Di Zhao
Appearances
The Moth
The Moth Radio Hour: Delicious! Stories of Food & Feelings
This has become my brand, my legacy. This is the sign that I own these contents of the pot.
The Moth
The Moth Radio Hour: Delicious! Stories of Food & Feelings
I dump all of my holy stuff in and as I'm waiting for it to cook, I envision in a few minutes my mom turning towards me in slow motion and seeing a bowl of steaming, whole-filled vegetables in front of me and her eyes welling up as she realizes that I'm now capable of serving myself food and I'm probably going to leave her soon.
The Moth
The Moth Radio Hour: Delicious! Stories of Food & Feelings
And I like this fantasy so much that I play it a couple of times in my head until I snap back to reality and decide it is time for the harvest. So I take the communal ladle and I start rooting around in the pot and there's nothing. There's worse than nothing. There's just cabbage. There's no quail egg. There's no potato.
The Moth
The Moth Radio Hour: Delicious! Stories of Food & Feelings
And I sink back down into my seat, and I realize with horror that I had violated the cardinal sin of hot pot. I had let the food melt before getting it out of the pot. And I'm staring into the bubbles from the pot, which seem to be made of shame. And... None of the other adults notice my sadness.
The Moth
The Moth Radio Hour: Delicious! Stories of Food & Feelings
In fact, the man sitting across from me is laughing uproariously about something with the lady next to him. And he picks up his bowl and deftly lifts a quail egg up with his chopsticks. And right before it disappears into his mouth, I notice a small hole in the egg. Time slows down as he chews, he swallows, he picks up more potato slices out of his bowl. Potato slices also with holes in them.
The Moth
The Moth Radio Hour: Delicious! Stories of Food & Feelings
I suddenly feel my smallness. I thought I was an adult. I thought I was sitting amongst my peers. But this man took my quail egg. He took my potato slices. He saw the holes and he ignored the holes. Wow. I am not an adult, I'm a child. And this cold, harsh desire for vengeance and this clear child logic overtakes me.
The Moth
The Moth Radio Hour: Delicious! Stories of Food & Feelings
I am not going to let this grown man, this family friend, this university professor get away with this. If I don't eat, he doesn't eat. So I start watching very closely whenever he puts anything into the pot. And it turns out he really likes quail eggs and potato slices too. In goes some eggs. I wait for him to look away, and I ladle it out immediately. In go some veggies.
The Moth
The Moth Radio Hour: Delicious! Stories of Food & Feelings
I'm eating the egg while I wait for him to look away, and I ladle it out immediately. He drops in another egg. I wait, and then he looks down, and the egg is on my plate. In, out, in, out. I am taking him to the cleaners. After a free romance of hide and eat, He is becoming visibly agitated as he roots around and he is getting nothing but cabbage.
The Moth
The Moth Radio Hour: Delicious! Stories of Food & Feelings
Finally, he dumps all of the remaining quail eggs in all at once and I immediately reach over to take them out, noticing too late that this time he has not looked away. And his eyes move from the pot up to my arm, down to my plate that's brimming with uneaten eggs. And for the first time that night, our eyes meet.
The Moth
The Moth Radio Hour: Delicious! Stories of Food & Feelings
And I slowly eat the eggs as he drinks his 120 proof baijiu while we're staring at each other all the while. I'd like to think that his silence for the rest of the evening was caused by extreme self-reflection and deep regret over what he's done. While I, on the other hand, have a wonderful night, and I managed to harvest more vegetables and eggs from my hot pot.
The Moth
The Moth Radio Hour: Delicious! Stories of Food & Feelings
So, I did not become an adult that night, but I did get to relish being a kid. As it turns out, a dash of pettiness adds a ton of flavor to a hot pie.
The Moth
The Moth Radio Hour: Delicious! Stories of Food & Feelings
When I was six, my parents took me to a restaurant. Now, I had been to restaurants before, but this night was special for a few reasons. Firstly, I was going to be the only kid amongst a sea of adults. This meant that, obviously, they were recognizing me as a peer in all of my maturity.
The Moth
The Moth Radio Hour: Delicious! Stories of Food & Feelings
And also, my mom wouldn't be gatekeeping my table manners because she would be too distracted talking with the grownups around her. Furthermore, this was a hot pot restaurant. Now, if you have never had hot pot, you need to know that it's basically a build-your-own-dinner adventure.
The Moth
The Moth Radio Hour: Delicious! Stories of Food & Feelings
You start with a savory soup base in the middle of a lazy Susan that's simmering away, and you order these plates of raw things like sliced lamb, beef, fish cakes, cabbage. By the way, I've never seen anyone eat cabbage at the hot pot, so you don't have to order it. Now we go into this restaurant and we sit down. Everything is moving according to plan.
The Moth
The Moth Radio Hour: Delicious! Stories of Food & Feelings
My little head is bobbing at a lower angle than all of the rest of the adults I'm feeling in my element. The pot starts simmering and I hiss at my mom to order me my quail eggs. If you've never had quail eggs, you need to know. They are hands down the best thing to order at a hot pot.
The Moth
The Moth Radio Hour: Delicious! Stories of Food & Feelings
There's just something that comes together with the yolk and the soup base when it hits your tongue, the creamy factor. Also, they're the size and shape of a large marble, so they're nearly impossible to pick up with chopsticks, especially in teeny six-year-old hands. So when the eggs come by in front of me, I do give it the good college try for a whole minute.
The Moth
The Moth Radio Hour: Delicious! Stories of Food & Feelings
And I try to pick it up with both chopsticks. Doesn't work. So I decide to spear through one instead with a single stick. And that does work. And as I'm watching it fall into the pot, this primal joy takes over me. And I start stabbing holes into every single piece of potato in front of me. I get really methodical about this. None of the other adults have holes in their food.