WHY FRIENDSHIP IS A ROASTED PIG
I trudge up the dirt road uphill. I take my time. I have a vantage view of the roof of my grandfather’s sprawling house as the sun climbed higher. My grandfather strides ahead with big steady steps, dapper in his crisp, white vesti. Reed tall with receding hair, he is the kindest man I’ve ever known. Always sharing, always opening his heart and home to everyone. Today, he is in a hurry and I follow him as fast as my legs can carry me. A bright red door flings open.
Mr Chang, a portly, substantial man welcomes us warmly. It is Chinese New Year morning and a feast waits inside. The table groaned with delightful platters. At the centre, a crispiest whole roasted pig glistened on a bed of lettuce. “Eat”, invited all the Changs warmly.
“I know you don’t eat pig but you can eat the vege?” The Changs are vegetable farmers. All produce was fresh from the garden and each family sustained themselves with resources from the land. My grandmother maintained a farm full of cows, goats and chicken. There was much bartering and trading amongst the families in the village.
My grandfather, a strict Hindu, eschewed the meat gracefully. Mr. Chang and he were great friends who traded stories and worries about the village, their work and families. I was delighted with the vast array of food and the intermingling smells and was greedy for the sweet kuehs.
My grandfather had the lettuce, some steamed vegetables, munched on the platefuls of groundnuts and wished his dear friend prosperity forever as he left. This to me will always be for me what Chinese New Year is, this sense of congeniality and brotherhood.
Both my grandfather and Mr Chang have long passed. And the old houses in the village today stand decrepit and disused. I think back about this gentler time when people really stood still and really talked to each other. In the trading of stories is always food. With them, farm to table was the only way to live, long before the likes of Chez Panisse made it into a cult global trend.
Offering a plate of lovingly roasted pig raised with your own hands is for me always a reflection of true friendship. I carry with me these picture stories of the past, redolent with smells and sounds. Full of warmth, tenderness and a kind of sanctuary. Women working in steaming kitchens, the mingling of flavours and endless banter in the hallway. A mystical place that exists in the halos of memories.
