Three Generations Around a Too Small Table

Hello from Shanghai China!
As a member of Wellesley Slow Food, it is my duty to record and capture my various food encounters and adventures.
This summer I traveled to Shanghai, Xinjiang, and Beijing China to vacation, examine the public health system, participate in the Albright Wellesley/PKU joint program, and most importantly, EAT.
First meal of the trip was very simple, but sometimes simple is best, ya know?
Bright and early at 6:30 in the morning (blame the jet lag), I went to the local market with my grandmother to pick up ingredients.
Unlike the US, China's best produce comes from these random pop-up markets that take over old industrial sites, workshops, or run down malls, like this one. Coming to the entrance, we were bombarded by the steam of buns, on buns, on buns.

Unable to help ourselves, we got three vegetable buns but decided to pass on the tea eggs.

onto the market...

We decided to only buy the produce that was in season, which included these lil guys. 

Lanmai, a type of stone fruit, deliciously sweet and super good for your digestive system! 

Mini pears

delicious scallion pancakes, sweet and salty patties, and egg rolls bursting with green onions and scrambled eggs

watching the guy in action! 

once we got back, we got straight to cooking! Grandma put me in charge of shelling the beans, while she got cooking

Bustling about like a pro

yummy bamboo stir-fried in soy sauce

completed meal

As I sat on the table, surrounded by my mom and grandma huddling in the kitchen, I realized that we had three generations in one room, connected by food: the shopping, preparation, and finally the meal. Once we finished preparing and cooking our fresh ingredients, we huddled around the narrow table, bumping elbows and giggling as we stuffed our faces with foods from all of our childhoods': buns that have always been part of our Chinese cultural heritage, vegetables that have been regional to the area that we all grew up in, and seasonings that have been passed down from grandmother, to mother, to granddaughter. During our everyday busy lives we sometimes forget the importance of a meal, how it ties us together, as well as the importance of family. Hopefully, through our love of food, we can spread the message of slow food and the importance of being conscious cooks as well as diners and how we can revitalize this connection of family and food, one meal at a time.