Monday, August 21, 2006

How to Cook Fried Rice in St. Monica

So I got invited to another wedding the other day. I thought this was pretty cool until my counterpart, who had relayed the invitation, pulled me aside and said "They want you to make some of your fried rice for the wedding." Then she beamed happily at me. Crap. I should've known. Of course, I really shouldn't complain when this kind of stuff happens to me since it's mostly my fault anyways. Let me explain. My site is a pretty remote Amerindian village, tucked away on the Upper Pomeroon River and nestled among a vast expanse of verdant green rainforest.  Anyways, back to my site. The village is called St. Monica, and is pretty small, with a population of about 300. Like any Peace Corps Volunteer, when I first got here I was eager to ingratiate myself to my community and show them how ready I was to help. Unfortunately, this was pretty hard considering that during the first few weeks, most of the "community mobilization" being done in St. Monica had only one purpose: helping out the poor, clueless, spoiled soft American boy who had just moved into the fancy new teacher's lodge. In my defense, there WAS a lot of work to be done in settling in. My house was nice and brand spanking new, but it was completely empty inside and every stick of furniture I needed had to be either bought or donated. Even the plumbing needed some work--the toilet leaked and the main pipe from my rainwater tank to the house had been snapped in two. Of course, I guess most villagers don't have these problems, since they don't have any plumbing, period. On my first day in St. Monica, the village captain and some teachers got together and fashioned an impromptu but effective patch to the broken pipe, using a length of hollow bamboo and some 6-inch school tape.

Very nice. Just like McGuyver if he were an Amerindian. So yeah, things continued in this vein during my first few weeks (ok, ok, MONTHS) at site--the villagers chipping in and helping in so many ways to make me feel comfortable and at home. A table, some chairs from the school, a donated clotheshorse, even the occasional portion of food--"Sir, have you tried himarra yet?" I had it all, seriously. I finally realized things were probably getting out of hand after one antenatal clinic, when I found several women behind my house with cutlasses. No, they weren't angry girls from back home who had discovered the truth about my "heroic" e-mail dispatches from the "verdant rainforest." Instead, they were local mothers, come to help me weed my yard. And some of them were pregnant. I knew this because I had seen one or two of them at the antenatal clinic just a few hours before, when I had taken their blood pressure and advised them on the importance of a "healthy diet and plenty of rest." Apparently, they had come to help out and weed at the request of my ever well-meaning but somewhat clueless counterpart, the local Community Health Worker. Ahhh, nothing like having a team of pregnant Amerindian women performing hard labor for you. Haha, no pun intended. "Pregnant"--"labor"--get it? Yes, I know, shut up. Seriously, though, I told myself that this had to stop. I mean, granted the women were doing a fine job on the yard so far, and granted the one time I had tried weeding with a cutlass I came away with blisters and nearly vomited from exhaustion after doing just a few square feet, but REALLY, Phillip, this is ridiculous!

I mean, "C'mon!" I berated myself, "did you join the Peace Corps and come all the way out here just to have poor, pregnant villagers do all the hard labor for you?" And having failed to do that, I told myself, at the very least I should try and do my part to help out while I'm down here.

