By Liu Shaotang

One of my favorite delicacies of Canal Beach cuisine is the corn fiour pancake.

The pancake was a common food at the farmhouses on the Canal Beach throughout the year,but it was not always enjoyed by the average farmhand. In my small village, there were no more than a handful of villagers who could cook them well, and whose talent was highly valued.Fortunately, my cousin was listed as the top among them, so I not only craved pancakes, but also ate them as much as I wished.

My cousin's family was poor,so their life of frugality led to few occasions in a year for them to eat the plain white wheat, with the corn flour as the mainstay of their home cooking. Although the corn fiour was not as tasty as the wheat, it was a culinary surprise when transformed into pancakes out of my cousin's amazing cooking skills—so much so that her neighbors would exchange various kinds of wheaten products for her pancakes, including steamed bread, pastries, noodles,and dumplings.

Before marriage, my cousin was a beautiful girl, active and outgoing by nature. Her laughter never failed to touch hearts. When she hung out or went grocery shopping in the market, she was a sight for sore eyes.

As I couldn't give her a helping hand when she made pancakes,she tended to keep me squatting against the threshold so that we could joke around as I watched her doing her job.

I dropped my head a little sideways, with both palms cupping my cheeks, and gazed at her with all my attention. She would spread across a heated frying pan a thin layer of the corn flour batter, sprinkle it with leaf cabbage, leeks, dried small shrimps, eggs, and young mushrooms as its filling, and remove from the heat when it turned golden over high flames from a wood-burning stove.Shaped like a round-headed cone,the wrapper, as thin as a sheet of paper, was toasty and crispy.The vegetarian stuffing was sumptuously savory when cooked,with colorful presentation,wonderful fragrance, and a rich fiavor.

My cousin was able to make the batter with perfect consistency,neither too thick nor too thin,so that it could flow evenly on the pan bottom with the proper thickness and remain an intact piece when served. The vegetarian filling was made neither dry nor juicy, with five sorts of ingredients between three layers. When it was cooked through, it stayed neither hard nor soggy.

The most difficult part was the calculation of cooking time. The stove cannot burn raw wood, but straw from wheat, grains, and beans. When high flames rose three times the pancake was done；otherwise, it could be either burnt or undercooked. Everything has to be well organized, with hands handling the batter and the filling,and feet sending the straws into the stove.

During the whole process, my cousin was quick in mind and movements, and her attitude was impressive. Her pretty face was glowing against the high flame from the stove, like a female character in traditional Chinese opera.

My cousin was older than me.When I was a kid, she had grown up as a fair lady, as described in two lines from a poem, “a lovely girl in her teens, like a fiower amid greens.” At that time, her parents just arranged her marriage through a matchmaker. Since she was upset and worried, she tried to cheer herself up by making fun of me.

“My dear cousin, what kind of girl would you like to marry in the future?” She turned her head as she made the pancake.

“A girl like you, definitely!” I blurted.

“Why would you like to marry someone like me?” a further question followed as she raised her eyebrows.

“Because I can eat pancakes every day.” To which I replied in earnest.

She hooted with laughter, her eyes glistening with tears.

Although this event took place forty years ago, I can still remember our conversation that day as if it happened just now.

I wasn't lucky enough to marry a girl who was good at making pancakes. During long years of working as a peasant back in my hometown, I always turned to my cousin for pancakes whenever I missed them. During the “Cultural Revolution” (1966-1976) when she took care of six children, with insufficient work marks and the low total value,food scarcity for her family was certain. Gradually, she became a short-tempered woman, and appeared so old that she didn't look her age. She just made the pancakes carelessly to curb the family's hunger pangs regardless of the presentation, fragrance, or fiavor, let alone her reputation.

In recent years, rural dwellers,including my cousin who stays with her children and grandchildren, are becoming wealthier, with rice and wheat as their staple food all year round. Every year, however, my cousin prepares several jin (half a kilogram) of corn flour to cook pancakes for me when I visit her in the village. Eating pancakes is not to experience the hard life again, but for the sweet memories.In the light of the fiame from the stove, I picture my cousin busy making pancakes in those years,and she surely sees a little boy watching her cooking them.