Tastes of Childhood II: Making Fish Cookies in Taipei

In my younger years, whenever I'd go to a family gathering my Aunt Rose (who has since passed on) made these cookies. They were sweet, filled with a soft walnut center and, justifying their namesake, were cut into a herringbone pattern. They were coated with a sugar syrup and were so tooth-achingly sweet that you could only eat one or two.

Aunt Rose would show up with a Tupperware in hand, or, too frugal to buy tupperware, a regular baking tin that she'd wash and bring home. Inside would be layers and layers of sticky-syruped parchment paper separating layers of buttery walnut fish cookies. She'd set them out on a side table and through the gathering people would walk by and swipe a few.

Most of my relatives didn't care for them - too sweet - but as a kid I loved them (exactly because they were so sweet)!

Having recently obtained the recipe or something along the same lines from my mom, I tried to make them today, knowing that they should keep until next week's party if refrigerated well.

Mine turned out delicious, although much softer and more crumbly than Aunt Rose's cookies (and slightly less overwhelmingly sweet - I think my aunts and uncles would like my version more, in fact).

I can't link to a website for this, so I'll give you the recipe. 

The ingredients are: 

Filling: 3 cups of walnuts, finely chopped (cups of walnuts before chopping, not after)

5-6 tablespoons of sugar

1 flat tablespoon ground cinnamon

Mix together and set aside (and walnuts are easy to chop if you can't find pre-finely-chopped ones).

 Dough: 

4 1/2 cups of flour (you could make very buttery cookies with 4, but the extra 1/2 lends them needed cohesion)

2 cups of butter (yes, you read that right)

3 tablespoons of sugar

A dusting of cinnamon powder to taste

1 cap-ful of vanilla extract (my own addition, not in the traditional recipe)

1 egg

1 cup milk (I used goat's milk)

2 teaspoons baking soda

Syrup:

3/4 cup sugar

1/2 cup water

Some lemon juice to taste (don't overdo it)

pastry brush (silicone ones are best)

Glaze:

One egg and 1/3 cup milk beaten together

                                                                                    Different pastry brush

First mix the walnut mixture and set aside.

Then mix dry dough ingredients. Mix sugar into softened butter and then beat an egg into that. Slowly add the dry ingredients and when added and well-mixed, add milk. Mix and knead longer than you usually would for cookies (usually you don't want the gluten in the flour to do that thing it does when you over-mix cookie, cake and muffin dough but for these it adds cohesion). Don't knead as long as you would for bread, though. Allow to sit in a cool place or in the refrigerator as you would sugar cookie dough.

Preheat oven to 375F, or 190C.

Now, make the cookies by rolling small balls (a little smaller than golf balls but larger than walnuts) into ovals, flattening them with your palm and sprinkling a line of walnut mixture down the middle. Then push the ends together to create a dough "packet" filled with walnuts. Like this:

Take a pastry brush and brush them generously with the egg glaze. Take a small pair of scissors, like manicure scissors, and cut thin, close herringbones across the top - pull up a bit as you go to really get the right look (as you can see I was not entirely successful - I think I'll get better with practice).

Bake for 15-20 minutes and, while baking, mix the water, sugar and lemon and boil for 5 minutes. Allow to cool and set aside.

The old recipe calls for you to use tongs and dip the cookies into the syrup while hot, but if you make them super buttery they'll fall apart easily (as with the one above). You can do just as well brushing them with syrup with a pastry brush while still hot. 

What I love about these is that the sugar in the walnut mix melts in the heat and creates a sort of sweet walnut paste filling that is just delectable and not bitter (as walnuts can be).

Allow to cook and separate with parchment paper (you do not want to be wrapping plastic wrap around these babies).

And voila! Mediterranean sweet walnut cookies! 

And while my Aunt Rose's cookies always looked spectacular, not all falling apart like mine, I'd say that mine taste pretty damn good.

Food!

