This post is dedicated to my late grandmother.

I come from a pure Cantonese family where my maternal and paternal parents are Cantonese. One side of the family being Cantonese is quite enough for most but in my case, I got the double whammy.

Being Cantonese, I believe, is a whole culture in itself. The particular attention paid to our family traditions, wedding customs and cuisine, and not to mention our idiosyncrasies, make us a very unique dialect group. In this aspect, I think the Cantonese are not unlike the Peranakans - to whom our family is also related to due to marriage interlinks. That makes it a triple whammy. To those who like to complain about your family, I haven’t even started on mine.

In the aspect of the woman’s duty to her family, I believe that again the Cantonese is no doubt the most fussy and anally retentive - well, perhaps we share the dubious honor with the Peranakans - and I say this with love. Many a times have I heard the elders chastising away in Cantonese when a daughter-in-law does not know how to cook well or is sloppy with the house chores. Not only is the Cantonese daughter or daughter in law expected to cook and brew nutritious soups brewed for hours (which the Cantonese are well known for）and take care of her family, she is also expected to be presentable and possess manners and decorum befitting of a good upbringing - 进得了厨房，出得了厅堂。We are also probably expected to have two heads and four arms too.

My grandmother is a classic example of a good wife and daughter in law. She brought up seven (!) children and kept house while working. Her cooking is unsurpassed and till this day, I have not been able to find someone who can make salted vegetable with duck soup that can be on par with hers.

Although she had passed away for more than two years now, little things in life still remind me of her significance in my life. Strangely, I was her favourite grandchild even though she had favored sons. From her, I learned how to savor and appreciate steamed sweet potatoes. I remember sitting at the dining table while she patiently peeled off the skins for me.

I also remember her morning ritual of making fresh strong coffee - from the fresh powder that she would buy from the old school coffee beans shop at Cassia Crescent. She would use a strainer bag like this:

credits to www.cubanfoodmarket.com

The fragrance of the coffee would permeate throughout our old house and she would sit down to have a hot cup of coffee before starting on her daily chores - a habit that I was soon to acquire in my later years.

Taken at the National Museum

She used to snort at commercial cereal and would only make “wu” for me - a very healthy and nutritious concoction of cooked dong sum power. I have fond memories of her ladling it out in one of these yellow metal plates to be cooled before feeding me. It was truly a labour of love - it is extremely tedious to grind the dong sum into powder form and then cook it slowly over a low fire so as not to burn it. I have not tasted “wu” ever since she passed away and the thought of it will always make me tear up.

The charcoal stove in the picture also reminds me of the times she made love letters for the Chinese New Year. Not the mushy crap that I used to get from the gawky boy in the school bus but this delicious confection:

credits to www.littlemissmay.com

Gramps will pour the liquid thinly over the metal molder and cook it over the charcoal stove. After it is cooked and still hot, she will peel it from the metal plate using her cotton gloved hand and swiftly roll it with a thin wooden stick to make it into this shape -

credits to http://www.resepirrrecipe.com

She would make a bottle just for me to chomp on every year. The homemade taste of love letters is a taste and nostalgia that I have not been able to find in those factory manufactured ones.

Thankfully, we still have her legacy with us and that is - the speaking of the dialect. She taught me and subsequently my daughter to speak fluent Cantonese. My daughter has also inherited her love of steamed potatoes and like me, sometimes would still tear up when taking a bite of the food that reminds us of her “tai po”.

And given her partiality towards coffee, I suspect the morning habit of a hot cup is likely to make its appearance in a few years’ time.