A Crawfish Boil in California
Lemon, Apples, Crawfish, Salt & Pepper Lemon Dip.
Even though they traveled from Arkansas to visit us, my uncle and his family dedicated one of their checked bags to transporting a box of crawfish to California. (Yes, apparently you can do that!)
While his visits to the Bay Area is often a reason to visit his favorite Asian eateries, particularly getting a bowl of Mì Quảng at Thanh Ky in Oakland, this time brought a Southern specialty with him. He’s the only uncle on my mother’s side that lives out-of-state and so every time he visits, I am especially reminded of how food especially brings our entire family together.
Food and gathering comes from my grandmother. She cooked lunch and dinner for her family of seven children. And for my mom who worked long hours at her tailoring shop, my grandmother prepared Vietnamese meals for my mother’s lunch breaks. Sometimes if my grandmother didn’t prepare it in time, my grandmother took the bus to deliver too!
Because we adored her, all the kids and grandkids gathered at her house every Sunday for traditional Vietnamese dishes. Sometimes we were invited to prepare the foods - rolling egg rolls or picking herbs. We, the American born kids, ate home-cooked traditional meals and the Vietnamese immigrant uncles and aunts savored a taste of home.
Sunday lunches are still an important family time still to this day because it preserves our Vietnamese family traditions. These are the customs we maintain to this day:
Cook together. Aunts and uncles who are invited to the dinner often offer a helping hand. If not, the kids are recruited to participate. Everyone contributes. And bonus - we all know the ingredients that go into our food.
Eat together. We always make a point to eat together around a table. I always try to snap a few photos before we start before we put phones away. We simply enjoy conversations with one another.
Rotate dishes for variety. Growing up, we switched between rice and noodle dishes. Exposure to more ingredients helped mitigate any symptoms of picky eating. Plus, it simply was not allowed. You would have to try a bite of anything put on your plate- even escargot!
Eat family style. I’m almost certain this is why chopsticks were invented, so that everyone around the table can reach the dishes set in the middle of the table. This reminds us that the time is for sharing both food and conversation.
The longer that we’ve lived in the United States, our family has now created different fusions, with crawfish being one of them!
Because of the strong connection we built with one sitting around the table, we naturally do this again and again with our respective nuclear families, and of course, when we have visitors in town.