Just thought I'd post this for fun. The full and confirmed menu of what I'll be cooking next week to share the food of my homeland (Armenian Musa Dagh) with my friends. All I can say is: yum yum yum!


lahmacun - a flavorful "pizza" topped with ground lamb mixed with onion, tomato, mint, parsley and other delicious things, topped with raw onion, tomato slices, parsley and lemon juice

stuffed grape leaves - assuming I can get grape leaves from Yi Wei foods in time. My grape leaves are stuffed with white rice mashed a bit with ground pine nuts, salt, black pepper, lemon juice, garlic, olive oil and a touch of black pepper (I also cook the rice with some of the tattered grape leaves to imbue a full flavor).

If I can't get the grape leaves I'll make something else - possibly yoghurt kofta (meatballs in yoghurt sauce), possibly something with phyllo, maybe stuffed tomato dolma

muhammara - a zesty red pepper walnut dip

hummus - chick peas ground to a fine dip with sesame paste, garlic (both raw and roasted), cumin, paprika, lemon juice, olive oil salt and pepper and topped with a dusting of fiery cayenne powder

babaghanoush - the same, except with roasted eggplant instead of chick peas

All of the above served with baguette rounds (cheaper and tastier than imported pita in Taipei, my relatives would appprove of the change considering that pita sold here tends to be stale) and assorted vegetables

cucumber mint yoghurt salad - just what you think it is, with some raw garlic and spices to give it a punch

tabbouleh - bulgur salad with mint, parsley, bell pepper, cucumber, onion and tomato among other seasonings

pilaf - rice cooked with fried pasta in butter and chicken broth with a few spices

fish cookies - named for their herringbone design, these syrup-dipped butter cookies are filled with a walnut-cinnamon sugar mixture

Some Thoughts on Having Children in Taiwanese Culture

Thought #1 - the preference for male children is going to end within one generation.

I recently had a conversation with someone who is recently married and about to try to start having a baby - and one of the things we talked about caused me to do some thinking.

She said that because she wants to have only one child - although she admits she might change her mind after having that child - that she would prefer it to be a boy.

Oh no, I thought, so this whole 'preference for sons' thing is still alive even in the younger generations? (I realize it's culturally motivated but I don't care - a preference for sons is something I will not condone. You can get rid of a societal preference for male children and not destroy the culture).

She clarified - she wants a boy because her mother-in-law wants a grandson* to carry on the family name and lineage. It's OK if she has a daughter, but the mother-in-law will then pressure her to have a second baby and try for a boy. If she has one baby and it's a boy, she won't get the pressure because the male lineage would have been assured.

[sarcasm] Of course, it is clearly unthinkable that a granddaughter might carry on the family heritage. Everyone knows women can't do that. [/sarcasm].

I want to say that my first thought was uuuuggggghhhhhhh but that I tempered it: in some ways, this is actually a good thing. The person I was talking to - a member of the current parent-aged generation - doesn't personally care if she has a son or daughter. When she has a child of any gender, she won't care if that child has a son or daughter (I didn't ask what she'd think of a child who wanted to children of his or her own).

It's a member of the older generation that cares, and that makes all the difference. It sucks for my acquaintance, who has to deal with that pressure, but the fact is that the older generation is done procreating and their influence can really only stretch into the current generation (maybe - maybe - the next one if they try to pressure their grandchildren, but given the later ages to which couples are delaying parenthood, I suspect most Taiwanese grandparents won't be around to see their great-grandchildren. I'd add that my grandparents' expectations of me never changed my life plan one jot, although I love and respect all of them, but then neither did my parents'...and Taiwan has a different family culture. My reactions to family expectations don't apply).

That means that if this is a trend, and I believe it is even though I'm only illustrating it with one example, that the whole 'preference for sons' thing is going to die out with the next generation and we will hopefully see a more egalitarian, sexism-free take on procreation. I don't mean that all preference will be eradicated, but that preferences will be individual and will include parents who want girls, not just the social mandate to prefer boys. I'm seeing a lot of "we don't mind either way" or "actually, I want a girl" and "my mother wants me to have a son but I don't care personally" in the current generation of parents, and very little "I want a boy who will take care of me in my old age/carry on the family name". This is a good thing.

