Quote Originally Posted by PamNY View Post
That is so sad! But I'm sure your parents didn't mean any harm. This is the type of situation where stereotypes and cliches do a lot of damage, unfortunately.

My parents were also subject to certain stereotypes and cliches but lucky for me, they did not include food. They indulged my curiosity and passion for unusual foods and we had so much fun.

When I am shopping in Chinatown I bring my recipe books along -- luckily there are very good photographs in the books specifically focused on Asian vegetables and this helps with identification.

Pam
Perhaps I wasn't clear --what I meant was that as children even though we didn't always know exactly what we were eating, we ate it anyway. As children, it made us more fearless and exploratory in eating a broader range of new things which carried over as adults in broadening our palate to other cuisines.

One tactic a parent did do, was for an expensive tropical fruit, etc. bring it home and explain to us in a showcase/highlight way, as we tried a piece of it.

Smilingcat: I'm lazy, I just use water to mix into the egg mixture. But a bit of soup stock would deepen the dish hflavour and make it more interesting. Yes, you're absolutely right about the undercooking or overcooking a steamed savory custard.

I use any ceramic like dish with sides. The white dish where the egg dish is in, is the original dish that I also used to steam it. I just lifted it out of the hot water bath in the stovetop pot, when it was done. I don't use a bamboo steamer.