The Strangest Meal in
Dream of the Red Chamber
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Granny Liu tastes a bite of eggplant and says it isn't eggplant. This is from Dream of the Red Chamber: her second visit to the rich Jia family, and the meal she walked into. What makes this meal so strange: nothing on the table is what it seems.
Start with the chopsticks in her hand. Carved from ivory, square-edged, and capped with gold. She picks them up and they won't obey her. Heavier than her shovel back home, she says.
Then the bowl in front of her: pigeon eggs. Much smaller than a hen's egg, round and slippery. Slippery chopsticks, slippery eggs. She chases them around the bowl and catches nothing.
At last she lifts one, leans in, and it rolls off onto the floor. Wang Xifeng, the lady running the house, laughs: that egg cost one tael of silver. How much is that? A chapter earlier, Granny Liu did the math herself.
One crab dinner at the Jia house cost over twenty taels, enough to feed a farm family for a year. So one egg was about half a month of her family's living, and it just rolled away. The strangest dish comes later: that bite of eggplant.
Granny Liu doesn't believe it, so Wang Xifeng tells her the recipe. Fresh eggplant, peeled down to the flesh, diced small and fried in chicken fat. Then chicken breast, shiitake, spring bamboo, mushrooms, spiced tofu and all kinds of nuts, all diced too.
Simmered dry in chicken stock, glossed with sesame oil, tossed in rice-wine sauce and sealed in a jar. When it's time to eat, stir in some fried diced chicken. Granny Liu shakes her head: Good heavens, it takes ten chickens to go with it!
The dish is called qiexiang. Xiang once meant split, dried fish; here it means a dish made to keep. So how does eggplant end up tasting like chicken? Eggplant flesh is like a kitchen sponge.
It's full of tiny air pockets that collapse when you press. A sponge drinks whatever it sits in. Soaked in chicken fat and stock, eggplant drinks up chicken. That's why Granny Liu says there's a hint of eggplant, but it isn't eggplant.
Cut one open: those tiny holes all over the white flesh are the pockets. One more twist: the chopsticks and eggs were set up in advance, to tease her and make the old matriarch laugh. Granny Liu knew all along. After dinner she said: we're just cheering up the old lady.
So the whole strange table comes down to one thing: in the Jia house, you pay not for the food, but for the fuss. The sponge trick works in your kitchen too. Salt it a while before cooking and squeeze out the water. The pockets collapse, and it soaks up less oil.
When you cook eggplant: salt it first, or straight into the pan?
One bite of eggplant
that tasted of chicken
Granny Liu took a bite of eggplant and said: this is not eggplant.
This is from chapters 40 and 41 of Dream of the Red Chamber, the great 18th-century Chinese novel. Granny Liu, a poor farm woman, visits the rich Jia family a second time, and the old matriarch invites her to lunch in the garden. That day, nothing on the table was what it seemed.
Chopsticks heavier
than a shovel
Wang Xifeng, who runs the household, and Yuanyang, the matriarch's maid, planned it in advance. They gave Granny Liu alone a pair of gold-capped ivory chopsticks: square-edged, long and heavy.
Granny Liu picked them up and said: these prongs are heavier than the iron shovel back home.
A pigeon egg
worth one silver tael
Then Xifeng put a bowl of pigeon eggs in front of her. Slippery chopsticks, slippery eggs. When she finally lifted one, it rolled onto the floor, and a maid picked it up at once.
Xifeng laughed: that was one tael of silver each.
How much is a tael? One chapter earlier, Granny Liu did the sums herself: one crab feast at the Jia house cost over twenty taels, enough for a farm family for a whole year. So one egg was about half a month of her family's spending.
Granny Liu sighed: one tael gone, and I didn't even hear it land.
Eggplant that needs
ten chickens
Granny Liu did not believe it was eggplant, so Xifeng told her the recipe:
Granny Liu shook her head: "Buddha above! It takes ten chickens to go with it."
The dish is called qie xiang. Xiang first meant split, dried fish. Here it means a dish made to keep.
Eggplant is
a kitchen sponge
Eggplant flesh is full of tiny air pockets that collapse when you press them. A sponge soaks up whatever it sits in. Soak eggplant in chicken fat and chicken stock, and it fills up with chicken flavour.
That is why Granny Liu said: a hint of eggplant, but it is not like eggplant.
See for yourself: cut an eggplant open. The tiny holes in the white flesh are those pockets.
The whole table
was a staged show
Quick check
Why did Granny Liu say the eggplant was not like eggplant?
Eggplant flesh is full of tiny pockets. Soaked in chicken fat and stock, it fills up with chicken flavour.