We then had a great discussion on how one handles parents and in-laws post-marriage, when you become your own family unit. I had little to say because these aren't problems I have (my in-laws thankfully don't do this, and while my parents do, we are close enough that I can tell them to shove off - in those words - without any loss of love, because that's the kind of relationship we have). I shared how I handle pretty much anyone who gets in my space who is not my husband, by at first deflecting and then, if it persists, telling them that really that's a personal issue. If that doesn't work, flat out saying that I'll do as I please and my decisions are not theirs to make, and their opinions are their own but I don't want to hear them. I'll end with an unapologetic "I'm sorry you feel that way" and do as I please anyway, without explaining myself, because why should I have to?

She admired the approach but admitted she couldn't practice it - it's my mother in law! I can't say that!


(Sure you can, maybe more politely but you can. But yes, I do understand that there are cultural issues at play).

Which might all lead to another post on dealing with family in Taiwan once you are married - when I have more time I'd like to expand on that.

*note to my mother-in-law - thank you so much for not being like that!


Thought #2 - I'd really like to see the demise of the assumption that it's best to want kids, but it's not going to.

Heck, it hasn't gone away in the USA. I still have family who pressures me about this. But here...well, this may be TMI but it's a women's issue in Taiwan so I think it's worth sharing. I was visiting my doctor and discussing various options and she said "So you can take this for a year or so, and then when you have a baby..."

"I'm not planning to have a baby."

"Really?! But...why? You really don't want to have a baby?!"

Because for this particular doctor it is kinda, sorta her business when she's dealing with my health, instead of telling her to shove off I said "Yes. I really don't."

In the USA I would have dumped her right away and gotten a new doctor, but this is Taiwan and I can't expect the same attitude here. I did see a different doctor only because it was more convenient to work, and got a similar reaction. I get the feeling that I'd get that reaction no matter who I saw - because I also get it from taxi drivers, new acquaintances, random people, the old ladies in the lane, you name it. I don't tell them my plans mostly, because it's not their business, but I get that shocked expression when I tell them I'm 30, married and yet do not have a child (I'm not sure why - the Taiwanese are marrying later and later and also delaying childbirth, if they have children at all. "DINK" is actually a word here, too). They are shocked when I say I have no immediate plans for a child (something I wouldn't divulge in the USA but the boundaries for personal questions here are different - if I had not been influenced by the culture here I wouldn't even be blogging about this). I don't tell them that I don't have any plans, because that's just not a conversation I want to have with perfect strangers.

I don't see this going away anytime soon. It's a shame - people (especially doctors) really should respect others' decisions to have or not have children. Unlike a preference for sons, however, I think the expectation that having children is the best route, the correct path, is not going to die out within a generation. Too bad.

My Beautiful Island: Snoozefest Edition

Some thoughts on this film, which is making a bit of a splash across the Intertubes (it's appeared a few times in my Facebook and Google+ feeds accompanied by discussion of the promotional video's merits).

I have to say, overall I don't care for it. As one person said, it's got smashing production values and is visually stunning, but as a video to promote tourism it fails (not my words, but I agree wholly). I am not sure what the viewer is supposed to take away from this about Taiwan. I liked the idea of four different journeys, which represent four different kinds of tourists (the Japanese tourists who shop and sightsee, the backpacker on some sort of 'see the world, change myself' journey, the Asian-American family that seemed to be on a 'show the kids their roots' trip, the old folks), but I felt that those journeys could have happened anywhere in Asia. The tea fields, the lake with the lantern-bedecked pier, the bus going down the country road. All 'stereotypical Asia', not Taiwan.


I'm not saying they should have just shown touristy places, although they should have added a few (just 101, Taroko Gorge and maybe Chihkan Towers or another historic building would have sufficed), but they should have shown scenes that felt more like...Taiwan. I felt the more arty, cloudy, overcast feeling of the film lacked spirit, verve and love for the country. I felt it sacrificed spirit in the name of, I dunno, art?

I feel that...well, first of all, what's up with the first five minutes of the film being nothing but Taoyuan Airport, a bus station, the HSR, a hotel, an escalator? Other than possibly the HSR (which would have been better depicted as it was actually racing across the countryside with the happy pensioners riding inside), none of that is even remotely interesting. Five minutes of Taoyuan Airport and Ubus is four and a half minutes too many. A good filmmaker could have gotten some dialogue in there while showing more scenes of actual, you know, Taiwan.

