Duck Fat

“Duck fat.” Daw Lin said.  

“Duck fat?” 

“Yes, they wave a pot of hot duck fat around to make you think something good’s being cooked.  And then you’ll come into their restaurant.”

I didn’t believe.  Daw Lin unabashedly conveyed her bias against other ethnicities, usually related to stereotypical professions.  Outrageous, simplistic as they were, they burned themselves into your consciousness, replacing the nuanced impressions you might have had of that nationality or trade.  I could never pass an oriental rug store without seeing Daw Lin’s little man in ballooning trousers, long sleek mustache, toting an old carpet over his shoulder.

But her duck fat imagery for truly did lack the subtly of the fragrance of Asian cooking and the multiplicity of its underlying spices and flavors.   As well as their power to attract, their intoxicating impact on your ability to resist.  

*******

The ridged edges of the rice paddies had receded into the background as I entered the “new town” on the edges of the real city.  The sun was heating the thick pungent dampness of late spring.  Finding a tea shop to rest and refresh my throat scratched by the thick dust of the recently dug, unpaved streets would be difficult to find.  Even that light brown liquid, diluted with so much sweetened condensed milk you didn’t know if it was coffee or tea, would be welcome.  

I caught a faint scent of tea.  Real tea, mixed with — what was it? — jasmine, perhaps.  At the end of the road lined with corrugated tin roofed huts, a few stools and lower table were scattered along a makeshift sidewalk.  Although the new town was barely built, someone had managed to open a tea shop.  

The owner grinned warmed, expressing no surprise at seeing a foreigner, and sat a glass of tea on the table.  AS delicately refreshing as the inviting smell had promised.  Impressed by the quality of the tea, I asked him, if by chance, he also prepared hot meals.  I didn’t expect a positive answer.  I could see there was no kitchen in the hut.  If he prepared food at all, it would have to be on an outside grill.

“yeh, yeh.  I do.  I’m good cook.  Maybe best cook in town.  Maybe in the world.  What do you want  Vegetables.  I see you are vegetable eater.  Yes?  You come back in two hours, okay?  Best meal ever.  You come?

I had had no intention of hanging around this open wound of a settlement for two hours  I was looking forward to my cool verandah a a gin tonic.  His eyes sparkled at me, waiting for me to say yeas, of course.  And that’s what I said.

“But tell me, how do I find you again?”  There were  no street names, no house numbers, the streets laid out in a wobbly grid were identical.

“You’ll find me.  Just use your nose.”

I wandered back along the rice paddies.  Men with their skirts hiked up above their knees were planting shoots of new rice.  i found a bit of shade under an umbrella tree, read a few pages of the book I always carried with me, then fell asleep.

My nose awakened me.  A subtle smell, not of smoke or he ever present odor of kerosene.  Not yet definable, but a positive smell.  I shut my eyes again to concentrate on the direction.  It was clearly coming from the direction of the new town. The aroma intensified, picking up hints of ginger, turmeric, garlic, onions and the briny tanginess of shrimp paste.  Then the caress of lemon grass.  I walked faster, nearly running.  The smell pulled me along, a beacon in the fading light of the spring sun.  I didn’t hesitate when I cam to the edges of the matrix of huts.  right, left, then down a long stretch of street.  And there it was.  the low table now covered with tin plates of vegetables — eggplants, water spinach, yellow banana squashes, cylinders of okra.  A spectrum of colors as delicate and intricate as the smells.  

He was right.  He was a genius of a chef.  Or perhaps a wizard, a magician.  When I asked him where was his kitchen, he waved his arm dismissively.

The smell followed me home, guiding me in reverse like following a trail guide backwards.  As the scent faded I knew I was close to home.  Until it was gone completely and I was on my porch.

But, not gone entirely.  I can close my eyes, imagine myself under an umbrella tree and the aroma enters my nostrils  Faint at first, subtle, then powerful again, eclipsing into a thundering climax of fragrances.  And contentment.