spring onions not sultanas

A big bowl of something creamy and gloopy

bubbles away on the stove.

Dad always makes porridge in the early mornings before school while

Mum makes this one on cold winter afternoons

waiting for growing boys to mow it down between school and homework.

This one’s not sweet but savoury,

same same but different.

Brown sugar replaced by soy sauce

oats exchanged for rice

spring onions not sultanas.

Still just as nourishing

if not more so,

warming to the bones.

Just a handful of ingredients tossed into a pot;

rice and water and salt

that’s

simply stirred, simmered, and served.

Now that I’ve grown up, I‘ve discovered the more common name;

Congee.

Yet we all just knew it as jook.

Not even sure if that’s how you spell it?

Didn’t feel like a cultural dish to us

though we instinctively knew that it wasn’t a household staple in

Auckland, New Zealand.

It felt like home.

These days, I can add anything I want to it:

a soft-boiled egg, diced shiitake mushrooms, crushed peanuts, dried shrimp, splashes of chilli oil, slices of roast pork

but

it doesn’t quite seem to hit the same way as when Mum made it.

Still, the taste spins time back to a years-ago me.

Something about opening the front door to escape the cold wind, and being greeted by the salty smell of nourishment, wafting from the kitchen down the stairs.

Something about sitting at the long wooden table beside family, ceramic blue spoons diving into ceramic blue bowls.

Something about pouring a bowl from the big pot on the back element, cupping it between your hands, feeling the warmth spread through frozen fingers, and slurping away.

It didn’t feel like love in a bowl from a hard-working parent, or a cultural touchstone that linked us to our heritage, or an easy and cheap way to feed many hungry mouths.

Of course it was all those things

but we kids didn’t see it.

To us

it was just jook.

It feels like home.