favourite childhood foods

last night, a group of friends and I (in full friday night exhaustive state) started talking about our favourite childhood foods.

sunmaid raisins (who likes RAISINS???), pop rocks, corn nuts, fruit rollups, sodalicious candies were among some of the ones brought up (wow...all my friends must have rotting teeth).

for me though, the thing I most associate with eating as a kid is steamed fish. my mom would bring me to the market with her everyday, carrying me on her back as a toddler and holding my hand as I grew older. We would choose a fishy together at the fishmonger's...I can't honestly recall the names for the fish in english, but I did realize in recent years that I grew up eating a lot of black cod. black cod is cheap at chinese markets!

eating fish was a regular habit for us, and when I asked my mom about it years later, she says it was to "make me smart". Ah, yes...such Chinese reasoning. If I think hard enough, I can still smell fish steaming in our Hong Kong apartment...and how it would sizzle when mom poured the hot oil and soy sauce on a green onion and ginger laden fish. it was sensory overload in the best of ways and I, to this day, still love a good fresh steamed fish :)

sidenote: my favourite part of a steamed fish is the cooked blood that's found caked on under the skin...some might think that's disgusting; I think it demonstrates how my appreciation for the "nasty bits" (and Anthony Bourdain by association) really started at an early age.