Congee comfort Flexible rice dish is a favourite By: AV Kitching Posted: 4:00 AM CDT Wednesday, Jun. 28, 2023

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This article was published 28/06/2023 (1134 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

When Nina Lam was growing up, congee was the dish her mother would make whenever she felt under the weather. The savoury rice porridge with its silky smooth texture came in especially handy after visits to the dentist, when she had her wisdom teeth out.

For Lam, 25, tucking into a bowl of congee feels very much like a warm hug. It’s a dish she gravitates toward when she’s away from home and family.

“When I was studying abroad in Europe, I didn’t eat out much. I missed my mom’s cooking so I would make congee,” says Lam, an immigration program officer. “It’s the Chinese/Vietnamese equivalent of chicken noodle soup. It’s familiar and reminds me of my childhood; we never order congee when we go out to eat Chinese food, so it truly is a dish I would only eat at home.”

A staple across Asia, congee is prepared with rice cooked in a large amount of liquid. Often served plain, it comes with a number of side dishes such as scallions and cooked minced meat.

“It’s a really great dish to make on a budget and with limited equipment or access to ingredients, because it’s extremely flexible; you can include as few or as many ingredients as you want, but the base is ultimately just rice and water,” Lam says. “That’s why there’s so many variations of congee, both within China and across cultures.”

Lam learned to make it by watching her mom. While the version she’s making today may have its roots in her mother’s cooking, the method is from an online cooking show.

“The pork congee is a spin of a recipe I found on a YouTube channel, Made with Lau. It’s very much a traditional Cantonese version, using ingredients such as century egg and pork floss, which are more popular in Cantonese cuisine,” she says, referring to eggs that have been preserved in a mix of clay, salt, wood ash and quicklime, and dried stewed pork with a cotton-candy texture.

Lam’s parents are first-generation immigrants. Her comfort food straddles both her cultural identities: her father is ethnic Chinese and her mother is Vietnamese.

Her father was part of the wave of migrants during the Vietnam War.

“My paternal grandmother, Maa Maa, was originally from Fuzhou in Fujian, China. She left the country in the 1940s and made her way to Vietnam,” Lam explains as she prepares the ingredients she needs to make her dish. “She started her family there and then, following the war, left Vietnam to seek refuge in Canada.”

Lam is a regular volunteer at the Winnipeg Chinese Cultural and Community Centre, helping out at their events during Folklorama and the Chinatown Street Festival.

She’ll be back volunteering at the Dynasty Building on King Street at this year’s Folklorama, which takes place Aug. 6-19, taking visitors on tours of the cultural displays and serving food and drinks to guests during the multicultural festival.

‘The cultural centre community is small — it’s a core group of people and I’ve known them for many, many years — so when I am in that space with those people, it feels like home,” she says. “Our Chinatown is not as vibrant as the ones in other cities, so to gather the people who live there, to gather the community from all across Winnipeg to come in and join us, it’s good to do this.”

Lam’s day job in immigration resonates with her personally, but while she enjoys her work, she would prefer a more front-facing role.

“Because so much of my identity is rooted in my parents’ immigration stories, it’s fulfilling to feel like I’m contributing to others’ opportunity to forge their lives in Canada,” she says. “But I don’t enjoy desk jobs and I’d much rather my day-to-day be on the ground, interacting with people in the communities I’m serving.”

At home, where she still lives with her parents, meals are mostly of Vietnamese origin, such as stuffed bitter melon soup and seaweed egg drop soup, although she admits “my favourite food is Chinese.”

Chinese meals are mostly eaten in restaurants; Lam is fond of weekend brunches at Kam Koon Garden, where she indulges in custard-filled pineapple buns, and large family dinners at Sun Fortune and Ken’s Restaurant, featuring her favourite sweet and sour pork.

“We only go out together to eat as a family for special occasions, such as birthdays and get-togethers, because my mom is such a good cook. Very rarely we would go to a Vietnamese restaurant.” Her parents’ favourite is Pho Que Huong on Ellice Avenue.

She hardly cooks at home, she admits, although she enjoys making meals for others. She recently made rice, curry squid and gai lan (Chinese broccoli) with her dad. “There is always rice in the rice cooker, even if we’re not having rice that evening,” she says with a laugh.

“When I cook for myself, it’s a chore — it can be very utilitarian — but when I cook for others it takes on a bit of a different role; it symbolizes how much I love and care for them.”

av.kitching@winnipegfreepress.com