Substitutions, and: That Almond Dessert Adrienne Su (bio) Substitutions Balsamic, for Zhenjiang vinegar.Letters, for the family gathered. A Cuisinart, for many hands.Petty burglars, for warring bands. A baby's room, for tight quarters.Passing cars, for neighbors. Lawn-mower buzzing, for bicycle bells.Cod fillets, for carp head-to-tail. Children who overhear the language,for children who speak the language. Virginia ham, for Jinhua ham,and nothing, for the noodle man, calling as he bears his poledown alley and street, its baskets full of pickled mustard, scallions, spice,minced pork, and a stove he lights where the customer happens to be,the balance of hot, sour, salty, sweet, which decades later you still crave,a formula he'll take to the grave. [End Page 86] That Almond Dessert We must have known it as Almond Float, thanks to Joyce Chen.Indeed, it floated in the fruit cocktail, the maraschino cherriesas treasured as the tender white cubes that have so many names I no longer know which we used, the nomenclature muddled furtherby my later learning to say xingren doufu, which translatesto Almond Tofu, a reference not to what it is, but to how it appears. For similar reasons, or to clarify for guests, we sometimes called itAlmond Jell-O, despite Jell-O's omission, to this day, of the flavor.Meanwhile, restaurants may have offered it as Almond Junket for its likeness to the English dessert made from milk and rennet,junket having come from the Latin iuncata, reed basket, in whichcheese was made, and from which the Italian soft cheese giuncata gets its name, all of which is not inaccurate because—contraryto what they say about the Chinese and dairy—there was milk in ours, too.This potentially put it closer to pudding than tofu, but its silky texture evoked the most delicate bean curd, which may be whyit was also known as Almond Curd, which confusingly impliesthat almonds can curdle, that somewhere lies an Almond Whey. In any case, pudding lacks shape and makes a poor referencefor a Chinese audience. Perhaps to erase all cultural confusion,the dessert also went by Almond Lake, as anyone can comprehend a body of water in which something cool and almondyis suspended. Looking back, Almond Junket is the only namewe never used, surely because it sounded like an illicitly funded cruise or evoked the notion of junk, which made us feelforeign, pertaining to trash. But now fruit cocktail is what getsconsigned to the heap, canned foods being spurned unless you seal and boil each jar yourself. And something about a sweet finalealigned with gratuitous travel enchants, promising a destinationremote and novel, or remote and familiar, like ancient memory. [End Page 87] Adrienne Su Adrienne Su is the author of four books of poems, most recently Living Quarters (Manic D Press, 2015). Recipient of an NEA fellowship, she teaches at Dickinson College, in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. Recent poems appear in Gargoyle, the New Yorker, and Poetry. Copyright © 2017 Middlebury College Publications
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Sep 1, 2023
Marc Vincenz 
Open Access