Xiao Shan has been part of our family for almost 6 years. She was referred to us by a Brazilian friend, Edite, who no longer lives in Shanghai. Pure luck and much to our delight she has been and continues to be with us for the long run. Xiao Shan has many skills. She is good with children; she is proactive, has great organizational skills, prides on saving money on groceries and enjoys cooking. No other can outdo her in the kitchen. She likes experimenting in the kitchen because she has an acute sense of smell and taste and as amazing as it sounds, she can replicate most western recipes and dishes that she has the opportunity to try when we take her out to eat with us.

 

So, in our desire to develop Xiao Shan’s cooking skills, I purchased the latest edition of the Shanghai Family Cook book, printed by the Shanghai Community Center. The recipes are great and hassle free because they are all translated in Chinese. So, Rick and I went through a few and decided we were hungry for Meatballs in Spaghetti Sauce.

 

Xiao Shan diligently studied the recipe and lo and behold served us our MEATBALLS IN SPAGETHI SAUCE at dinner time, this past Tuesday evening. As usual we arrived home Tuesday night, quite late and Xiao Shan had already set the table. With her usual friendly smile she greeted us at the door as the children and Valentine were fast asleep. Enthusiastically she shared with us that the kids and their tutor loved the meatballs. It was a success! Vanessa ate one of them, Alex had two and the teacher had 5! Our first impression of the account of the dinner feast over a new dish in our home was quite surprising. I actually thought that the children were being unusually kind to Xiao Shan. In my mind if they had actually liked the meatballs they would have eaten at least 6 each. But nonetheless, Rick and I were hungry and we looked forward to trying the new recipe book. When we were finally served the Meatballs in Spaghetti Sauce we had a great laugh. The meatballs were as big as tennis balls and the dish was served with a nice plate of hot plain Chinese rice. How funny was that! Just check out the pictures we took of the meatballs attached as we couldn’t miss recording this much fun ever!

 

The meatballs and the spaghetti sauce tasted delicious, which means the recipe was really good so we were intrigued by the fact that Xiao Shan totally missed the tradition. Meatballs are bite size and this dish is typically served with spaghetti, hence it is meatballs in spaghetti sauce. Moving our dinner discussion towards the cultural side with Xiao Shan, we learned that the recipe didn’t specify the size of the meatballs and didn’t mention that this dish should be served with spaghetti. The recipe was well translated from its original English version but it didn’t take into account the cultural aspect of this typical Italian dish because it was probably written by an Italian. It reminded us once again to open ourselves up to the cultural differences. Only a westerner that has experienced, cooked or been served Meatballs in Spaghetti Sauce would know, that it goes without saying, that this dish is served with spaghetti not rice and that the size of the meatballs are bite size, not tennis ball size. 

 

The case of Meatballs in Spaghetti Sauce generated a lot of insight that can be applied to our daily living in China, besides we had a great time explaining to Xiao Shan the basics of Italian cuisine.