老干妈 brand chilli oil is easily distinguished by its red and yellow labelling, prominently featuring an image of a stern, serious-looking woman looking slightly to the left, as if towards a person standing just behind you, or a sunset. It comes in many flavours, including Crispy Chilli Oil, Black Bean Chilli Oil and Tofu Chilli Oil, and goes well with pretty much anything, including rice, noodles, chips and as an accompaniment to fish or vegetables.
When arriving in a new country, city, town or area, the first instinct for people is often to try to make their immediate surroundings feel as much like ‘home’ as possible. This goes beyond the practical, administrative side of moving, such as registering for doctors or changing bank addresses. Instead, creating a feeling of ‘home’ requires something much more intangible and individual. Part of this is because what a ‘home’ can be to someone will depend on what is, or isn’t, available in the new surroundings, but another part is also based on previous experiences of what a ‘home’ can mean.
For me, a home is a place with a fridge and a kitchen I can feel comfortable in. This is an extension of growing up in a family where food was the main love language. My maternal grandparents migrated from Hong Kong to the UK in the 1950’s, and they worked hard to carve better lives for themselves as they started their own family here. Without much English language skills and with limited economic options, they opened takeaways and instead used their cooking and business know-how to get by. Through this, they became part of a culinary revolution in the UK, a wave of sweet and sour sauces, chop sueys and chow meins which washed over communities up and down the country throughout the latter parts of the 20th Century.
At the same time, when it came to the privacy of the family kitchen and especially events like celebration meals, my grandparents were unwavering in their dedication to an idea of more "traditional" foods. At Lunar New Year there would be no mention of pre-packaged spring rolls or prawn crackers, and instead whole fish would be steamed, meats would be marinated and soups would be prepared using ingredients too luxurious, or perhaps too "foreign", for the takeaway environment. Fish bladders, cured liver sausages and duck necks would be brought out, a dozen or more different dishes all symbolising different things, tastes and ingredient combinations developed untold years ago by ancestors on the other side of the world.
Of course, not every meal can be a celebration of Lunar New Year proportions, and even less so if you live on your own and have just moved to a new area in a city away from your family. This was the case when I first moved here. On that first day I opened the door to my new fridge and discovered it completely bare, a blank canvas upon which any number of ingredients, sauces and condiments could be positioned to better express my own idea of what I wanted my "home" to be. I went to the supermarket to investigate what I could find, but ended up just buying the basics, things like pasta and broccoli. Nothing else had stood out to me as being something that could help take my new place to that next "home" level. For that, I realised quickly, I would have to seek out a more specialised retail experience.
So the next day I took a trip to a nearby World Food Supermarket, and it was there that I finally saw them. A small row of glass jars, each filled with spicy-looking oils and aromatics and each wrapped in its own red and yellow label with the same image of a stern, serious-looking woman looking slightly to the left. 老干妈.
That night I boiled some pasta and broccoli and added a hearty spoonful of Crispy Chilli Oil. With each mouthful I found myself feeling more connected, in some small way, to a history beyond myself, of travelling peoples and taste profiles, of different families and individuals all standing in their own kitchens and filling their shelves and cupboards with the ingredients and condiments that would make them feel more at home in their new environments. Then, after I finished my meal, I opened the fridge again and placed the jar back on the shelf, making sure that the image of the woman faced outwards so that she could look out at me and slightly to my left, almost as if she was telling me, 'Don’t worry Sean—I’ve got your back.'