高中生要上六天课，皮皮通常在周六晚才能回外婆家，享受每周一次的全家小聚。外婆是匮乏年代长大的那代人，有着极深的断粮恐惧，在我们未经装修的老小区公房里，破败失修的屋中，墙角有蛛网，边边角角，塞满了外婆用来抵制臆想中的灾难的食物：床下大桶大桶的食油、门后对折大袋的米和面粉，空中飞跨着挂满香肠的竹竿，鞋柜里的一点余地，也放着调味料。
这个破破烂烂、气味可疑的屋子里，住着日渐眼花耳聋的老外婆，一只拣来的流浪猫，还有周末归巢的我们。从周三开始，外婆清晨即起，按照食材易腐程度，启动由远到近的准备工作：给皮皮炖鸡汤补身体的干菌，比如香菇、冬虫夏草之类，可以早早备上，到了皮皮的归期将近，周四周五，再去买配菜，外婆目力渐弱，趁着白天天亮，就把豆芽早早摘好，红色野蒌蒿掐出最嫩的芽，肥嘟嘟贴地生的短梗菠菜易带泥，全都清理干净，周六，再买现杀的鸡、去骨的黄鳝。
一待皮皮进门，外婆就开始操作，家里顿时像拧开了电视开关：外婆打开大灯做饭，冷菜入热油锅激起嗞嗞爆响，空气中瞬间爆出野芦蒿的清香，突袭我们的鼻腔，阿咪被油炸声惊得跳起，在飞过窗台的逃亡路上，被老朽窗帘的大破洞挂住，发出应激的惨叫，外婆不停地催我们上桌，说菜要冷了……几分钟还无声无色的惨淡家里，顿时充满了气味和声色，家这个词，被“吃”激活了。
突然想到:我们东方人，就是以吃来爱的。
也看过好几本书，主题都是写食，但实质上，分明是感激彼此赠予的时光。
《老派少女购物路线》里，像很多东亚家庭一样，母女相处最多的，都在厨房，母亲教女儿揉葱油饼，指导她怎样煮出茶叶蛋的美丽冰纹，年节里，一大家子做大菜，你操铲我扶锅的热闹，这些都是羞涩的东亚人用食物在拥抱彼此。《妈妈走后》中，韩国妈妈生前教女儿拿手试水深，学会煮米饭，吃饭时不停地叨叨，让女儿再多吃些，在遍地炸鸡的美式快餐里，努力培养女儿的韩国胃，虽然女儿已经无法说复杂的韩语，但她胃液里的食物语言，必将带她回归母亲及母国。
这些章节实在是离我们太近了，让我们东亚读者一边读一边抬头四望，好似有人在偷窥并记录自己的私生活，或是自己的外婆和妈也走进了书本。
这两位都是在母亲重病时，赶紧记下她的菜式，以期生死两隔之后，可以搭着味觉之舟，让思念停可栖，她们都在母亲逝后，去做她们做过的食物，以味索骥——外婆做的饭菜，养大了母亲，母亲又用同样的菜式，喂壮自己的女儿，既然爱曾经如此秘语流传，那么，它必将以同样的语言反溯和追悼。
吃，不仅仅是在餐桌上品尝，更是一个完整的人事流程，在这个过程中，前事翩翩起落：买菜时，必须得去老市场，自然会遇到和母亲相熟的店主，谈几句故人，做菜时，身体已先行默背母亲教会的刀法，摆盘时，会不会想起母亲做完菜后去后院采来插几的那朵茶花？吃饭时，眼前立刻映现她蘸韩国酱汁的手势——及物的写法，本来就易生温，更何况含蓄克制的东方人，都是用食物抒情和存情，一切情愫，都在食事中凝结为情境，食物就是我们的家谱和通讯录，只要一写到吃，那些情境的汁水，就在回忆的热情中开始溶解滴落，往事历历如在目下。
爱这个东西，缤纷多变：有时，它是抽象逻辑，像“一加一等于二”一样应许着你的幸福；有时，它像雷劈或一记耳光，蛮不讲理又无法反驳地猝然降临；有时，它又是及物动词，比如饮食男女。西方式的动词语法是拥抱、赞美、性，反转枪把递与对方，把自己的身家性命交托，在他人身体里经历一次小规模的飞翔、坠亡和重生。而东亚人是吃，通过做饭和喂食、共餐，来完成生命能量的流动和补给。性是繁殖，是生命的复制，吃是喂食，从另外一个入口喂哺着生命。
我们东方人的“来来来，吃、吃、吃” “一起去吃饭？”“再吃一点”“明天你想吃什么？”，通通可以直译成“我爱你”。还有“吃醋”、“吃苦头”“一起吃苦的幸福”……很多微妙难言的情感体验和内心景观，都可以用吃来搭建。
上个星期，外婆细细观察了皮皮走后的饭桌，皮皮的小碗边，没有猪骨、菜渣，只散落着一些鳝鱼骨……她只吃了鳝段，即使没有任何交流，我猜这周，这道最受欢迎的菜，一定会再出现。果然，装着鱼段的小碗，里面有半斤鳝鱼，正好够皮皮吃（很贵，外婆自己舍不得吃），小碗放在一块洗得干干净净的旧抹布上，那块厚布，类似于保温垫，可以让动作拖沓的皮皮仍然能吃上热菜。这个“你爱吃，下次再做”，当然也能翻译成“我爱你”。
