Free Kitchen Chinese by Ann Mah Page A

“Are jianbing from Beijing?”
    “They’re from Tianjin. Do you want hot sauce?”
    I nod, and as he brushes chili sauce on the crepe’s delicate surface his mood seems to soften. “Have you eaten jianbing before?” he asks, placing a thin, crisp piece of deep-fried dough in the center, and folding the crepe into a thick, piping hot square.
    “No, this is my first.”
    He scoops the heavy package into a gauzy plastic sack andhands it to me. It swings between my fingers with a pleasing weight, like a pendulum.
    “Taste it!” he urges, but without napkins the crepe burns my fingertips.
    “Did your mother teach you to make jianbing ?” I ask instead.
    His face brightens. “Yes! This is her recipe! The secret is when you mix this…” He points to the batter, making a stirring motion and continuing in a happy flood, much of which I don’t understand, though I continue nodding, smiling, and mimicking his hand motions. I think he says that the trick to delicate crepes is letting the batter rest overnight, but I make a mental note to ask Lily to find out for sure.
    “How long have you been making street food?” I hand over two kuai , the equivalent of about twenty-five cents.
    “I’ve owned this cart for almost ten years. I was one of the first snack sellers back when there was only cabbage stacked in the streets.” He straightens a plastic bowl with fingers that are stained with tobacco.
    “Are you from Beijing?”
    “No, I’m from the country near Tianjin. My parents are farmers…they don’t understand why I moved to the city. I don’t get to see them that often, but sometimes I can send them some money.” He sighs and I notice the tired lines that surround his eyes, his frayed trouser cuffs.
    I pat the heavy mass of crepe; it’s cooled slightly, and so I take a bite, relishing its eggy warmth and salty, spicy sauces, the contrast of soft and crisp textures.
    “Do you like it?”
    It reminds me of the crepes I used to eat from the French café in my old New York neighborhood, fresh off the griddle, gooey with melted Gruyère, or sweet with Nutella. Except, this crepe, which I would have never recognized as Chinese, combines saltyand spicy, the sharp bite of scallion and lingering fragrance of cilantro giving it an enticing, exotic flair.
    “It’s delicious,” I mumble through a full mouth, and he smiles.
    “Chinese people love jianbing. But our family recipe is special.” He puffs with pride, and I feel a pang of sympathy for him and his old parents. I imagine them scrambling to put food on the table, tilling the countryside’s harsh, arid fields with gnarled hands and hunched backs.
    Suddenly, the vendor’s cell phone trills a familiar mournful tune that I can’t quite place. What is it? I rack my brain as it repeats again and again, calling to mind images of pine trees, swaths of red and green, turkey (turkey?)…finally I pin it down: “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen.”
    The vendor extracts his phone from his pocket. “Wei…? Ni hao, mm. Mm, mm, mm .” I recognize “mm” as Beijing’s all-purpose sound of affirmation, and lean in to eavesdrop on the rest of his conversation.
    “Waaa? Zenme hui shi…? Shi huaile ma? Shi bu shi che zhuang huaile? ” Uh-oh, sounds like something is broken. I examine the vendor’s battered cart, which hardly seems able to withstand Beijing’s potholed streets.
    “Mm, mm, mm.” More of the universal sound. Maybe I should try using that more.
    He continues rapidly. “Ni zai na’r?” Where are you? “Mm, mm…Hao, wo mashang jiu lai. Hao, hao, hao.” I shift my bag to another shoulder and start to wonder if I should move on.
    “Eh…zaijian.” Oh, he seems to be wrapping it up. “Eh, eh…zaijian.” He lingers over the good-bye. “Eh, eh, eh, zaijian!” Finally, he punches a button to end the call and emits a heavy sigh.
    “Who was that?”
    “That was my younger brother…he’s had an accident…a donkey cart ran into his jianbing cart.