When thinking about my favorite or most special food, I never think about the delicacies served in fancy restaurants, or food made of valuable raw materials, but instead, simply a bowl of my mother’s chicken noodles with a fried egg comes to mind. To me, for one thing to be special and meaningful, it must carry some of my memories and hold an emotional significance in my life so it is not merely delicious, but also reminds me of a valuable period of time. Therefore, I choose to showcase this dish for three main reasons. First, I want to teach people something that is easy to make during the pandemic, and this noodle is not a traditional dish with many rules and requirements to follow, so people can be as creative as they want. Second, I want to share my personal attachment to this dish. Lastly, I want to cook it for my mother, which I have never done before. This paper introduces the basic information about the chicken noodles, and then transitions to the focus of maternal love from my own personal experience.

Noodles have been served as one of the most important elements of Chinese diets throughout history. Similar to rice, noodles are another type of Fan, which is the main part of a typical Chinese meal. Noodles are low in carbohydrates, fat, and energy. Therefore, they are healthy. Sometimes you do not even need to prepare noodles along with many Cai to add flavor, you simply need to add some salt, spicy sauce, and soy sauce to make it delicious enough. Another reason that noodles are popular in China is because of their convenience. If someone is busy with school or work, and barely has time to eat, noodles would be an ideal dish since they only need a few minutes to cook. In this way, people neither need to worry about time management or suffer from hunger. Additionally, noodles play a different role in different situations. For example, sometimes they are just a simple meal for a family; sometimes they can be served for a birthday, representing luck and a hope for people to live longer.

As for these homemade chicken noodles specifically, they are often served as either dinner or breakfast in my family, and I usually have them with a fried egg. My mother cooked the chicken noodles for my entire three years of middle school for a few reasons. First, I am innately a super fan of noodles. Second, as I mentioned earlier, noodles are easy to make. Thirdly, she wants me to take in some nutrition, such as the proteins from eggs. Especially in China, people believe eggs can make us smarter and enhance our memory, so having an egg in the morning, according to my mother, helps me study. Additionally, this dish is by itself designed for a pandemic, as the ingredients are very common in normal households: green onions, ginger, chili, salt, oil, and soy sauce, none of which are rare or hard to find. Therefore, when I was cooking the noodles, I did not change any steps. Furthermore, this is a homemade dish, meaning there is no cultural traditions or rules that constrain people’s choice of ingredients and cooking methods. By this I mean that people can change the recipe to accommodate personal interests. Especially during this pandemic, if you prefer to use what you have right now at home, instead of going shopping, you can totally be creative and substitute the ingredients in the recipe with what you have.

Because this dish is made by our family members, the most important ingredient for me is love,
and I will share its significance from my personal experience. My mother began cooking it when I was in seventh grade. I remember she always woke around six in the morning to make the noodles for me. Sometimes, when winter arrived, the entire kitchen was extremely cold and dark, but my mother still insisted on cooking the chicken noodles with a fried egg for me so I could have something warm in the morning and take in some protein. At that time, she always made me a fried egg with the noodles, and she told me eggs are good for my memory. Every morning, when I finished a bowl of hot noodles, I felt warm and cozy, not only physically, but more importantly, mentally and spiritually. The heat of the noodles warmed my body, and the maternal love, which contained the consistency and diligence of my mother cooking delicacies for me in the seemingly endless dark and cold mornings, warmed my heart. After I finished the last drop of soup, my mother always stood by the door and watched me leave for school. The light, along with the remaining smell of the chicken noodles, came out of the door, spreading out into the gloomy hallway where I departed for school for three years.

At the end of middle school, every student in China faces a test called Zhongkao. This is the time when we are tested on all the knowledge we learned in all nine subjects over the prior three years. Zhongkao in my city, Changsha, lasts for three days. I remember, during these three days, my mother kept cooking chicken noodles with a fried egg for me, just as she had over the prior three years. I never tired of this dish. I remember I was very nervous during these three days, and my mother tried her best to comfort me and let me at least have some noodles so I stayed energetic. Every time when someone asks me what I remember the most from Zhongkao, the first thing that comes to mind is not which problem was the most difficult, not the good grade I received, but rather, the chicken soup I ate and my mother’s worried look every time she passed me the noodles.

After middle school, I came to America for high school, and I did not have homemade chicken noodles for four years. I sincerely missed the taste, which is impossible to find in any other place. Therefore, when I graduated and returned home, I had homemade chicken noodles as dinner for the entire summer—approximately three months. It is surprising that this noodle, made of the simplest materials, can still be as delicious and satisfying as it was four years ago. I guess it is probably because it carries maternal love; it reflects the most important stage of my life and reminds me of the past, when I was striving for my future, the past when my mother was taking care of me alone.

As one can now realize how meaningful this simple dish is to me, I wish to share my story with more people and cook chicken noodles for my mother. Therefore, I chose to cook and showcase this dish. The overall cooking process was fun, and this is the first time I have cooked a dish with my mother. This memory is valuable because as an international student I barely have time to spend with my mother, and I feel sorry for her. This is also the first time I have realized that even though the noodle itself is very easy to handle, it can be difficult to cook repeatedly for someone for so many years because the cook might get bored or lazy. Nonetheless, I understand that my mother’s motivation behind it is called love, which is powerful and omnipotent. Therefore, this is why I want to share and write about the personal experience of this dish specifically: I want a chance to express my appreciation and gratitude to my respectable mother, who loves me as always.