I grew up in Chengdu, Sichuan, China, a city known for cooking spicy food. The Sichuan province borders Chongqing, allowing these two places to have a highly similar taste for spicy food. Before my visit to Chongqing, my subtle relationship with this appealing city had long been established, as my grandfather spent more than 20 years in Chongqing. Before I entered junior high, I spent at least 4 months every year at my grandparents’ house in a small town near Chengdu. Both my parents are busy working people, so most of the time, we don’t have much time for a big breakfast. I usually ate my breakfast on the ride to school, grabbed a bottle of milk and a small plastic bag of buns. During the time I lived with my grandparents, though, I somehow fell in love with having a bowl of small noodles with an egg and some veggies, the most “luxurious” breakfast around. Since then, a bowl of small noodles has become my daily routine. In high school, I would even get up 20 minutes earlier than other students in order to be in line before everyone else, simply to have a bowl of hot noodles.

Not until my first visit to Chongqing did I finally notice that my destiny was tied to this city; how perfectly I fit with this city. For Chongqing people, having a bowl of small noodles is not only the result of habits or tastes, but also small noodles represent the civilian temperament of Chongqing. In Chongqing, a high plastic stool and a low stool are enough to support a dining table. By the shabby tables and chairs, men, women and children gather together, no matter whether they are beautiful women in bright clothes or handsome men in suits and leather shoes or students wearing school uniforms, like me, they all immerse themselves in the noodle bowl.

In Chongqing, a good day begins with noodles. They had a saying that “if I don’t eat bowl noodles in the morning, I feel like I’m going to lose something on that day.” A Chongqing noodle restaurant could be easily found where the community gathers. On a sunny morning, with the wind blowing from the Yangtze river, I strolled to the noodle booth downstairs in the residential area and shouted like a local: “Boss, two bowls of small noodles, dry, heavy red, no green.” Smelling the familiar aroma, a new day starts. Chongqing street noodles have their roots in almost every Chongqing citizen’s bones. If you had the chance to visit Chongqing, you would hear it everywhere: Boss, let’s have a bowl of noodles.

As a senior foodie, I can proudly say that I have eaten more than a thousand bowls of noodles. However, I have never tried to make an authentic bowl of Chongqing street noodles. This is my first summer and my first year away from my family and my hometown. During this pandemic, I learned the most basic kitchen tricks, from how to cut veggies to how to knead dough to make small buns. Both I and my parents are surprised by my improvements. And now, I developed a new skill, cooking small noodles. It’s a blessing that I felt I had gone back to my grandparents’ home after the first bite of these noodles.

For this recipe, I utilized the ingredients I could find here in Atlanta. I went to the Great Wall supermarket in Duluth, about 28 minutes of driving from Emory. Instead of the homemade chili sauce, I invented a simple version with more accessible ingredients. I chopped a green pepper into small pieces and fried the pieces with Laoganma sauce and some dry chili and dry peppercorn. It’s different from the original sauce used in Chongqing noodles, but this invention is successful enough for me to enjoy a bowl of noodles with the familiar taste of my hometown.