Quest for Innocence / My Dumpling-making Philosophy

The story began Friday October 31, 2008, when people even in London kept talking about their vague Halloween plans. I was seduced by the taste of one of millions’ of great Chinese inventions: dumplings. Given some free dumplings by my Chinese classmate earlier, I felt I was in heaven. So that Friday night, I was determined to make dumplings – a lot of them.

Walking with 3 5-kilo-shopping bags for a mile, I had to take a break and call my boyfriend to give me some spiritual encouragement — only spiritual, since he was millions of miles and 8 hours away.

Eventually I made my way back to my kitchen, more precisely, the kitchen I shared with 4 other people from 4 other regions in the world. We were a truly international family – trying hard to form a harmonious society.

Back to dumplings, traditionally, as many people know, despite dumplings’ complex making, they have deep meanings. You make dumplings in the beginning of Chinese lunar calendar,
since dumplings are shaped like the ancient gold and silver money. Hence eating it shows the good wish of wealth for the coming year. Meanwhile, dumplings are eaten when there is gathering and parting of family members, because also the shape of the dumplings is kind of round, symbolizing solidarity.

The dough-making is very scientific. You need to select the right temperature, amount and flow of water, and put them in the flour in the right direction, otherwise, the texture of the dough is not as favorable as you would like it to be. Then you squeeze the flour repetitively, so repetitively that your arms get sour. But it is very satisfactory too — I just made the random slack flour into a formed, organised file. It was round and flat — like the face of Chinese people, not trying to make a fuss, not at all confrontational.

Then you must cover the perfectly shaped dough, otherwise it gets dry and less stretchy, less attractive, like our faces, always need to be moisturised.

The next step is the most violent part: chopping. It was the part I enjoyed most. It was then I decided to join the gym membership, learn boxing and self-defending. I used to hate the sound of chopping when hearing my mom doing it, but hey, the chopping is so awarding to the chopper! You get all your frustration out. There are some things about some people you don’t like, imagine you are chopping them: be it your boyfriend/girlfriend, your colleagues, your boss, or the person lives next door who talks loudly. So you chop them and you get into some kind of rhythm too, you hum it. You love it so much and can’t live without it.

The stuffing of the dumplings could be very creative. It shows the great resourcefulness of Chinese. You can put everything you like or don’t like in the dumplings and they will all come out perfectly because they are all hidden in the skin of dumplings, you don’t see them. And as long as the salt and ingredient portion is fine, everything tastes great.

The mix of stuffing shows great Chinese way of thinking and doing: you just somehow mix the random things together, everything is mixed. Everything is connected. We make do everything with the chopsticks. We have a saying that the boat goes straight by itself when it reaches the end of the bridge.

After that, it is the skin making of the dumplings. It is one of the most holy things I have ever done. To me, it is holier than bible class. I feel holier rolling the wrappers than when I ambitiously and naively joined the Young Pioneer Team – the young stage (6 to about 18 years old) of the Communist Party. I felt especially much holier because I was using an Italian pizza roller instead of a Chinese dumpling roller. So, yes, Chinese dumpling wrappers with Italian characteristics, no wonder my dumplings tasted so weird – I put curry into the stuffing too.

Besides the creative and holy part, making dumplings is about repetition – every step of it.

Through repetitive practice makes perfect. And I think repetition could be a form of art too. It is a form of meditation. You must really concentrate to make the perfect shape of dumpling skin. The skin must be round, must be thick in the middle and thin at the edge. You must always put some dry flour on the roller to make sure it does not get too sticky.

Later you put the stuffing into the skins of dumplings. Be aware no matter how much you want to put into, there is always a limit and you can only form the skin once. Once you make some part of the skin too stretchy, or too thin, it will break, or you have to cover it with another slice of skin — that’s what the amateur (me) do it to make it stop breaking when boiled, but the problem is, that skin of the dumpling will be too thick and won’t be too tasty. It is like when you put too much make-up trying to cover some part of your face, but actually you make yourself look more ridiculous.

……………

At some stage I got too philosophical while making the dumplings, and I did screw up some. Yet, again, concentration.

Occasionally I could hear my flat mates chatting about their anecdotes, from the laughter. Then my London flat mate came into the kitchen, stunned that I had been there for 2 hours, with my project covering the whole table. I felt kind of lost too. I was so into the production. I felt I was back home.

Since I believe you are what you eat, the grounds lie that I have one flat mate whose food often makes me cough and want to puke, and yes, his smell makes me regret I have a sensitive nose.

I try to make my dumplings beautiful, classy and unbreakable. Finally they turned out a bit chubby though, yet practical. See, aren’t they like me?

My friends were amazed hearing me making 60 big dumplings in 3 hours, because of the mundane procedure. While in the end I did enjoy it so much, much more than I know. It is like something that you want to be perfect at. I would say it is very close to the experience of doing Yoga. It hurts a little in the beginning, and it could be long and boring, sometimes almost unbearable, it makes you sweat, makes you feel frustrated when you could not reach your destination, it makes you want to quit so many times, and wondering why I am doing this? Yet indeed, after you finish it, you feel purified.