The music when they're getting their passports stamped was also a poor choice - it was horror movie "something terrible will happen to them in Taiwan" music, not music that makes you want to actually go to Taiwan. The scene where the Japanese girls go shopping - really, why close up only on their faces and one pair of ugly shoes? Why not show the Xinyi district at night, all lit up, a more sweeping view of where they were, and then close up? Or move out? Why not show Taipei 101 (a cheesy addition for this too-arty film, but I think an important one for tourism)? Why not show them out at a club or bar after shopping, seeing as they spent another valuable chunk of film time putting on makeup, which we really didn't need to see? When they were at the night market, why not show more than very close-up shots of the one food stall? Night markets are so full of visual stimulation and are so very Taiwanese in feel that I can't fathom why they didn't show more of it.

The tea fields were visually engrossing, but the dialogue was so stilted. Seriously, "your hand in mine, as we were in our younger days?" Excuse me, but what the hell is that? What hack wrote that? Couldn't they get someone to write some actual, realistic dialogue?

For the backpacker, I thought the idea was cool, but one could have shown him venturing into more interesting places (the part in the mountains at the end was cool, and the aboriginal-music party was cool too, I'll say that). Why not have him be totally blown away by a colorful temple fair, as I was the first time I saw one pass by, all banging and crackling? That was a formative Taiwan experience for me - cultural things like that really deserve more screen time. They got none.

Instead of showing the older folks drinking tea in a restaurant, why not have them on Maokong, learning how to brew 老人 茶, or invited into a local's home for tea in the traditional style?

Anyway.

I can nitpick all night (and would love to - I'm in a truly foul mood these days for completely unrelated reasons that I won't divulge here) but really, at the end, it's this.

The movie had no soul. No heart, no verve, no spirit. It was like a European art film on sleeping pills. It was like Terrence Malick doing a parody of a Terrence Malick film (if you couldn't tell, I didn't care for The Tree of Life one bit, and my husband assures me that The Thin Red Line is as bad or worse in that style). Nothing - not one thing - about it screams yes! This is the Taiwan we know and love! YES! This is the Taiwan I want my family and friends to see!

It screams generic arty film about Asia that lacks a pulse.

And for that, despite all its visual beauty, I give it a FAIL.

Some suggestions, in bullet form:

- pick up the pace
- intersperse the tight camerawork with some more sweeping views
- lose the depressing, at times horror-movie like music, or use it more sparingly
- show more of Taiwan - not necessarily focusing on typical tourist stuff but interview some tourists and expats and ask them to visualize a scene that for them would be "Taiwan". For me it would be either driving the Central Cross Island Highway (seriously, Hehuan Mountain has to have some of the most gorgeous views in the country and nobody uses it in films or commercials? WHY?) or a temple fair, or brewing old man's tea on a mountain or in a picturesque teahouse, or hanging out in a lane in an urban area with old ladies fanning themselves and gossiping. Other people would have different ideas. Incorporate these visions, because that's where you'll find the things about Taiwan that really grab travelers and give them a unique experience.
- rewrite the awkward dialogue. None of this "I think it was fate that brought me here" business. Gag.
- show more interaction with locals - other than that A-do character and a night market vendor the travelers seemed to be off in their own worlds
- infuse the whole thing with more, I dunno, vibrancy. Pick a director with boundless love for Taiwan who can really show that through his or her work.

Also, it would have been better if they'd called it "My Beautiful Country" (I realize Ilha Formosa means "beautiful island" and that there are political issues involved), but of course that would have never happened. That would be too good to be true. Goodness forbid that foreigners actually realize that Taiwan is a country.

Ugh.

So, my hard drive died on the weekend and we had to get it fixed, and I tried to find the White Roses protest mentioned in the Taipei Times but it didn't seem to happen (seriously there was nothing there and I spent awhile in the area walking around and looking), and I wasn't feeling well for most of the weekend and we have a lot to do before we leave for Turkey, so despite all of my grand blogging plans it hasn't happened.

