Crawdads Cantonese Down in the Delta
August 12, 2005
Down Sally Chow learned from her husband how to cook Cantonese food. They cook together now, as well as with their relatives. But what’s special about their Cantonese kitchen is the ingredients.
Along with soy sauce, hoisin and bok choy, you’ll find catfish, crawfish and collard greens.
Unusual for most city-side Chinese cooks, but quite normal for Mississippian Chow.
Those ingredients come from her lifelong joy of cooking standard American fare like casseroles and meatloaf, and cakes and pecan tarts.
In fact, it wasn’t until she married husband Gilroy that she started making Chinese dishes. It was a bit unnerving at first, because Gilroy’s family ran a Chinese restaurant in Manhattan.
“My first Chinese cooking experience was my first meal as a newlywed,” recounts Sally, 58. “I prepared tomato beef over rice, trying to remember how my mother prepared it. Unfortunately, I did not realize the intensity and heat of the hot chili peppers. With smoke coming out of his ears, my husband ate it all.”
“It was definitely really, really spicy,” says Gilroy Chow. “A lot of peppers.”
The Chows were born in the Mississippi Delta, and like nearly 700 other Chinese Americans there, they have roots dating back over 100 years.
Chinese immigrants first arrived here during Reconstruction after the Civil War. They were replacements workers, as blacks left for the northern states. Many Chinese were promised jobs that turned into dead ends. Unable to successfully compete for labor, many Chinese opened grocery stores.
Sally’s grandfather, Sam Jone Pang, was the first person in her family to make the voyage to America at the turn of the century. Penniless and oblivious to American culture, he left Hoy Ping in Guangdong and made his way to Mississippi, through Canada, North Dakota, Kansas, Missouri and Tennessee.
“You have to wonder how bad things were at that time in China that a mother would let her son leave to America,” says Sally, who learned about her grandfather through uncles. “Each time my grandfather arrived at a town, he would seek out the Chinese families and stay with them.”
He settled in Marks, Miss., 20 miles away from Clarksdale, the Chows current residence. Along the way, he picked up trades and skills, and opened grocery stores in Dublin and Clarksdale. He even delivered all 10 of his children, farmed, ran businesses and cooked Cantonese banquets.
“He was an innovative man,” says Sally. “When my grandmother died, he made her tombstone by filling a Coca-Cola crate with cement and imprinted her epitaph with a turnip.”
Born in the town of Dublin, Sally was the only girl, among three sons. Her family was tight-knit, with nine aunts and uncles born in Mississippi. Her grandfather sent eight of them back to China so they could learn the language. Sally spoke Cantonese until she was 5. She attended public schools in Clarksdale, and graduated from the University of Mississippi in 1970.
“I’ve always loved cooking, especially baking,” says Sally, a retired home economics teacher. “That’s why I decided to major in home economics.”
And while her mother, King Pang Chow, cooked Chinese dishes occasionally, Sally also ate what was commonly eaten in the South: pork chops, turnip greens, casseroles, corn bread.
But after marrying Gilroy, the pair has enjoyed testing new recipes and cooking traditional foods for their extended family and two children, Lisa and Bradley.
“We experimented and learned together. We would recall special dishes and tried to duplicate them,” Sally says.
“Once a person becomes comfortable in the kitchen, he can prepare any style of food after seeing and tasting other cuisines,” she adds.
It’s become a weekly Chow tradition to have gatherings at their home. And most of the time, attention is centered round the large outdoor wok in their backyard. Fueled with propane, the wok isn’t in its traditional setting, but nonetheless creates some big Cantonese stir-fries.
The Chows spent a week at the Smithsonian recently, demonstrating their style of southern (United States) Chinese cooking at the Folklife Festival in the nation’s capital. Their presentation was titled “Mississippi Cooks 4 You,” with Gilroy doing most of the cooking and Sally giving historical background.
Their dishes included fried rice with ham and bacon, stir-fried collard greens, Crawdads Cantonese and Hoisin Chicken.
“You learn to use the ingredients you have and adapt it your traditional cooking,” says Sally. “Now you can buy bok choy and other vegetables … but we like using these ingredients.”
