Dumplings full of childhood memories

On the eve of the New Year, I sent my friends an SMS. "Homemade jiaozi are the most delicious, may everyone have a round tummy," I said, visualizing the dumplings of minced pork, fragrant mushroom, baby cabbage, Chinese water chestnut, leek, and fresh eggs.

While not the best-written New Year's wish of the zillions flying across the globe among Chinese speakers, it was a sincere wish from a happy family.

Many foreigners find jiaozi delicious to eat but formidable to make. Stuart Beaton, a great chef and English teacher based in Tianjin, wrote in Tuesday's Hotpot column about how he sweats while making jiaozi in front of his Chinese friends.

For me, and most Chinese, the essence of making jiaozi is not about feeding the chanchong - a worm fond of good food that lives in the stomach - but about enjoying the camaraderie shared by "long-time-no-see" family members as everyone pitches in to make the year's most important meal.

Even those who know nothing about cooking, are included. My son, almost 5, beamed with joy and pride as he sat on a stool, cleaning the leeks. This was his second attempt at making jiaozi. I put some filling on the wrapper, and he tried to fold it without squeezing out too much filling. We joked that a road roller had squashed his works, which made him grin wider. He has become a fan of Transformers and has named himself "Iron Hide" and me "Optimus Prime". For some reason, his father is "Road Roller".

As a mother, I'm often upset to see the apathy of youngsters toward Chinese values. This year, I found that making jiaozi offered me a great opportunity to share with them the essence of Chinese culture: the importance of family, tradition and love.

Archaeologists say the oldest jiaozi, unearthed from the tomb of a duke in East China's Shandong province, are more than 2,500 years old. There are numerous legends about the delicacy to share at family gatherings, but my favorites always come from my childhood.

In the 1970s, food was scarce and making jiaozi was a big annual event. We used Dad's specially made wooden board of pine wood, logged from the mountains, to make jiaozi, noodles, buns and other pastry.

My older sister and I delighted in baking thumb-sized dough in the stove with firewood and were quickly drawn to the many kinds of dumplings Dad made. Besides the common, chubby, crescent ones, he also made little mouse dumplings with wheatear patterns on the back.

"Your grandma could roll out a wrapper with one hand and wrap a jiaozi with the other," Dad would say, as a perfectly round wrapper took shape under his rolling pin.

Mum always fussed over the perfect match of wrappers and fillings - if there were more wrappers, Dad would make small pancakes with two wrappers; and if there was more filling, Dad would hurry to make more dough.

With limited skills in making jiaozi, Mum always boiled them. When the water boiled thrice and the dumplings all puffed up and floated like plump white ducklings, Dad would carry a big bowl of steaming dumplings while we sisters would lay the table with bowls of soy sauce, vinegar and garlic.

San Mao, a Taiwan writer popular in the 1980s, once entertained her Spanish husband's boss with jiaozi. She put a bottle of bird-of-paradise flowers on a beautiful table cloth, and laid out the "crane-like" dumplings. It was quite charming.

One day, if my son goes abroad and meets new friends, I hope he will not only enchant them with tales of Transformers, but also those of delicious jiaozi.