Hopefully before we leave for Turkey I'd like to post on a few topics - celebrating some of my favorite Taipei architecture, another look at views on weight loss in Taiwan, some observations on mothers-in-law and having sons from a student, a post on "fish cookies" (named for their herringbone pattern) that I'll make for our party on 8/13, and a few complaints I have about the new Taiwan tourism mini-film (seriously, did they hire Terrence Malick to direct it or something?) and more.

Not sure when I'll have the time to do this, though. We'll see.

Tastes of Childhood: Making Lahmacun in Taipei

OH YUMMY

I've mentioned before that my mom's side of the family is Armenian from Musa Dagh, Turkey and that this is one of the reasons why we chose Turkey as our next travel destination: to seek out my homeland (or rather, one of my homelands - I'm also Polish, Swiss and generic British/Irish). Of all my many threads of ancestry, my Armenian heritage has always been the most vibrant and the biggest part of my life - I do believe that's because that side of the family came to the USA the most recently, and also because that branch of the family has been the most tenacious in terms of keeping heritage and memories alive. That tends to happen when your family lives through a genocide. When one's great grandfather (in my case, Mehran Renjilian) was a freedom fighter (the Turks would say "terrorist" but they're wrong) in the Armenian resistance...later turned minister. When one's family arrives in the USA after being forced to leave not one, but two countries - the second being Greece as the Nazis closed in.

So, after many years of regaling friends with homecooked Indian food, various appetizers and organizing outings to restaurants, I decided that on the eve of the trip that will mark my generation's first return to Musa Dagh, that I will cook some of the best-loved and most familiar dishes of my childhood.

The party will be in two weeks. I can make some of these dishes in my sleep, quite literally: I've had dreams where I have made hummus from scratch and upon waking up realized that even in my dream I followed exactly the right recipe. I have to admit, though, that there are others that I've eaten plenty of but never attempted to make (such as "fish cookies" which are flavored not with fish but with honey, and derive their name from the herringbone pattern cut across the top), and still others that I've attempted once before, failed at miserably, and never tried again...such as lahmacun.

The last time I made lahmacun, or tried to, I was too scared to attempt the dough, being terrified of trying something that included yeast. Instead I put the tasty topping on soft pita. The pita burned. I took the smoking mess of charred bread and raw meat laid out in a glass casserole out of the oven and plopped it on the counter, where the glass instantly shattered.

You can imagine my trepidation at deciding to not only attempt lahmacun again, but to do so with my tiny electric oven and with real dough made with actual yeast (I'm a great baker of cakes, muffins and such but not so experienced with bread products).

So this weekend was the test run.

My beloved husband helps out in the kitchen as I prepare the lahmacun dough.

I mostly followed this recipe, with a few changes to reflect the flavors I remember from childhood. I would never use ground beef - only lamb will do. Beef is a cop-out. I also added extra garlic, black pepper and allspice to the recipe. The "Armenian spice" I grew up with is made of cumin, paprika, cayenne pepper, black pepper and allspice and that's the combination I created and added.

Ground allspice in my tiny marble mortar&pestle.

 Fortunately, I have a wonderful husband who, while not exactly a kitchen god in his own right, is very good at helping out in the kitchen - chopping, grinding, peeling, mixing, stirring - whatever I may need when my two hands and one brain just aren't enough.

Lahmacun is not just flavored with dry spices and lamb - it also includes the pungent flavors of onion, parsley, mint, tomato, lemon and garlic (and, of course, salt).

Mint and lemon - yum!

 My mom once wrote a short story of her experiences making lahmacun, lamenting that Nana - her grandmother - could always turn out perfect dough circles but hers were eternally lumpy and lopsided.

I have to say that I take after my mother, but it doesn't matter: I care about taste, not looks.

Sorry, Nana. I hope as you look down on me from heaven (despite my not being religious) I hope you will forgive my horrifically uneven dough rounds).

