04.11.08
Peanuts are a poor substitute for meat
My neighbors had a delivery today. I know, because an old lady banged on their door for about ten minutes until I said “What the hell?!?!” and opened my door. She was their grandmother, dropping off food (as all Asian grannies and aunties do – it does not matter how awful, stinky, unwanted or impractical the food is – by god you’re getting it). When the neighbors came home I gave them their plastic bag. The matriarch insisted on giving me some of the stuff, to which I initially said “No I couldn’t possibly” until I realized they were zong zi.
For those of you who don’t speak Mandarin, zong zi are those sticky rice things wrapped in bamboo leaves that usually have part of a soy sauce-marinated hard-boiled egg and some pork and maybe dried shrimp. They can be amazingly good. I thought these would be like that. My mother always told me how the tradition of zong zi arose from some commoner foolish enough to woo a princess in the bad old days – Daddy Emperor threw that upstart in the river, and the kind-hearted women in her court threw him leaf-wrapped sustenance, to give him an edge over the fishes, until Daddy stopped being so mad. I think the peasant ended up marrying the princess, persistence being highly valued in China. [Wikipedia has a slightly different story. This is probably why my mother is not a qualified Chinese school teacher.]
Unfortunately, the zong zi I had just now would not have sustained the courageous young man. It was all peanuts! I hate peanuts combined with other food. (Reese’s Pieces are just tolerable, and for barely one piece, if that.) Now, if the zong zi had the other stuff it’s supposed to have, I’d just pick out the peanuts and ignore them. But this was an embarrassment of peanuts. There was only maybe 20% more rice than giant peanuts. Now I know why the Mrs. next door was so eager to get rid of grannie’s food. I was expecting a delectable treat, and instead, I had to pick out all the peanuts, dunk the rice in so much hot sauce my mouth is still on fire, and spit out the peanuts I didn’t see. No, grannies, no more peanuts!!!
