EDWARD GAUVIN

…were probably not worth the trouble, but if we only ever did the things that were, would we learn anything? Cleaning them was a slimy affair reminiscent of early biology dissections, so little did I recognize the parts I pulled—taking hold of the head firmly just beside the eyes—from the mantle, yet so clearly were they parts: gills, intestines, even glands and the hearts of whose multiple existence, indifferentiable to my eyes from the innard mass, I had later to be informed by anatomical schematics—though once I swore to have identified ovaries and their smeary roe, if those are the words. The feathered gills I knew from other fish and seafood. I ruptured only two ink sacs (of twelve), and sacrificed several fins to separating skin from mantle. The cartilaginous spine came out easily each time, though I never got a clear look at the beak, nestled among the edible tentacles, to compare it to a bird’s. It too was easily removed, a hard but never really sharp little nodule, in my fingers. I’ve no aversion to fish eyes but for some reason tried not to meet, consider, or even register beneath my fingers these orbs which, I’ve read, contain a hard lens functioning much like the that of a camera or telescope when focusing: “Rather than changing shape, like a human eye, it moves mechanically.” Tentacles, mantles—the tiny clumps and fibrous tops I might’ve sliced into the more familiar rings of calamari—all these I tossed in olive oil with garlic and sautéed. I hacked a pineapple into cubes while waiting. Back home, I would’ve found a pineapple too troublesome. The secret to a pineapple is a sharp knife.

Weekends in Taiwan are happening, in an old car, upon small towns where your uncle remembers some regional delicacy, sold by a man in an apron from a cart the only other time he’s ever passed through. He was probably in college then, but still favored the same Hawaiian shirts. The cart is now a storefront packed with people, on whom the man your uncle met looks down, from a framed photo on the wall, beside the copy of some certificate, recognition, or signed newspaper from the day the president passed through and had lunch—handshakes and beaming faces all around. This is at the one crossroads around which the town clusters, a graph of rooflines in all directions quickly nearing the zero of neatly furrowed fields or, below field level, concrete-bordered paddies in which float the somber distant mountains over clouds. Still, the center bustles; girls cross against the only light, between mopeds, in full view of the miniature precinct; kids bounce for fifty cents on snub-nosed planes or plastic motorcycle rides with scratched paint, while siblings try their luck at bubble toy vending and a lone eighth grader sinks hoop after sideshow hoop. His grandmother tends three trays of steamer buns from a pushcart; his cousin wraps betel nuts in a glass booth. Up and down the street, buildings thrust forth their signs of a shameless carnival air, here adorned with a trio of revolving lights, there fanning a neon rainbow. Your uncle passes by, remarking the crowds but not recognizing the place which only a farmer on the edge of town, straightened from his toil, tells him is the one he seeks: he hangs a U across the empty two-lane and in minutes the concrete houses shack up again, crowding out the fields between; there’s the fairground where fresh garlic, chives, dyed pussywillow boughs are being sold. Cars begin to clot the shoulder before storefronts where hang fruits, roast meats, and through a gap, by the brook behind town, the brilliant temple can be glimpsed. At that store, once a cart, now an institution, the large round tables are still full at a quarter to four downstairs and above, a level not immediately obvious and reached only by squeezing past the entrance to the kitchen. You watch a party of five file after a waitress there while the air buzzes with the hostess broadcasting names and orders. The canteen’s renown seems disguised in the total lack of décor, from the red plastic stools exactly like its emptier neighbors’ to the open storefront through which its cement floor flows indistinguishably into the sidewalk. People are still milling there, in and out of that range within which nearby vendors loose cries to buy or sample that hang in the air, invisible ripples around them. Five girlish secretaries hand a local man their tiny cameras and huddle in front of the famed eatery. The wait for take-out is forty minutes.

My genetic predisposition to cooking with a wok has yet to kick in. The stainless steel one left me is about as wieldy as a pioneer’s cast iron skillet, though admittedly much easier to clean. The superior heat conduction of the wok just means bits of food I chase up the sides are also scorching to the pan at the same time stuff at the bottom is deep frying. My dishes are regrettably uninfused with wok hei.

The pomegranate is, in the sorry event you neglected to Google how to eat it before diving in, the crayfish of fruits: a chore for the fingers, with very little reward. Bites, small and few, paced by tiresome peeling and picking, are ritually punctuated by the spitting of seeds, which although edible, are bitter. Imagine an orange with the fibers of each slice enlarged, each made a sac to house a seed. The skin is neither thick nor difficult to remove. The pith peels easily away from the seed sacs. What little flesh there is—mostly liquid—jets out at the slightest pressure, staining clothes. Your tongue tries to press the remaining juice from the fibrous mass inside your mouth before giving up and relinquishing it to the plate.

The word for scallion is cong (pronounced tsoong). Scallions are the same as green or spring onions. Onions are literally White Man’s Scallions (yáng cong). Shallots are Small White Man’s Scallions (xǐao yáng cong). Chives, however, are jǐu caì, though in French the chive (ciboulette) is a diminutive of the spring onion (ciboule). The Chinese call their leeks (poireaux) Chinese Chives—not to be mistaken for the Flowering Chive, whose blossoms (jǐu caì hua), lightly stir-fried, are a popular side.

As  the Bard would have it, “Eat no onions nor garlic, for we are to utter sweet breath.”