前阵子，表姐到我家，我妈要招呼她去饭店，表姐说不用，她自带了鱼丸和青菜，她径自走向灶台，抽出案板咚咚咚咚切菜，在我家点火做起饭来。我姐小时候在外婆家长大，当时我妈（也就是她小姨）还没出阁，她们一向很亲近。她走后，我妈幸福地提了几次这事。我恍然大悟：我妈乐于使用这种亲人才能用的语言:进入私人领地的厨房，默契地去做合乎对方口味的饭，一起说笑着进餐，把对方喂饱。我不爱做饭，常带着外卖与妈妈同吃，想省下炊事时间，和妈妈多说会话，我妈常走神，切断我的话题，叮嘱我吃菜，她怕我夜里看书入睡迟，肚子会饿。她的眼睛和心，飞过我的话题，降落在我的碗里，我微嗔她对待我的不专注，原来是我用错了语种，没听懂她的以食言爱，我现在常想，我要去学做妈妈爱吃的菜，停下言语之舌，开启品尝之舌，静静对坐，沉入一饮一啄之咸淡，在食物的欢乐喧响中，直达彼此心意深处。
我要去学习爱的语言。
人与世界、万物、他人的交流，都要靠语言，语言包括词汇和语法。当我们步入树林，树的气味，也是语言，前提是:你得有嗅闻的静心与识别的“外语能力”，接着你会闻出健康放松的树木才能发出的香气，而紧张时它们会分泌警报气味，你也会闻出植物被迫服从人类生态安排（吹叶机、割草机）的痛苦汁液，树会不断散发出气味分子，用某种语法组合，连成它们的心声。这些，都要会读。
食物就是其中一门外语。爱吃的人，都是使用同一种母语的同国度人，会吃，就找到了几何体那道解题辅助线，可以去理解他人。《鱼翅与花椒》里，英国作者跟着小饭店老板去采买最新鲜的鳝鱼，看它血淋淋的变成自己的盘中餐，东方人对杀生的诚实面对，以及拿认真吃掉它当成最高程度的善待，这类生命态度，西方人无法接受，而从抗拒活物到津津有味地嚼着内脏的过程中，吃的这个人，不仅是口味宽泛了，而且已经通过食物学会了比中文考级词汇表更生动的中国语言，完成了文化认同。
我突然很感动，我们中国人爱生活，爱的真是噼啪作响，不是火山爆发的狂热爱情也不似火把引路的精神先哲，而是灶膛里红金矍铄的小小煤块，热力四射，一点点把日子炊熟。我们细细分出嚼海参、鱿鱼和蹄筋的弹牙Q感，是果冻感、凝胶感和橡胶感，爱得吮骨吸髓、一丝不苟——我曾经沉溺于记诵辨识中国色名，对着色表卡，给我房间的绿色命名，把它们塞入中国色彩语言的某个抽屉，也是感慨于祖先对每一眼风景都郑重凝视，像对食材物尽其用一样，嚼尽一切入目的美。中国语言的精致和中国食物的脍不厌细，是同源之爱。
食物絮絮着对生命的爱语。像过年这种需要好心情应景的喜庆时刻，我总会找吃货的书来看，爱吃之人，文字都带着喜相，即使写风物小说回忆录，统统欢喜四溢。
李春方写吃，不超出郊区富农的生活水准，煮藕水、饽饽渣、拌柳芽，一个煮蛋炒花生之类的平民小食，都能兴师动众翻出好几种做法，佐料不过小葱虾皮，让我感慨北方旧日吃食的简素，但他的热力何其丰沛：儿时在麦秸堆下的草枯隆里摸到十几个鸡蛋，拿回家去，家人给油煎了，备了胡椒粉，孩子们在桌边围着等——这真的值得一写？值得啊，我坚信，那煎蛋一定是香喷喷的，新鲜、热乎，带着生命的余温和家人的溺爱，怎么能不香呢？田边野地偶得一个好看的大花绞瓜，进村路上遇到个女同学，放在她的谷坨子上，去她家用油盐炒了吃，“极好吃”！我信他说的，谁会在意一个绞瓜长得好看？这得多少热情，多得溢出来，才够漫到一个野瓜上。
每个人以食代言的生命之爱，温度高低有别，就像食物中的油温，看周作人写食文字，用微火温油，有禅味，素淡，简静，菜谱也多是素食。少油，少盐，少烟火气。豆腐茶干咸鱼都是“殊不恶”。字里行间都是菜根余味。
而叶灵凤的格物草木书，会觉得他很博学，而且洞悉八卦，是“涉世”的书生。但是，在他热油旺火的活泼世情里，夹带着冷寂之味。他胃口好，并且平民化，引以为傲的的故乡特产，不过是臭面筋和炒米。最简朴的“薰青豆”，也有“淡泊”之味。其实不过是刚上市的毛豆炒成碧绿，几只尖嘴红辣椒点缀了，盛在白瓷盘子里。就引动他的食欲了。他的“风雅”成本也不高，比如“莴苣圆”，新鲜的莴苣叶腌制了，卷起来，中间夹片玫瑰花瓣，送“茶淘饭”。菱角，最价廉之物，也嚼出“粉而甘香”，在香港，买了几只不好吃的乌头菱，干脆做“案头清供”了。但是，杨梅到底是杨梅……”，那篇文章的名字叫“莴苣和杨梅带来的幸福”。还有一篇是看花，说是香港的木棉，花托很重，像六瓣的螺旋桨，下落时是打转的，他就在树下看落花，实为浮生一大乐趣——看叶灵凤的“随遇而安”，常常会想到“可爱”这二字。