Unfortunately, so far my efforts at integrating and contributing to my community had come up against the age-old obstacles that all Peace Corps Volunteers inevitably face: cultural differences, lack of resources, educational challenges, etc. In my village, about the only thing I had really mastered so far was humor. As I discovered, this was relatively easy. You simply had to insert any one of a few key comic words into your conversation: "dancing," "paiwari" (a local Amerindian drink made of fermented cassava), "Purple Heart"(a well-known bar and dance club in the nearby town of Charity), or "girlfriend" (what everyone in my village kept pushing me to get). When used in daily conversation, these comic gems were guaranteed to get you a laugh every time. Probably much like their many American counterparts: "farting," "beer," "douche," "nutsack," "genitals," "nougat," and "girlfriend." It never seemed to fail--for some reason, the mere mention of these magic words could send some people into convulsions of laughter--especially the middle-aged and older ladies of my village. For example, when talking about a shopping trip into town, you could say, "And then, of course, I delayed my boat a little bit 'cuz I had to stop by Purple Heart," and get a chuckle or two. Talking about a wedding, saying "Oh yeah, I had fun, drank a lot of paiwari, then tried to dance" would get you a good laugh. Taking a trip somewhere? Just say--"Going to get me a girlfriend" and be rewarded with uncontrollable giggling. Need insulin for a diabetic 8-year-old who's just collapsed in a hypoglycemic seizure? "No, I don't want any paiwari, I need a damn boat so we can get this boy to the hospital!"--loud guffaws. "Why are you guys laughing? I'm serious! We've got to get to Charity! I'm not just trying to get a free trip to Purple Heart here!"--peals of laughter. Sometimes I wonder what would happen if I said something like, "I tried dancing at Purple Heart with my new girlfriend, but I drank too much paiwari and fell down." I fear the sheer comedic aftershocks of such a joke would be too much to handle.

Unfortunately, for a while it felt like that was pretty much the extent of my contribution to the community--providing comic relief as a curious sideshow freak who stumbled around cluelessly in a strange environment, trying awkwardly to fit in by cracking the same tired jokes over and over. Hmmm, kind of reminds me of my life back in the States, come to think of it. Anyways, one day all this changed when someone asked me what I cooked for myself out here, and I mentioned that I occasionally whipped up some fried rice. You should've seen his eyes light up, it was like I had announced the second coming of Christ or something. "You cook fried rice?! Can you make it nice like dem Chinee restaurants do?!" Ahhh, so now I understood the excitement. It seemed that my friend here figured he had just stumbled across an as-yet-undiscovered treasure: real, authentic Chinee food, cooked for free and willingly by a real, authentic Chinee person, and right here in St. Monica no less! Holy bonkers what a find! All of this flashed through my cynical, jaded mind, yet at the same time I couldn't deny that I had always been paranoid about my Asian American status among my villagers. I mean, imagine a remote Amerindian village, being promised their first Peace Corps Volunteer. A real live American, to live right here in their village for two years! I expect that some of them were preparing for a tall, rugged, all-American blond-type, perhaps in the vein of a young Brad Pitt, or maybe a pale-skinned, polished, yet hip poster boy like Johnny Depp. Instead, I show up. Now, don't get me wrong, I'm not totally insecure about my outward appearance or physical features--in fact, some would even say that I resemble an Asian Brad Pitt or a Chinese Johnny Depp (some = my mom + me). Nevertheless, I'm still Asian, meaning black hair, brown/yellowish skin, slanty eyes. Have you looked at an Amerindian lately? Not a whole lot of variation there. So I can certainly imagine that my community might have felt just a tiny bit ripped off when I arrived. It's like being promised a once-in-a-lifetime private dinner with a President of the United States, and then sitting down to find James Garfield staring at you across the table. I mean, I'm as big a fan of the 1836 Tobacco Export Act* as the next guy, but c'mon! Where's my Abraham Lincoln? Gimme a break here! So when an opportunity came to use my Asian-ness to actually score points with my village, I'm ashamed to admit that I jumped at the chance. I'd had enough of trying to make up for my minority status by acting as "white" as possible. After all, there's only so long you can go around scratching your balls and trying to charge things on your credit card.
So within a few days I had built up my fried rice ability until I was a regular Yan Can Cook, much to the delight of my village. And that's when the requests started coming in. At first it was just from my neighbors and close friends, and I was more than happy to repay in a small way those who had done so much for me. Still, in all honesty, I could never quite understand why there was so much appeal in having me come and cook fried rice, especially when I was pretty much using the exact same ingredients that they would have used, and cooking it in damn near the same way too. Heck, in my opinion, many people I knew in my village could make fried rice a helluva lot better than my sorry ass could. But I guess for them there remained some intangible aspect of "Chinee' authenticity that I lent to every dish I prepared, which made it seem that much more tasty and special. In America I think we call this MSG.

