Fall 2012
** In Natalie Babbitt’s children’s classic The Search for Delicious, a fictional, chapter book kingdom dissolves into civil war over a dictionary entry. At the outset, Gaylen, the young protagonist, does not see the need for battle. “Why don’t you leave Delicious out of the dictionary entirely?” he asks. What follows is his pursuit of the elusive definition of Delicious, a quest to objectively
characterize a word that is wholly a matter of taste. **
** While Babbitt’s story is frivolous, and geared towards a fourth grade classroom learning to broaden their culinary horizons, the competitive and comparative nature of food is neither completely fictional nor entirely trivial. In many places, locals simply cannot agree on the best place for a particular city’s specialty. In Chicago, deciding ****where to go for deep-dish pizza is both troubling and exciting. In Beijing, planning an outing for ****Peking Duck is no easier, with concierges recommending the old, established Quanjude and cab drivers preferring the modern Dadong, a newer, well respected, and similarly upscale restaurant. Duck and deep-dish pizza are famous specialty foods, but not everyday fare. Everyday food, often eaten quickly at home rather than savored with complementary bread and butter, seems to lend itself even more to divided loyalty. Isn’t fried rice best when my mom makes it? How can someone really make the best hamburger? And at the end of the day, only one potato can be the best potato.**
** **** Oddly enough, one establishment’s pork dumplings with soup inside, dominate the xiaolongbao scene in Taipei. Taipei’s restaurant and street food culture is dynamic and unique. With Portuguese, Dutch, Japanese and Chinese influences amongst **others, good food from all over can be found at upscale food courts, corner restaurants, and food stalls at night markets, and around the kitchen table at home. With so many choices, somehow this food-obsessed city fawns over one restaurant, Din Tai Fung, and their xiaolongbao in particular. It’s not some inaccessible, eaten-once-a-year dish, but a relatively common food that has made Din Tai Fung a worldwide phenomenon. ****
**** ****** Din Tai Fung’s founder Bingyi Yang is of humble origins. Born in Mainland China, his first job after moving to Taiwan in 1948 was at a cooking oil business as a deliveryman. A few poor investments from higher-ups later, the business folded and he was left without work. So Yang and his wife started their own cooking oil business, which again after a few years struggled. In order to salvage revenue, they started making and selling steamed dumplings on the side, gradually dedicating half of the shop to the endeavor. One dumpling led to **the next. ****
**** ********** Xiaolongbao are not a particularly complex or expensive food to make. Ground pork and a cube of gelatinous broth are wrapped inside a doughy dumpling skin. When steamed, the gelatin liquefies, and then the meal is served. These dumplings are delicate and they take some finesse to eat. With the soup and the soft dough, grabbing the dumpling with chopsticks requires just enough pressure to free the dumpling from the Napa cabbage or cloth that lines the steamer. Too much pressure means soup all over the table. Not enough means no food on your plate. With the dumpling safely in a spoon, the cautious eater will take a nibble, allowing the soup to drain and the rest to cool. Some may add ginger, soy sauce or vinegar to taste. The intrepid eater may wait for the dumpling to cool unadulterated, and then eat it all at once in a single soup-filled bite. ******
****** ************ Din Tai Fung has celebrated this experience of eating xiaolongbao and elevated simple food from chow to delicacy. In the United States, China and Taiwan, Chinese restaurants either tend to be either a little gritty with a curt wait staff, or stuffy banquet-style restaurants that seem only to serve wedding-or-funeral food. Din Tai Fung manages to pull these ends together, serving food people want to eat in a clean, modern setting with an attentive staff. Din Tai Fung teases the customer by separating the waiting area from the kitchen by glass walls. The cooks systematically pinch the dough together to seal the meat inside in a flurry of steam that sufficiently fogs up the glass and keeps what happens just mysterious enough to keep the hungry entertained. Had Gaylen’s travels taken him across the Pacific, ******************instead of to fantastic forests, caves, and towns, he inevitably would have polled the crowd of eager customers outside Din Tai Fung waiting to be seated and tallied their preferences of taste. ************
************ ************************ Tea is served from pots with long spouts, and the waiters and waitresses raise the pot upwards as they pour, creating a precarious stream of hot tea abruptly cut off with a clean flourish of the wrist. With no smoke or mirrors, just steam, and a modern philosophy of serving traditional food, Din Tai Fung has made simple food special. In an era of Asian fusion cuisine in which some top restaurants distinguish themselves by mixing western flavors with the “exotic,” Din Tai Fung has taken the opposite approach, specializing through simplicity and simplifying through specialization. Din Tai Fung has crafted xiaolongbao in such a way that one drinks tea with the dumpling to complement the light flavor, not to wash it down. ************
************ ****************** In 1993, The New York Times ranked Din Tai Fung as one of the world’s top ten restaurants. Since then, Din Tai Fung has brought its xiaolongbao to Japan, Singapore, China, Australia, and two U.S. locations in Seattle and Arcadia in southern California. The once-failing cooking oil shop has turned into an international brand that connotes high-quality, simple, a-little-pricy-but-let’s-do-it food. ******
****** ************ I have eaten at all four Taipei locations. While visiting family in L.A., I eagerly dragged them to the first Din Tai Fung in the United States. While the meal did not disappoint, I left quite ******************puzzled. Arcadia lacked the metropolitan charm of Taipei. I felt like I should be dodging rogue ************************mopeds rather than sauntering through a spacious and flat parking lot. Part of Din Tai Fung’s ************************original charm I remembered was that it was local food that locals so enjoyed, and this international branding felt ineffably forced. ************
************ ************************ The characters in The Search for Delicious eventually find resolution to their word problem ******************and decree “Delicious is a drink of cool water when you’re very, very thirsty.” Sure, this is a ************somewhat didactic move to remind young readers to appreciate what is often taken for granted. ************Yet, Babbitt also reminds young readers that Delicious is not a holy grail, hidden far away. Din ************Tai Fung’s relationship with its local loyal following felt the same way to me. Instead of looking ************elsewhere to find satisfaction, those from Taipei enjoy this food from their front yard without ************needing to peek out at the green grasses of other cuisines. ******
****** ************ But who I am to say? As an American fan, I am guilty of the same misgiving I identified in ******************that parking lot. I reap the benefit of xiaolongbao in America, while also lamenting the ideological shortcomings of smart business decisions. If I want to experience the charm of a busy Asian ************************street, all I have to do is go back. Branding has helped this simple food from Taipei find its place ************************in world cuisine, people in different languages from various places all saying to their friends ************************across the table: “Delicious.”************
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Spring 2013
A gallon of honey weighs about twelve pounds. In a single worker bee’s life, she will produce about one twelfth of a teaspoon of honey. Before venturing out of the hive, she will be promoted through a series of jobs. After cleaning cells, nursing the young, and producing wax, she will finally depart. The bees we often see flying alone, buzzing through flowers and trees, could easily be in the last days or hours of their lives.
*
Pets are ubiquitous in American life, both rural and domestic. Pets, in general, are a luxury. They spring from a deeply human need to care for and be cared for, thus becoming human-created objects of affection. Owners give their pets anthropomorphizing names, attempting to incorporate them into the family to further legitimize their existence and belonging in the home.
Beyond the hearth, many livestock bear names as well, symbols of an inevitably growing sense of attachment to the cow or chicken. But the names also serve a pragmatic purpose of differentiating Bessie from Bertha. Livestock provide milk in the morning and eggs for lunch. They are the source of wool that can be spun into skeins of yarn. For special occasions, the livestock serve their purpose, owners will kill them, and then barbeque and eat them. Livestock in rural settings play a utilitarian role in everyday life.
On many agricultural farms one will find beehives. Bees play a vital role as pollinator, ensuring that crops will bear fruit. Bees are a source of honey and wax, which can be sold as candles, soap, and lip balm. The herd, or colony of six-legged livestock, lives as a unit, wrangled and controlled by its keeper.
*
In second grade, one of my first homework assignments was to conduct a survey asking my family which animal they liked most. My dad and I liked cats. My brother liked frogs. My mom, in turn, told me she liked humans best. Her comment struck me: We, of course, are animals too. In spite of my mom’s aversion to the idea of pets at home, she eventually agreed to adopt a cat. At the animal shelter, she was drawn to the most docile kitten and together we decided he would be easy to take care of and train. We soon found out that his lethargy was a manifestation of a feline autoimmune disease, and we had to put him down. Though my mom cried every time she read Charlotte’s Web to me, as we bid our kitten farewell, we were all embarrassingly relieved.
