“Heredities” is a biweekly column by Kira Tang focused on lineages and intersectional identities, exploring senses of connection to heritage, cultures, and histories.
I’m honestly not sure how the spicy food thing started for me. When people ask, I usually tell a story like this:
I grew up close to my mom’s side of the family. And when I was five, my cousin Jong—Diablo III fiend, martial-artist-turned-ballroom-dancer, and plastic surgeon extraordinaire—trained me on Flamin’ Hot Cheetos.
Now that I think about it, this is a wild exaggeration. Jong only shared his Cheetos with me a few times, not enough to irrevocably transform my palate. Instead, maybe it was because my a-kim, mom to Jong and his sister Joyce and essentially a second mom to me, would add so much spice to her cooking that the smell wafting from the kitchen would make my eyes and mouth water as I toiled through math worksheets at the dining table. If it sent me into a coughing fit, I knew I wanted to stay for dinner.
Either way, this whole thing definitely didn’t start at home. The spiciest food my mom will eat is H Mart kimchi. And though my dad always suggests Hot Murga when my parents visit New Haven, they bemusedly side-eye me when I specify that I’d like the chicken hot.
After my a-kim died, I wore all black, apart from the pink xiao long bao socks of which she had a matching pair, for a week. Around then, my dad told me that there was still food that she had made in the freezer. It dawned on me that, as far as I knew, my a-kim didn’t write very many of her recipes down. I told him that we should save it for later, or never even eat it.
Six months later, my junior year of high school started and some of the color returned to my life. But the “spice thing” transformed into a party trick, and I became like some weird teenage boy trying to assert dominance. Once, my friends and I bought a box of hot wings after school. They were far too spicy to actually enjoy, but I put my game face on. Feeling triumphant, yet a little disgusted with myself, I scarfed down most of the wings as my friends––water bottles in hand, gasping for breath––looked on in horror.
Last year, I found out through Joyce’s Instagram that she had taken to eating Buldak ramen almost every day while on break at the hospital. It started with a late-night story—the pink paper bowl labeled “Carbonara,” her best friend from residency tagged in the corner. The next night, “Quattro Cheese.” Then, “Habanero Lime” with the text next to the bowl reading “So bad for you, yet so good.”
I teased her about it over messages, making some stupid comment about the unhealthy coping mechanisms of a medical professional. “‘Carbonara’ and ‘Jjajang’ are the best, though,” I admitted.
“Have you tried the ‘2x Spicy’ one?” she asked. “I haven’t, but I heard it’s really hot.”
I had. In fact, it was the first flavor of Buldak I tried. At Trumbull’s Super Bowl dinner during my first year, I found out that Kathy, a friend I hadn’t seen since the beginning of high school, had died of a brain tumor. I scraped my half-eaten plate and left the chatter behind before anyone could ask me why I was crying. Then, a crossroads—I could head back to Bingham, or I could go literally anywhere else.
Gotta eat something, I thought.
The childhood photo from Kathy’s obituary swam in my mind as I snatched the “2x Spicy” pack off the GHeav counter.
Joyce scheduled her vacation days so she could be there when I went home to Massachusetts for the beginning of summer break. She texted me the evening my dad picked me up from the train station, inviting me over to make lunch.
“Buldak?” I asked, half-joking.
“No,” she laughed. “Let’s make spring rolls.”
Upon entering the house, I was immediately blasted by a light, peppery smell. Joyce was stirring a small pot of my a-kim’s old brand of instant rice noodles. Peeking out of the kitchen trash can was the familiar blue packaging, which I thought I’d never see again.
“The mi fen are for stuffing the spring rolls, in addition to the carrots and stuff,” Joyce shouted over the whir of the fan. “We can drink the broth by itself once it’s cool. Sriracha’s on the table already.”
We sat at the all-too-familiar dining table and drank the broth, the room silent except for our slurping and a food vlog playing on Joyce’s iPad. I looked back into the kitchen, staring at how the sunlight caught on the blue foil in the bin. I didn’t even know the name of the brand, and my rusty Mandarin skills weren’t enough to help me scour the Internet for it.
“Wait, where did you find the noodles again?” I asked.
“Oh, I just saw it at the store in Hartford.” She shrugged, as if it were nothing. “I’m pretty sure you can find it on Weee! or something, too.”
A week after I got my wisdom teeth taken out, my parents and I went back to the oral surgeon’s office together for the follow-up appointment. Getting my wisdom teeth removed meant many things—lying propped up in bed, chipmunk cheeks, and delirious FOMO.
Most of all, it meant that I subsisted on pretty much nothing but potato soup and overcooked mac and cheese for long enough to feel deprived of nutrients and joy. I couldn’t even risk putting black pepper on any of it either, for fear that the little bits would get stuck in the clots in my mouth. By around the fourth day of recovery, I’d started dreaming about the shrimp and pork dumplings from Blue Orchid, drenched in chili oil and nestled in a checkered paper tray, just as I’d had them at the New Haven Night Market only a few weeks before.
“You’re off the painkillers? No numbness?” The surgeon asked, poking around in my mouth with a small mirror.
“All good,” I mumbled around the mirror. “Finishing the antibiotics today, and I haven’t taken any Tylenol since Monday.”
“Good!” Satisfied with her examination, she put the mirror back on the small tray beside my chair. “Well, your stitches have dissolved, and you’re healing well. You can get back to normal eating and activities. Go skydiving, even.”
“Does that include spicy food?” my mom interjected. “Sorry, that’s kind of important for her,” she said. Her brow furrowed in genuine concern, and I laughed despite still not being able to open my mouth all the way.
“Yes, anything’s good now,” the surgeon chuckled. “You can eat whatever you want.”
