Saffron Dialogue: Xiaojian Shucai Peng Xianhui: Love and Tenderness in a Bento (Part 2)
(Continued from previous article)Starting from daily diet, cooking at the table is the best scene for food education. This time we invited writer Saffron and Peng Xianhui, the boss lady of Yilan's Xiaojian Shucai, to exchange and share views on food and agriculture education and parenting from the perspective of fellow mothers, and to take a peek at these two moms' secrets for delicious bentos!
Q5: Through bentos, what kind of mother's flavor do you want to convey?
Fan:I think eating is very important. Everyone carries some influence from their original family's dietary background. I hope that when my children eat my cooking, they can feel their mother's care and know that their mother loves them very much.Through bentos, I also hope they feel loved, cared for and supported.
Peng:I don't really (laughs)! When I make bentos, I don't think about it that much, but I do feel strongly about the bento being eaten up, or sometimes the kids will take the initiative to say they want to eat a dish I haven't cooked in a long time.In that moment, I feel encouraged, some part of me feels satisfied, and I feel like I have been remembered by my children.
Q6: Through your own influence, what message do you hope to convey to the public about the value of friendly food and agriculture?
Fan: We all influence the whole world and this land through our diets. I hope everyone will support organic and friendly agriculture more, and pay more attention to animal welfare.I think this is very important. When everyone supports this kind of value, the demand for these products rises, which encourages more people to enter this industry, and the selling price has a chance to drop to a price most people can and are willing to afford, thus forming a positive cycle through consumption.
On the other hand, humans have never had it so easy when it comes to cooking. In the past, it was very inconvenient to buy good ingredients. Now if you want to buy the best meat, the best oil, anything can be easily obtained online, so I also encourage everyone to cook at home as much as possible!
Peng:That's right! Everyone hurry up and buy our rice, I want to quickly become a rich lady (laughs)! Speaking of cooking, I've noticed there are many cooking shows on TV now, with handsome male chefs or some famous chef teaching everyone to cook on TV, but even with so many cooking shows, our eating-out rate is still very high, and it has even become buying a bento to take home and eat while watching cooking shows. Don't you all think that's contradictory?
However, if you really want to support local friendly agriculture, then develop the habit of cooking! I know office workers are all very busy, and by the time they get off work it's already eight or nine o'clock,but when you have a day off, you can cook a good meal for yourself or your family, buy some better ingredients, treat yourself a little better, and at the same time use your actions to support Taiwan, China's local agricultural products, or meat that is friendly to animals.Cooking at home really doesn't need to be fancy. Sometimes when I share photos of the Half-Orc cooking, it's also to encourage everyone to get hands-on and cook!
Q7: Facing an unknown future, what abilities or traits do you two think children need? How do you cultivate the corresponding energy in children in daily life?
Peng:The Half-Orc's situation is actually quite special. He has never been very smooth in interpersonal relationships, and teachers also think this child is careless and unteachable. When I was little, I was often given this kind of comment by teachers too, so I know that feeling. This kind of situation usually just means he is not interested in something, and the more you push him, the more it backfires, so after discussing it with him, this year we decided to let him try homeschooling for one semester.
The Half-Orc has always had the dream of becoming a marine biologist. As long as it is within our ability, we will support him as much as possible. As for the parts he lacks, it will be up to him to make up for them when he grows up. So this semester we let him take a freediving class and also put farming into his nature curriculum. Based on the attitude and perseverance he has shown so far, homeschooling seems to suit him quite well.
But his younger sister Pineapple is completely unsuited to it. Pineapple very much needs to socialize and interact with people, and she also has a lot of her own ideas. As a mother, I guide where I can, but I don't force them too much to become something in the future. My own childhood was crammed full of cram schools and talent classes, and I found what I truly wanted to do very late. Looking back, I feel those things wasted a lot of time for exploration and learning, so after becoming a mother myself,I choose to respect what my children want to do, but I let them know they must take responsibility for their own actions, and I hand the steering wheel of their lives over to them.
Fan:Life is very mysterious. Children really are independent individuals. My two children are so close in age, but their personalities, the foods they like to eat, and their ideas about their future lives are completely different. For example, the eldest still aims to become a sociologist so far, while the second has always been interested in biology and life sciences, and thinks studying social science requires reading so much text that it's just too tiring. But no matter how different children's personalities and interests are, I always believe that as human beings, some universal values are classical and unchanging.
Personally, I think empathy, a thirst for knowledge, and grit are three very important traits. A person with empathy will not discriminate, will not say the wrong thing or make wrong decisions; a person with a thirst for knowledge, no matter what field they work in, can keep up with the changes in the world and not fall behind.And grit is what lets a child focus on the things they are passionate about. I hope children can persistently, steadily, and with the patience to endure loneliness pursue their own ideals.
So I encourage children to read. During adolescence, children will spend a lot of time making friends, exploring interpersonal relationships, and scrolling on their phones. I will still gently remind them that no matter what, they should maintain the quantity and quality of their reading.There is a lot of knowledge in books to stimulate children's critical thinking, and I myself often discuss and chat with my children, exchanging each other's thoughts and experiences. After all, empathy and grit are quite abstract, and there is no one-two-three or SOP for them. Encouraging reading, parents leading by example, and respecting children's developmental inclinations, that's how it accumulates little by little.
Bento Cooking Sharing