食物也是方言，它不仅抒发小爱，亦是故土情：唐鲁孙、梁实秋这批渡海而去的人，一辈子都活在民国的味蕾里，在纸上孜孜怀恋着老北京的小饭馆和小吃，抱怨此地的炸酱面不地道，偶尔闻香循味找去，找到一道七八分神似的小吃，就像流亡之人听闻乡音一样欣怡。食物代言了固执的乡愁，一边记食，一边抖落着旧京的掌故和人事，简直和执着使用意第绪语写作，活在旧日精神故乡里的辛格一样 。邓云乡笔下的吃食很热闹，四季循时而来，春天的黄花鱼，藤萝饼开启一年的胃口，夏天的冰碗，烧羊肉凉凉胃气，秋天的螃蟹，炒栗贴贴秋膘，冬天的烤肉，火锅暖暖身子，但他又任性，坚持认为北方食物比南方好。邓云乡在上海，一味感慨白菜不如北京好，汤圆不如北地“元宵”。那个在北方槐树树影中午睡醒来的少年，一辈子休憩于斯。
很多食物都是群食性的，比如火锅，所以，它必然是集体感情的承载者，而味蕾，它最记得那些欢聚时光。任溶溶的快乐童年里，怎么也少不了年前炸芋虾的盛况，炸物耗油，只有在过年时，左邻右舍每家拎来一两斤油，倒在大锅里，集群力才能完成这个作品，众人煎炸围观，顽童嬉闹打闹——食物就是老相册，一上舌尖，即上心头，立刻被唾液转译成人群欢聚的笑语，响彻耳畔，而那些共餐之人，穿过岁月迤逦而至，从此随味蕾永生。
High school students have classes six days a week. Pipi usually doesn't return to her grandmother's house until Saturday night, where she enjoys a weekly family gathering. Grandma grew up during a time of scarcity, and has a deep fear of food shortages. In our unrenovated public housing unit in the old community, the dilapidated house is filled with spider webs in the corners and every nook and cranny is stuffed with food that Grandma uses to guard against imagined disasters: large barrels of cooking oil under the bed, big bags of rice and flour folded behind the door, bamboo poles hanging with sausages, and even the shoe cabinet has some space reserved for seasonings.
In this shabby and suspicious-smelling house lives Grandma, who is increasingly hard of hearing and seeing, a stray cat she picked up, and us, who return home on weekends. Starting from Wednesday, Grandma gets up early in the morning and begins to prepare the ingredients according to their perishability, from far to near: dry fungi like shiitake mushrooms and cordyceps, which are used to stew chicken soup to keep Pipi healthy, can be prepared early. As Pipi's return date approaches on Thursday and Friday, she will go to buy the side dishes. Grandma's eyesight is weakening, so she picks bean sprouts early in the morning, pinches the tenderest sprouts from the red wild luo hao, cleans up the chubby short-stemmed spinach that is easily muddy, and on Saturday, she buys freshly killed chicken and boneless eels.