The Southern infusion in Sally’s Chinese cooking adds a special seasoning to her dishes. For her, blending techniques and traditions with the ingredients of the Delta manifests her ties to both cultures. She is an American of Chinese heritage, and she is “Mississippi Delta folk.”
Crawdads Cantonese
3 tablespoons oil 2 teaspoons soy sauce
1/2 teaspoon salt 2 teaspoons cooking sherry
4 cloves garlic (chopped) 1 tablespoon cornstarch mixed
12 - 16 oz. package frozen crawdads with 2 tablespoons water
1/2 pound fresh pork, ground or chopped 2 eggs, slightly beaten
2 cups chicken stock or broth 2 to 3 green onions, sliced
Dash pepper 1 teaspoon black bean paste
1/2 teaspoon sesame oil
Thaw crawdads, rinse in cold water, drain. Heat wok, add salt, heat wok until lightly browned and add 1 tablespoon oil. When oil is hot, add half of the chopped garlic for 30 seconds. Add drained crawdads and stir fry, adding 1 teaspoon cooking sherry. Stir until hot, remove sautéed crawdads and set aside.
Add 2 tablespoons oil to wok, heat and add remaining garlic and chopped pork. Cook pork through, stirring in remaining sherry, black bean paste, soy sauce and dash of pepper. Then add chicken stock, bring to a boil. Add cornstarch mixture to thicken gravy. (use more cornstarch mixture for thicker sauce). Pour eggs over pork mixture, let eggs cook for 30 seconds, then fold. Repeat cooking until egg is set. Return crawdads to wok, stirring slightly. Sprinkle on sesame oil and sliced green onions. Serve over steamed rice.
Note: Shrimp, lobster or crab may be substituted for crawdads.
Yung Chow’s Stir-Fried Collard Greens
· 2 bunches tender collard greens
· 1 tablespoon canola oil
· dash of salt
· 6 cloves garlic, chopped
· 1/2 teaspoon sugar
· 1 - 2 tablespoons oyster sauce
Wash fresh collard greens, cut about 3-4 inches, parboil (blanch) 1 minute, drain, rinse with cold water. Drain well. Heat wok, add salt. When oil is hot, add chopped garlic stirring until lightly browned (30 seconds). Add collard greens and stir constantly, (1-2 minutes) then add sugar, dash of pepper. Stir in oyster sauce. Serve immediately. Collards should be bright green.
Fried Rice, Delta Style
(Makes 6-8 servings)
· 2 tablespoons canola oil
· 1 cup cubed cured ham
· 1/4 cup cut green onion
· 5 cups uncooked long grain rice
· 1 cup frozen peas
· 1/2 cup diced celery
· 2 tablespoons soy sauce
· 3 eggs, scrambled
· 1 cup small shrimp, cubed
· 1/4 cup diced onion
· 6 strips bacon in 1/4 inch pieces
· 1 teaspoon salt
· 1 teaspoon black pepper
· 1 tablespoon sesame oil
Cook rice in automatic rice cooker. Stir to breathe and cool. Set aside.
Fry bacon to a crisp and drain on paper towels. Save drippings.
Beat eggs until light and pan fry to a bright yellow firm finish. Set aside.
Brown ham with one tablespoon oil — use a high heat on wok. Add dash of black pepper. Set aside.
Sear shrimp with second tablespoon of oil using high heat on wok.
Dash of soy, salt and pepper. Set aside.
Sear peas, onions, celery, seasoning with soy, salt and pepper to taste.
Stir constantly, adjust heat to cook through. Add ham and shrimp.
Add rice, then remainder of seasoning, stir and toss continuously.
Add bacon drippings to outer edge of wok and allow to heat and infuse into the mixture.
Add scrambled eggs, bacon and green onions. (Do it late in the cooking to keep their bright colors and individual tastes).
Add sesame oil and remove from heat.
Serve hot.
This is a home-style fried rice rather than commercial or restaurant style. The ham and bacon make it unique to the Delta, but it’s a very popular taste.
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I cooked the Cantonese crawdads and it was great! Thank you Mr and Mrs Chow