The Taste of Yesteryear

It was the "Dongzhi" Festival or Winter Solstice Festival on Wednesday. My mum had bought some glutinous rice dough to make some dumplings as offering to my late grandparents. When I got up, I saw that my auntie was cooking some in an orange syrup soup (using the same type of sugar eaten with steamed rice cupcakes a.k.a. "wa ko kueh") with dried longans for a added flavour. It sure made my day.

I got reminded of how my sister and I would make these little pink and white dumplings when we were little. Just barely tall enough to reach the kitchen counter top in our grandmother's (we call her Mama) house, we would roll the dough in our palms into balls. We would make them all pink or all white and even a swirl of both colours. Mama would cook them in the traditional orange sugar syrup, without the longans. The syrup would completely stain the balls but when you bit into them, you could see the pretty pink and white swirls.

Although they are plain compared to their Hong Kong and Japanese equivalents, they were very comforting and heartwarming. The longans that my auntie added changed the taste of it a little, but it was still nice to be taken back some 20 odd years.

I love you Mama. I love you Jie.