Quarantine means heaps and heaps of family time. Family time means card games, Jeopardy! watchings, and sit-down dinners. There is no dinner that symbolizes “family” in my family more than dumplings.
Made from scratch, dumplings are a whole-family affair. The filling (馅儿) needs to be mixed, the dough (皮) formed and shaped, the dumplings folded. Even the most proficient dumpling-maker needs to allot the proper time and attention to each dumpling. Copy and paste a hundred times to make enough dumplings for dinner.
One of my first dinners in Kunming was at a dumpling shop. Before we ordered, everyone gave an estimate of how many they’ll eat. I gave myself five dumplings, and my table mates followed suit. Five dumplings, eight dumplings, solidly in the single digits. My teacher raised an eyebrow but ordered according to the guesstimate tally. We can order more if people need it, definitely.
At the end of the night, the boys at our table had devoured forty dumplings each. I had eaten twenty. Lesson learned: people really like dumplings.
To supply enough dumplings at home, we have to divide up the tasks.
My dad kneads the dough. He carefully eyes and portions each dumpling skin. He takes up a rolling stick and glides it back and forth with practiced precision. Each skin turns out thicker in the middle, razor thin on the sides.
My grandma scoffs at this process, which she calls slow and stupid. For her skins, she rolls out a rectangle sheet of dough, takes a coffee mug, and excises rounds widget-style. The skins are thicker, with no gentle gradient from center to edge. There’s a wanton satisfaction in watching grandma go with the efficiency of a factory machine.
The end results of these two methods are pretty much the same. My mom, sister, and I gleefully snap up each skin as they come and shape them into their final forms. My dumplings are defined by their crescent-shape. They’re undefined around the edges and look a little squiggly. Karen’s are small and pursed. Mom’s are medium-sized, firmly made, with a decisive pinch to clasp everything together.
When the dumplings are done, the kitchen is a mess. The dumplings, for the most part, are also a mess. They taste great, the stuff of family camaraderie and time spent defending our own methods from the encroachment of other methods. They taste especially great dipped in vinegar.
Basically, I’m still learning how to be a fake chef. Which is an off putting feeling at first, until I look to my parents and realize that all home cooks are fake chefs. Nothing special to look at here, except the squiggly-looking food emerging from the kitchen.