Childhood comfort food

OK, so I feel a lot better. A lot less achey, am sweating a lot which is good and I feel relatively alert now.

I had my favourite chinese comfort food tonight - plain rice congee. Congee is basically rice but cooked with extra water so that the liquid becomes all gelatinous and gooey. The plainess of the rice is just what I needed - My stomach can't really take any rich foods right now. (That reminds me, I'll need to freeze the ragu sauce I made yesterday). Whenever I was ill as a child, I was always given plain rice congee. So it reminds me of being looked after as a kid which adds to the comfort, I think.

You can of course, get lots of different congees. I particularly remember how my parents used to cook it on a Sunday when I was younger. We used to be woken up to go to chinese school, and breakfast was congee. Dad used to get some fresh.. Now I don't know what the english name for these things are. They're kind of like a chinese savoury doughnut in that they are a batter which is deep fried. Oh, they're also long, rather than circular. But they're always good in congee. So when Dad could get some freshly made ones, they were still soft and fluffy.

If we didn't get congee, then we would all go out to dim sum. It was always a mad rush because we basically had to get to the restuarant before 12.15 so that we kids cold eat enough before leaving to go to chinese school at 1pm. These were the days when there wasn't really a Chinatown in Birmingham and there were only a few restaurants. So if you got to a restaurant after 12.15, you would have to queue - And watch other ppl eat as you're waiting. NOT fun! Going out for Dim Sum was a treat, but I could go every day if I wanted to now. However, I do restrict myself to only going when one of the sisters come home to make it still seem like a treat.

Nowadays, there are plenty of places you can eat in Birmingham's chinatown. It still amazes me how a place like Big Wok still has queues out the door for ppl when there are much more authentic and better places to eat. Still, Big Wok is popular with non-chinese people. The chinese people all have their own faves amongst the rest.

Actually, I was thinking t'other night how although we can get anything and everything these days - has quality been compromised? I mean, I remember how fresh lychees were a seasonal thing and thus a complete treat. The same way, pomelos were juicy and sweet - But these days, they're dry and bland. Can you remember going strawberry picking when you were a kid? And how sweet they tasted? Strawberries are a summer fruit, so when supermarkets stock strawberries that have been grown in a greenhouse in January - I for one am not only suspicious of the quality - But it also saddens me to think that consumer demand has gone wrong. Are we really so demanding that we can't wait for nature to takes it's course and only eat fruits and vegetables when they are at their peak according to the season?

Dammit, all this food talk is making me hungry - I must be getting better!