*
There has been a recent movement to bring bees into the urban sphere. In tandem with urban agriculture, urban beekeeping attempts to insert the countryside into the city. With hives on the roofs of the London Stock Exchange and of New York’s Waldorf-Astoria, bees recently have found themselves in high places. New York and San Francisco have been leaders in this new movement, as part of a broader effort by its inhabitants to return to their rural roots. These are two of America’s most densely populated cities, but also two of its most green-conscious; Central Park and Golden Gate Park counteract the cities’ otherwise concrete sprawl. In fact, the two cities’ sheer urbanity might be the driving force behind their search for the pastoral, their yearning for a breath of fresh air. Urban professionals hang up their jackets and heels and don beekeeping suits. With this new uniform, they step out into cramped backyards or balcony rooftops to systematically comb through each frame of the hive. In that fleeting moment, the city’s ambulance sirens and car horns are mute: All they hear is a rural buzz.
*
Urban beekeeping has reconceptualized bees as pets rather than as livestock. The practice reshapes the utilitarian as hobby and luxury. City dwellers do not need bees for their honey or wax. The supermarket, just a five-minute drive away, has shelves of it. But having bees in a city creates an artificial need that is pleasing to satisfy. The hive becomes another manufactured object of affection that requires maintenance, just like a dog that needs to be washed and walked. Yet unlike dogs, bees cannot be kept on leashes. Nor do they need to be. A keeper can make sure mites have not infested the hive or protect the hive from the cold of winter, but bees are largely self-sufficient. They gather their own ingredients and make their own food. They build the wax infrastructure of their home. Their survival hinges on their own work. Yet once human help is introduced, the bees lose this ownership over what they make. It is the keeper who bottles and sells the honey, gifting it to neighbors or manning a stand at the urban farmer’s market. The bee lives its life to add a drop to the bottle.
A bee is an odd kind of pet because, unlike the kitten, the individual bee is essentially meaningless. A hive of bees functions collectively. A beekeeper is the owner of the hive, but cannot keep track of every single bee’s whereabouts in the way a shepherd watches over a flock. Driven by pheromones, in delicate choreography, worker bees, drones, and the queen each fulfill their own function as part of the larger whole. Within this framework, individual bees are given very specific roles and duties. It is difficult to detect an individual personality. Yet as a dynamic whole, the hive develops a collective voice that speaks and reacts to the outside. Most twentyfirst-century Americans tend to gather together as well, living in cities even when plenty of empty open space is available elsewhere. People put up buildings, find jobs, and settle into their routines. Like bees, people are social animals—they find security in being part of something larger. Beyond one’s own sense of belonging in an urban, metropolitan society, there is an ineffable attraction to the apiarian microcosm. We cannot help but hold up a wax-coated mirror to our surroundings.
Bees have a hypnotic buzz that ranges from calming white noise to an aggressive, pointed yell. The hive in aggregate, rather than the individual insect, becomes the pet, and as a pet, bees are dangerous. Each year, more deaths are attributed to bee venom allergy than to shark attacks and mountain lion mauling. An attempt to name bees, in the way that humans often name other animals, inevitably fails. The hive can never be fully anthropomorphized in the way the way traditional mammalian pets can be.
In English, ‘pet’ can be a noun or a verb. A pet is a domesticated animal kept for its companionship or pleasure; to pet means either to make a pet of something, or to fondle or stroke. The idea of domestication and care are thus intimately tied to touch and physical affection. Bees can be taken from their native tree trunks and put into stone-grey boxes and transported to the city, but they are never quite domesticated. Keepers care for this larger organism, but coddle them only through a protective suit. One never pets the bees, but instead calms them with a smoker. One can grow attached, but always from a distance—a distance maintained even while bottling the bees’ honey and enjoying beeswax candlelit dinners, connecting with the days of a bucolic past.
*
Bees, up close, are furry, soft creatures. Often flying quickly, bees can seem a blur to the human eye. Yet their menacing black eyes stare down their environment. The sharp angular legs and pointed stinger in the rear contribute further to this odd contradiction.
One can smile at the bee’s earnest quest for pollen, but the bee will never smile back.
2025