MEDITATIONS ON HOME
Lac
Su
Cá
Kho Tộ
When
I was four in Vietnam, my father was wanted by the Communists. My
family was
forced to flee the country in a hail of gunfire, leaving a life of
comfort and
prosperity behind. I remember the escape from our beloved Vietnam in
episodic
flashes that still rattle me with post-traumatic stress to this day. I
reconcile these anxious feelings by thinking about the last meal
Grandma Ne fed
me before we left. It was porridge with braised sardine in caramel
sauce, or cá kho tộ. The fish
sauce, sugar, shallots, chili, and ginger Grandma Ne used to cook the
sardine
caramelized over time at low heat on her coal briquette stove.
It
was a great last meal before our family—and three hundred other
refugees—escaped Vietnam. While we ran towards a rickety fishing boat,
the
Communist soldiers blasted bullets and grenades at us. The next thing I
knew,
we were stranded at sea in the midst of a typhoon with two other
fishing boats
that eventually disappeared.
Miraculously,
our family eventually immigrated to Los Angeles where—despite high
hopes for a
paradise as beautiful as our lost homeland—we found out that the
American Dream
was not all it was cracked up to be. Living in squalid conditions and
barely
making ends meet, my family struggled to create a new home in America.
But we
were alive and together. We couldn’t ask for more. American food didn’t
entice
me; the taste was unfamiliar, and it didn’t remind me of a place I once
knew.
Ma continued to cook Vietnamese food, and my favorite—just like Grandma
Ne made
it—was cá kho tộ. I grew up in
America eating cá kho tộ at
least once
a week until I left home for college.
Now
in my thirties, I have a family of my own. We live a good
hour-and-a-half away
from my children’s Grandpa and Grandma and don’t see them quite as
often as we
would like. When I married my Mexican-American wife, the repast I was
accustomed to at the dinner table was replaced with American-style
meatloaf and
pasta, and a variety of Mexican dishes. These are my wife’s home-cooked
favorites that her mother taught her.
I
rectify my craving for Ma’s home-cooked meals by eating out at local
Vietnamese
restaurants. Most of the restaurants have all the Vietnamese dishes
that Ma
would cook for me–but they aren’t Ma’s cooking. I feel something is
missing.
Every so often, Ma calls me out of the blue. When I hear that it’s my
mother on
the line, my first question to her is always . . .
“Can
I come home for some of your cá kho tộ,
Ma?”
Lac
Su
received
a master’s degree and Ph.D. A.B.D., in industrial organizational
psychology
from the California School of Professional Psychology. He is a senior
executive
for TalentSmart – a global think tank and management consulting firm,
and he
lives in San Diego. His professional work has been featured in BusinessWeek, Fortune, The Tribune, Globe
and Mail, and various online and
academic journals. I Love Yous Are for
White People is his first book.