce, unheard of for a Chinese couple at the time), she made a mid-life career change and became a successful self-employed businesswoman.
We are now preparing to teach an Asian market and food class at Emory University (March, 2009) called "Eggrolls n' Sweet Tea" Check out the course listing: http://cll.emory.edu/eate/classes.cfm?cla=-137736890&pt=3
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