#ChineseFoodiesofIG: Hetty McKinnon

 

This is part of an ongoing series of interviews I’m doing with my favourite Chinese foodies that I follow on Instagram. Come and follow the #ChineseFoodiesofIG hashtag on Instagram and leave a comment showing your support for these talented folk!

Where are you from? Where are you really from?

I was born and raised in Sydney, Australia, the third child of immigrants from Guangdong Province in China. I grew up with a very mixed up identity - Chinese at home, but Australian at school. I never really understood how my confused identity impacted the way I saw myself in the world until I started to cook. Through food (cooking it, learning about it, sharing it), I have reclaimed my Chinese identity and finally feel proud of the person I see staring back at me in the mirror. My family and I now live in Brooklyn, New York and I think moving away from home has allowed me to really reflect and connect with my Chinese heritage.

What does home taste like?

Home tastes like a bowl of white rice and abundance in the middle of the table. A bowl of hot jook, simply garnished with Maggi, coriander and shallots. Sweet potato roasted in foil, seasoned with soy sauce and white pepper. My mother's macaroni soup for breakfast, or her char siu, scallion and Kraft cheese toastie. A fried egg sandwich, a snack of love and devotion, while I crammed for my exams. An orange at the end of every meal. Watermelon on the front porch at the end of a hot summer's day. 

What's in your fridge at home?

My fridge offers a journey around the world. Always blocks of tofu for weekday meals, miso paste, gochujang, tahini, umeboshi, fermented tofu, a range of chilli sauces and oils, preserved turnip, condensed milk in a tube (sent from Australia), preserved lemon paste (from NY Shuk), achaars (from Brooklyn Delhi), and lots of cheese.

Share a food memory:

As a child, my favourite food day of every year was Chinese New Year. Not only because it was financially lucrative, but because I would wake up to the smell of food cooking. The aromas from my mother's kitchen would waft upstairs to my room, and sleepy-eyed, I would pad downstairs to find my mother hunched over her wok, frying jian diu (fried glutinous balls). I would pick one up while they were still inflated (they deflate as they cool) and promptly burn my tongue as I greedily scoffed the scorching dough ball. The new year was always a time to celebrate and respect our culture, and memories of the food we ate, and the times we spent together as a family, are precious to me.

The most important Chinese ingredient is…

Ginger, because it is the smell I always remember on my mother's hands. Ginger is healing, and it was the key ingredient of my meals after childbirth. It is the ingredient that ties me to my childhood.

Who's your Chinese food legend?

Chinese mothers all over the world, especially my own, for their sacrifice and the epic meals they dish up, day after day. My mother, for injecting food with love and love with food.

Idea for a Chinese fusion dish:

As a third-culture kid, almost everything I cook is Chinese fusion or an adaptation of a dish or flavour from my memories. There is a recipe for cheesy vegemite noodles in my new book To Asia, With Love (out now in Australia and 6 April 2021 everywhere else) which encapsulates the things I loved (and still love) to eat as a child - cheese and vegemite sandwiches combined with a huge bowl of noodles. Or my bastardized versions of jook, which I top with all sorts of salad-y things like tahini or grated carrot or crispy kale - not traditional but a cross pollination of ideas that reflect the way I cook and what I love to eat.

Know any good Chinese restaurants?

I love Spicy Village for their tomato and egg huimei and triple salad (cucumber, seaweed, tofu) or Congee Village for their e-fu noodles which taste just like my mum's (both in NYC Chinatown). I also love Asian food courts - there's nothing like a bowl of hand-pulled noodles and egg and chive dumplings from New World Mall.

Dream dinner party guests:

In the time of Covid, ANYONE AND EVERYONE! Right now, with my mother on the other side of the world, I would say a huge, raucous Chinese steamboat dinner at my mother's house, with all my family, is my idea of THE perfect dinner party!

What does Chinese food mean to you?

For me, Chinese food means comfort, love, pride and freedom. As a person who grew up in a Western world, Chinese food provides me with a gateway to my heritage, and cooking it allows me to feel a connection to my identity and show respect to my ancestors. Chinese food is also how my children, also third (and maybe fourth) culture children, feel pride in their Chinese identity. It is so important. Honestly, it's everything.

 
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