Breakfast

My daily routine starts when I get up and cook breakfast for my husband and

 myself. However, it is also a “headache” moment. I know breakfast is the most

 mportant meal in a day. We want to eat healthy foods, and that means no grease, no

 trans fat, no cholesterol, and so on. Finally, we have oatmeal almost every morning at

 home. Our breakfast, compared to my mother’s, is very humble; a bowl of oatmeal

 with an egg, hard-boiled or fried, or with half a sausage, or with honey, and I bought

 all the items from grocery stores.

 
               I was born in Keelung, a northern city in Taiwan. During my grade school

 years, from 1966 to 1971, it was hard to find a breakfast restaurant. Generally, the

 society was poor; therefore, every one had his or her breakfast at home then.

 

My family’s breakfast was the traditional Taiwanese style, rice porridge, the

main course, with several of the following dishes such as pickled cucumber, peanuts

 (deep-fried or salty crispy), sweet pinto beans, salted duck eggs, youtiao (deep-fried

 dough sticks), pickled radish, dried pork floss, fermented bean curd, and tofu. My

 mother bought from street vendors in the morning market some items such as youtiao,

 tofu, and dried pork floss because they were not easy to make at home. To save

 money, my mother made salted duck eggs, peanuts, pickled cucumber, fermented

 bean curd, and sweet pinto beans at home. I still remember those big brown urns

 sitting along a corner in our kitchen and the image of my mother carefully opening the

 lid and using a pair of long brown chopsticks to pick up the fermented bean curd. I

 always complained about the smell,

 

“Stinks!” I pinched my nose.

 

“How come you never complain about the smell when you eat it?” She

 laughed.

 

I had to arrive at school at 7:30 every morning. I did not know how early my

 mother got up to cook the rice porridge, go to the morning market, buy the dishes, go

 home, and then serve the breakfast every morning. All I knew was the rice porridge

 and the various colorful small dishes were already placed on our nice round dining

 table when I woke up.

 

Back then we did not have daily conveniences such as gas, refrigerator,

 washing machine, television, telephone, or vacuum in our home. My mother did many

 household chores by using her bare hands. She went to my father’s small furniture

 factory to collect the wood shavings, which was the fuel for cooking or making hot

 water. We had a big traditional cook stove made of bricks. My mother needed to

 carry many baskets of wood shavings every day. She also slaughtered the chickens

 herself and made all kinds of festival foods. My mother made niangao, sticky rice

 cake, for Spring Festival, zongzi, pyramid-shaped dumplings, for the Dragon Boat

 Festival, and the dumplings known as tangyuan, sticky rice ball, prepared for the

 Lantern Festival. Among these festivals, I liked the Lantern Festival best because all

 my sisters, brothers, and I were allowed to help to make tangyuan. My older sisters

 always laughed at the rice balls I made. I still remember that several flat bamboo

 baskets placed in the dining room floor were filled with red and white sticky rice balls,

 and our reward was a bowl of rice ball soup after all the labors.

 

When I was in junior high school, my family started adding a telephone, a

 television, a washing machine, and a refrigerator. However, the best thing was that I

 had some pocket money from my parents. I wanted so badly to buy my breakfast

 whenever I could because I had seen some classmates eating their breakfast at school.

 I thought I could do that too. I did some errands for my mother; for example, I went to

 an egg store to buy broken eggs because they were cheaper or went to a grocery store

 to buy soy sauce, dried noodles, etc. I never had pocket money before and never got

 to use my money to buy anything for myself. Because of this intention, I tried not to

 have breakfast at home. My mother, of course, was not too happy that I did not have

 breakfast before I went to school.

 

“Don’t go to school without having breakfast!” she yelled.

 

“I will be late! I will buy something to eat on my way to school.” I said hastily

 and rushed out the door.

 

My junior high school was located on the top of a little hill, and there was an

 old man who ran a little food stand at the bottom of the hill. He sold only one item,

 Shui Jianbao, pan-fried dumpling. I would buy two Shui Jianbao and eat them on my

 way to school. That was the most delicious Shui Jianbao I have ever had. Sometimes I

 had soybean milk and rice ball at a newly opened breakfast restaurant in our

 neighborhood. My mother still did her daily routine to serve the breakfast. Once in a

 while, I would have breakfast at home when I felt guilty or when I ran out of my

 pocket money.

 

My high school was in Taipei, about 30 km away from Keelung. I commuted

 by taking the first morning train to Taipei at 6 o’clock, and then took a bus to school

 during my first year of high school. Eventually, I moved to Taipei and settled down in

 an apartment for the rest of my high school. I realized that I had various choices for

 breakfast. There was a little food stall run by an old couple close to my high school. I

 would stand around the stall just like many of the other students waiting to buy the

 hot savory green onion fried bread every morning. I would request the bread topped

 with an egg if I wanted to treat myself well. Sometimes, I had green bean noodles

 with fried tofu at a breakfast restaurant close to my apartment. Soybean milk, deep-

 fried twisted dough sticks, and sesame seed cake were also some of my favorite

 breakfast choices. It was during this period of time that my mother was diagnosed

 with Parkinson’s disease. She could no longer serve breakfast for her family.

 

During my college years, from 1977 to 1981, I was in Tainan, the ancient

 capital of Taiwan, a southern city. There were some places I bought my breakfast

 which I enjoyed very much. One place was in a residential area, and the owner sold

 her products in her front yard. The breakfast, fried egg and steamed bread sandwich,

 were popular among students. They were delicious and very inexpensive. Another

 breakfast I enjoyed was sesame bread stuffed with green onion, which was provided

 by a breakfast restaurant close to my college.

 

            The world’s famous fast food chain restaurant McDonald’s started business in

 Taiwan in 1984, and that really changed Taiwanese people’s diet. It was considered a

 fashionable thing eating at McDonald’s. Since then, a variety of breakfast fast food

 restaurants replaced the mother’s job.

 

I miss the breakfast dishes I used to have when I was young. The older I am,

 the deeper feelings I have. I have tried to make some of my mother’s dishes by

 memory, but they have never tasted right. When my husband and I have our humble

 breakfast, I always regret that I did not try to “adopt” my mother’s dishes.