“Should I tell the panel the background story?” said Sam, before he carried it out. “Because I don’t think they will know.”
“Surely they will know,” said Liang Yeh. “It’s the Empress Dowager.”
“Brother,” chided Jiang, “they won’t know. They have forgotten.”
Liang Yeh shrugged. “Then let it be.”
Sam took the platter from his father. He saw that his father was different here, light, almost at ease, in the way he must have been when he was young. Gone was the ill-fitting cloak of exile he had worn for so many years, the hunched and anxious shoulders. Sam wished his mother could be here, seeing it. She loved Liang Yeh, loved his kindness and his mordant humor; she would be uplifted to see him so happy. Sam felt a pang of longing for them to be together, the three of them, with his father like this, here in China.
Back in the kitchen Sam noticed Maggie sitting now, watching. She was so attentive. Her presence reminded him that most people did not watch things very closely. Well, it was her job. She was a writer. He liked knowing she was there. She saw everything. He almost seemed to see his own life more clearly when she was here to witness it. Soon, though, she would be gone. “How much longer are you going to be in China?” he said.
“I try not to think about that.”
“Why?”
“I guess I don’t want to leave. I would never have thought I would like it here, this much. But I do. It feels good.”
“So stay,” he said.
“I can’t. I have to work. By the way,” she said quickly, changing the subject, “he’s amazing, your father. He really kept his skills up. I thought you said he never cooked!”
“He hasn’t, for many years,” said Sam. “He’s just naturally great. He’s the last Chinese chef.”
“No, Sam,” she said. “You are.”
He smiled. “That’s why I wish you didn’t have to leave.”
“I feel the same.”
“So maybe you’ll come back.”
She said nothing. He held the first of the three molds over the sink and, supporting it with a sieve, dislodged it in one piece. He opened the crevice just a bit, and sizzling pork fat ran off and hissed into the sink.
“Nephew! Your sense has vanished and left you!” Jiang flew across the room at him.
“Remember?” Sam said to Maggie in English. “I told you this would cause a fight.” Then he went back to Chinese. “Uncle, we don’t need all the fat.”
“But this dish is you er bu ni,” To taste of fat without being oily. “That is its point!”
“This is enough fat.”
“Leave him!” cried Liang Yeh. “Do you not think he knows the right amount? To the droplet? To the touch?”
A change came over the room. Even Maggie felt the fine hairs on her arms stand up.
“Perhaps you are right,” said Jiang in Chinese.
“Thanks, Dad,” said Sam, using English. Then, in Chinese: “It’s so rich already. And this is the first rice we’ve had. I assure you, for the meishijia, the fat is waiting, delicate and aromatic as a soufflé, right under the skin.” He turned to his father. “You serve it. Please. I served your corn cakes and your sloppy joes.”
“Xiao wo tou and shao bing jia rou mo,” his father said. “Learn the Chinese names.”
“I will,” Sam said. And Liang Yeh carried the tray in high, with a flourish. They heard his smart steps across the floor, the click of the plates on the table, and then, from the panel, low shrieks of disbelief, submission, almost weeping.
“They’re going to eat the fat,” Tan predicted.
“Five to two says no,” Sam said. “A hundred kuai.”
“Done,” Tan said, satisfied. He had cooked for the meishijia all his life. He knew they would eat the fat.
Jiang stood back to let Liang Yeh back in and peered out through the crack in the door. “You win,” he said to Tan. “They’re eating it. Any more dishes?”
“One,” said Sam. “The last metaphor. It’s easy now. I made the broth yesterday.” From the refrigerator he took a bowl with about six cups of rich-looking jellied broth. “Lamb broth. I boiled it for three hours – lamb meat and bones, and wine, and all kinds of aromatics. Then I cooled it, took out all the fat.” He dumped the jellied broth into a pot. “Every great banquet ends with a fish,” he told Maggie in English. “This is going to be carp in lamb broth.”
“I don’t think I’ve ever heard of that combination,” said Maggie.
“It’s a literary finish. This last dish creates a word, perhaps the single most important word in the Chinese culinary language – xian, the fresh, clean taste. The character for xian is made up of two characters – the character for fish combined with the character for lamb. In this dish the two are joined. They mesh. They symbolize xian. They are xian.”
“Is it hard to make them work together, carp and lamb?”
“Harder than you think. It’s about the balance of flavors. Lamb cooked in wine is sweet and strong. Carp is meaty and also strong. If you can find just the right meeting point, they’re perfect.” The broth was heating up.
“It smells wonderful.”
“Watch,” he said. “As full as the people out there are, they’ll eat the soup, all of it.” He added the fish, brought the broth and the fish back to a boil, and immediately turned it out into a famillerose tureen. The smell was the two natural musks, of lamb and of carp, made one.
“Mm.” She drew it in. “In the beginning was the Word.”
He laughed at her, delighted, and took off his apron. “That’s it!” He lifted the bowl. It was done.
Dessert was a platter of rare fruits, trimmed and carved into bite-sized flowers and other small pleasing geometries, then assembled like a mosaic into the shape of a flying yellow dragon – imperial style, with five claws instead of four. This was another of Uncle Tan’s creations.
Crafting thematic images with fruits and vegetables was a common Chinese culinary trick, practiced at all the better restaurants, so when Sam first brought the fruit mosaic to the table the only comment it excited was on the perfection of the dragon and the pleasing way in which the finale reinforced the Liang family’s roots in imperial cuisine. It was only after the panel began to nibble at the fruits that the cries of happy surprise once again rose from the table. None of the fruits were what they expected. They were from every corner of China and her territories, like the delicacies that had always been brought to the Emperor. There were mangosteens and soursops and cold litchi jelly from the south, deep-orange Hami melon from Xinjiang, jujubes and crab apples and haws from China’s northeast.
If the members of the panel ate enough of the fruit to see the line of calligraphy alongside the painting of peaches on the plate, they would also find an excerpt from Yi Yin’s famous description of the tribute fruits brought to court, written in the eighteenth century B.C.: North of the Chao Range there are all kinds of fruit eaten by the Gods. The fastest horses are required to fetch them. If they ate far enough, they would read these lines and the connection would be complete.
Sam didn’t know if they would reach the quotation or not, but by now he saw that it didn’t matter. The act was enough. There was totality in the act.
Now, from the dining room, they were cheering and calling out. Maggie touched his arm. “I think they want you.”
So he walked in. They rose to their feet, crying out their happiness, applauding. “Marvelous!” “Unforgettable!” “The Liangs have returned.”