When smelling the scent of the fish soup, I cannot hold my tears. The aroma floats from people who I love and is the pure flame within my heart, and the fire is hot to my touch and leaves a sweet-smelling odor.
When I lived with my grandmother, life was simple because we stayed in a small town. Every day was different except for one thing: the fish soup. No matter what I did, such as playing all day, walking a long way, or going to see the doctor, I was required to eat the fish soup for some reason that a little girl could never understand. Grandma was always boiling the whole fish on the burner for hours until the soup grew white and thickened, with a sweet smell. Nevertheless, as a naïve girl, I regarded it as a daily assignment and felt frightened about the fish bone. Because every time I felt like that the fish bone was concealed sneakily and ready to attack my tongue and throat. Yet grandma just waited, smiled, and watched as I gulped it down. Then her palm was on my head to comfort me with its warmth.
As time went on, I left the town, left my grandma, and lived in a big city with endless roads and a complicated society. No matter what I did in the city, nothing seemed to change. The city was strange, the people were aloof, and the odor was unfamiliar to me. I felt frozen and recalled the sweet-smelling fish soup. The memory softly brought me back to what I cherished and what I was accustomed to. I suddenly understood that my grandma’s persistence in giving the fish soup to me was a sort of love, which could direct me to the brightness.
I never thought of death. However, when I returned to meet my grandma and wished to consume the soup again, I saw a gaunt figure in bed. She was no longer the healthy person stamped on my memory. There was no smell of the soup but of disinfectant and medicine. It was the first time that I had noticed that the soup tasted the same as tears. The fish soup, since that time, seemed full of fish bones and could drive me to sob so that I couldn’t swallow it.
After my grandma passed away, my mother began to cook the fish soup. Initially it tasted as bitter as my past. I resisted the fish soup just like resisting the memory of my grandma. With the grey color spreading over my mom’s hair, I abruptly discovered that she resembled my grandma, with the same love and unstoppable aging. Actually, the bitterness derived from the short life spans of the people whom I love. Therefore, the sweetness of the fish soup increased as I gradually perceived my mom’s love.
During the tough period of the entrance test for universities, the delicious fish soup always accompanied me. As soon as I detected that my mom slept on the sofa outside my room, with the enticing soup stewed in the kitchen, I couldn’t hold my tears back. At that time, the soup turned bittersweet.
When I got tired and felt unsettled, the soup appeased me like my grandma’s palm. Fish soup acted as the firewood burning brightly in my heart, which impelled me to adapt to the life in big city and get acclimated to the apathy.
I never intended to cook the fish soup for mom before high school. But after I realized that cooking the soup for others was a demonstration of love, I decided to give my mom a surprise. One day while my mom was out, I implemented my plan. Having taken the internal organs out of the fish, I put it in the water with scallion, ginger, and garlic and slowly stewed them. Half an hour was the optimal time to boil it. A little salt was added into the soup when the fish was ripe. As I cooked the soup for the first time in my life and only did as the book instructed, the flavor was as flat as paper. With my expectation collapsed, I felt so embarrassed that I attempted to dump it. At that very moment, mom came back and discovered the poor soup. She was surprised. But she would be disappointed after tasting, I thought. I pretended to be busy with the housework, and glanced at her secretly.
She was so satisfied with the happiness in her eyes that I couldn’t help but asking, “Is it tasty?”
She answered with a sweet smile, “excellent and full of one magical thing.”
“What’s that？” I became curious about “the magical thing.”
“My daughter’s growing up.”
I turned around to hide my wet eyes and sensed some warm liquid flowing on my face. Instantaneously the sweet smell spread over the room with a secret ingredient named happiness.
Leaving my motherland and coming to America, I started my brand-new life and studied in Georgia Tech. there was a new situation, new culture, and new food. Everything was unfamiliar except for one thing: I still owned the memory of the fish soup. After I stepped into this new world, the restlessness, restlessness and homesickness often occupied me. And my loved people were not at my side, which made me helpless. I thought of the fish soup and regarded it as a symbol of my hometown. Cooking it on my own, I tasted the memory that only belonged to me. The fragrant odor of my hometown dragged me to the right route so that I would not lose my heart. 
As time elapses, fish soup becomes even more enchanting, stewed with happiness that always moistens my eyes. It irrigates the delicate flower of love which blooms gorgeously and sends forth the fabulous fragrance. All memories gain its engaging smell, flowing like the mild moonlight. Every time I raise my head, the moon of fish soup color gently emits the light on my face like love which always accompanies me.
( pictures takenfrom：http://image2.sina.com.cn/bj/cr/2006/0315/367094801.jpg
http://images.cms.yidaba.com/industry/canyin/shqm/images/pic5a68wrp8.jpg
http://z.abang.com/d/seafood/1/1/F/1/-/-/IMG_2998.JPG )
No comments:
Post a Comment