Creating this dish in Taipei was - and will be, when I make it again in two weeks - a collision of memories. My life in Taipei with our assortment of friends here, our decrepit apartment that we'll soon be moving out of for better digs, our insane cat, Chinese class, evenings enjoying Belgian beer at various Da'an cafes or going out for some of the best food I've ever had from around China and the world... and commingled with childhood holidays where we'd serve typical American food - turkey or ham, gratin potatoes, green beans, tossed salad, apple pie - alongside hummus, Armenian string cheese, cheoreg (my mom wrote that recipe!), babaghanoush, pilaf, fish cookies, olives and lahmacun. We'd eat scrambled eggs with string cheese, bacon and cheoreg the next morning sitting around Grandma and Grandpa's kitchen table in their suburban house that is so typically American that I once saw their living room in a TV commercial (except it wasn't theirs - it just happened to be the same pre-fab living room). Running around the backyard with my cousins, all much younger than myself and helping Grandma make deviled eggs - it took years for her to realize that I was, in fact, capable of cooking much more than that.

Those flavors - mahlab (a spice made from the ground pits of a certain cherry), tahini, aromatic lamb, tangy lemon, earthy cumin, pungent mint and parsley, fiery cayenne - are the sensory receptacles of my childhood and going back from there, of my heritage. Despite sweating in a kitchen in Taiwan over a plastic table covered in parchment paper, whereas my great grandmother would have done this first on a rough kitchen counter in rural Turkey and later in Athens, and later still in Troy, New York, I did feel a connection to the feisty woman who passed away when I was 9 and who never did quite become fluent in English. It was also meaningful to me to share this first batch of lahmacun - the food of my childhood - with my ever-amazing husband:

...who, you know, certainly appreciates good food. We ate it as I always have, topped with fresh vegetables (onion, cucumber, tomato, bell pepper, all will do) and a squeeze of lemon.

And it means a lot to me to be able to share this food with my friends in Taipei in just a few short weeks, before we say goodbye until October.

Oh yes, and I made a cucumber yoghurt mint salad, too!

STOP THE PRESSES

For once I agree with a KMT politician!

Wu Dunyi (Den-yih, whatever) did the obvious - but no less right - thing and has rejected in very strong terms the references made by Anders Behring Breivik (I assume I don't need to tell you who he is) to Taiwan as a good model for "monocultural" society.

Although Wu's remarks were said in a very blue way ("Chinese culture with Taiwanese characteristics"? Seriously?), nonetheless I'm with him on the fundamentals. Whatever that Norwegian psycho believes about Taiwan and "monoculturalism" is false, because Taiwan is not monocultural. Anyone who's been here for any length of time can tell you that - and if they can't, they aren't paying attention.

If anything I would say that Taiwan is far more diverse than Japan and Korea, other countries mentioned in Breivik's creepy tirade - not more diverse than China, but then the Chinese like to pretend they aren't diverse - a cultural tic I have not observed in Taiwan except among a very few individuals. Layers of culture of various aboriginal tribes, Hoklo culture that has evolved in Taiwan over hundreds of years, strong Japanese influence, a big wave of Chinese influence, a huge chunk of Westernization that I do not see in Japan or South Korea - I find the Taiwanese to be more progressive in so many ways - and skeins of influence from Southeast Asia (if you don't believe me go hang out in Donggang for a few days, and tell me you don't feel the Indonesian and Filipino influence).

I find Taiwan friendlier to cultural change - and yet amazingly flexible enough to retain many traditional elements - and friendlier to foreigners than I ever felt in Japan or Korea. Mind you I've only visited and not lived in those countries, but that's the impression I got. I find Taiwan to be a great destination for female expats in Asia in terms of equality, respect and rights - something that was not originally a characteristic of the culture here (remember just two generations ago baby girls were given away if the family lacked money, while boys were revered). I find the Taiwanese more open to other cultures and more willing to admit their admiration of other cultures while still taking pride in their own.

I don't see where a "strict immigration policy" comes into it, either. Sure, it's hard to gain Taiwanese citizenship but it's certainly not hard to live here - granted I say that as a privileged Westerner and not a domestic worker or foreign laborer from Southeast Asia, or a bride from China.

So, uh, in short, Wu's right.