Bakery box
I have a bakery box in the kitchen with the weirdest cake it it. It actually has meat shavings on it! It’s called rousong, and it’s not shavings, but “floss” (I know, this is sounding worse by the minute). One article I skimmed said it wasn’t too different from cotton candy, but made with pork. I know, I know, but you gotta trust me — it’s great. The cake is a jellyroll-style cake with luscious buttercream layers, studded with a few… I don’t know what they are, to be honest. I’ll try to do a better job next time I visit Napoleon Bakery in Oakland’s Chinatown and get the name of this particular cake for you.
My point is, I had a cake with meat floss on it today, and that makes me smile. What makes me smile specifically is that I didn’t even know this cake existed. There is so much I don’t know about Chinese food. I mean, I know basically nothing about Chinese food, when it comes down to it. And Laotian, Japanese, Hmong, Burmese… Mexican. Every culture has rich-beyond-belief food ways and traditions. When I visit the flea markets here in California, I pass tables full of greens and herbs I’ve never seen before. Herbs we pass along train tracks or crossing abandoned lots. Plants with names like “epazote,” “chipil,” and “quintoniles.”
The truth is, I’ve spent a lot of time wanting to be elsewhere. I dream of moving to Italy, Mallorca, Morocco, Goa, Mexico City. I’m drawn by cultures different from my…