Whatever, I didn't pretend to understand it, I just happily raked in the ego-boosting "integration" points earned by my assistance in the kitchen. By the fourth or fifth request, however, it definitely started to get old. I mean, for the love of God people, there was really NOTHING special that I was doing to the rice!!! At one point I was even tempted to begin making up crazy shit just to see how seriously they would take me. "Umm, yes, now for this batch I will need two teaspoons of fresh blood from a young virgin. Trust me, it's how my grandma Ying Ying used to make it in Taiwan."

Fortunately, I never actually gave in to such temptations. After all, who am I to complain about doing such a small thing for a community that has done so much for me over the past year and a half? They have welcomed me into their homes, shared with me their food, drink, hopes, fears, and dreams. I am truly honored to have been offered a firsthand glimpse of a fascinating culture and the proud people who live it. It is so cliche, but at the same time so true--as Peace Corps Volunteers we come with arms outstretched to help our communities, but more often than not we end up finishing the two years with those same arms still outstretched, except now strained from the huge load of gifts we take away with us--two years' worth of incredible experiences, sights, and friendships that we shall never forget. So, yeah, you may not be able to tell from this little article of mine, but over the months even I have learned to tamp down my smug little American cynicism, shut my wiseass mouth, and just try and appreciate the beauty that floats my way on the Pomeroon. That, and also fresh virgin's blood is just really hard to come by in Guyana. And I would hate for anything bad to happen to Jin on my account.

*yeah, I know Garfield wasn't President during 1836, and there's no such thing as the Tobacco Export Act, but what, you expect me to research this shit? I have a lot of free time on my hands, but I ain't that hard up for something to do!

Phil's "Authentic" Fried Rice

You will need: 1.5 cups white rice

6 stalks shallots

5 cloves garlic

one carrot

one bushel of bora

two eggs

cooking oil

black pepper

hot pepper sauce

salt or agee seasoning

good quality soy sauce (note: definitely NOT "Chinee" sauce, which as far as I can tell is someone's jizz in a bottle, plus caramel coloring)--to tell good quality soy
sauce from crappy quality, tilt the bottle at an angle: good quality soy sauce, while
not exactly viscous, should leave a sort of smear of dark brown on the sides of the
bottle, and is not completely transparent, whereas crappy quality soy sauce is
watery and almost see-through and looks basically like salt water with black food
coloring (which it is). Another good sign is if the damn bottle has actual Chinese
characters written on it, and not something like, say, "Chief's Soy Sauce: made in
Trinidad."

1 Chinee Dave (or failing that, 1 Jin + 1Joanna)

Directions: *usually, you use 1.5 to 2 parts water for 1 part rice when boiling it (i.e. 2 or 3 cups of water for 1.5 cups of rice). However, for fried rice, try using just one part water to one part rice: i.e. 1.5 cups of water to 1.5 cups of rice. This will keep the rice from getting too soft and turning into a mushy paste when you fry it later.

Add the water to the rice in an appropriately sized pot, and boil until cooked (usually takes about 20 min. or less on low flame), then set aside.

Pour oil into a kahari or frying pot, let heat, then toss in garlic and shallots (chopped up fine fine). Let sizzle (don't you just love that sound it makes?) until garlic is brown and fragrant

Add in the carrot (shredded) and bora (chopped into very short segments, or longer, depending on your preference). Add just a little bit of water and cover the pot briefly to steam and soften up the veggies.

Crack open both eggs into a separate bowl, whisk them up, then pour into the frying pot. Stir the eggs up with the vegetables until the eggs are fried. The egg should now be well scrambled, and they should be all mixed up with the veggies in clumps and even kind of coating the bora and carrots. Add an initial bit of the seasonings (soy sauce, pepper, hot sauce, salt or agee) just to give the veggies and egg some flavor.

Now add the pot of boiled rice. Add enough soy sauce so that the rice is LIGHTLY browned. Remember, it is better to under-season than over-season, since you can always add more soy sauce later if needed. Add the other seasonings (black pepper, hotsauce, salt/agee) to taste. Stir-fry all the ingredients vigorously, adding a little more cooking oil if the rice appears too dry.

Serves 2-3, or Margaret.