As soon as Pipi enters the door, Grandma starts to work, and the house suddenly feels like the TV has been turned on: Grandma turns on the lights and starts cooking, the cold dishes sizzle in the hot oil pan, and the fragrance of wild luo hao suddenly fills the air, attacking our nostrils. Ami is startled by the sound of frying oil, and jumps up, getting caught on the tattered curtain of the old window, making a distressed scream. Grandma keeps urging us to come to the table, saying that the food will get cold... In just a few minutes, the previously silent and bleak house is now full of smells and colors. The word "home" has been activated by "food".
Suddenly, I realize that we, the Eastern people, show love through food.
"I have read several books on the theme of food, but in essence, they are all about appreciating the time we spend with each other.
In "The Old-fashioned Girl's Shopping Route," like many East Asian families, the mother and daughter spend most of their time together in the kitchen. The mother teaches her daughter how to make scallion pancakes and guides her on how to cook tea eggs with beautiful ice patterns. During holidays, the whole family makes a big meal together, with everyone bustling around the kitchen, using food to embrace each other in the shy way that East Asians do. In "After Mom Goes to Sleep," a Korean mother teaches her daughter how to gauge the depth of water when cooking rice, and constantly nags her to eat more during meals, trying to cultivate her daughter's Korean palate amidst the American-style fast food joints. Although the daughter can no longer speak complex Korean after her mother's passing, the language of food in her stomach will inevitably bring her back to her mother and her homeland.
These chapters are too close to us, as East Asian readers, as if someone is peeking and recording our private lives, or as if our grandmothers and mothers have entered the book.
Both of these women wrote down their mother's recipes when she was seriously ill, hoping that after she passed away, they could take the taste boat to let their nostalgia anchor. After their mother's passing, they both made the same dishes that their mothers used to make, using the taste of the food to search for lost memories. Grandma's cooking nourished their mothers, and their mothers used the same recipes to feed their own daughters. Since love once passed down in secret, it will inevitably trace back and mourn in the same language.
Eating is not just about tasting at the dining table, it is a complete process involving human interaction. During this process, the past rises and falls: when buying groceries, one must go to the old market, where they will naturally meet the shopkeeper who was familiar with their mother, and exchange a few words about the deceased. When cooking, the body has already silently memorized the knife skills taught by their mother. When plating the dishes, will they remember the tea flower their mother picked from the backyard to decorate the dish? When eating, their mother's gesture of dipping in Korean sauce immediately comes to mind - the objective description of the writing, which is already prone to warmth, especially for reserved and restrained East Asians. We use food to express and preserve emotions. All emotions are condensed into the context of the meal. Food is our genealogy and address book. As long as we mention food, the juice of those emotions will begin to dissolve and drip in the warmth of memory, and the past will be as clear as day."
Love is a thing that is colorful and ever-changing: sometimes it's abstract logic, like the promise of happiness when one plus one equals two; sometimes it's like a thunderbolt or a slap in the face, unreasonable and unrefutable, suddenly descending upon you; and sometimes it's a transitive verb, like in the phrase "eating and drinking." In Western verb grammar, it involves embracing, praising, and sex, turning the gun barrel over to the other person, entrusting oneself and one's life to them, experiencing a small-scale flight, fall, and rebirth in another person's body. In East Asia, it's about eating, completing the flow and supply of life energy through cooking, feeding, and sharing meals. Sex is reproduction, the replication of life, while eating is feeding, nourishing life through another entry point.
For us Easterners, phrases like "come, come, let's eat," "shall we go eat together?" "have some more," "what do you want to eat tomorrow?" can all be directly translated as "I love you." And there are many subtle and indescribable emotional experiences and inner landscapes that can be constructed using the act of eating.
Last week, Grandma carefully observed the table after Pippi left. Pippi's small bowl was free of pork bones and vegetable scraps, with only a few eel bones scattered around... She only ate the eel segments, and even without any communication, I guessed that this week, this most popular dish would surely appear again. Sure enough, the small bowl filled with eel segments contained half a pound of eel, just enough for Pippi to eat (it was expensive, and Grandma couldn't bear to eat it herself), and the bowl was placed on a clean, thick cloth similar to a thermal pad, allowing Pippi, who had slow movements, to still have a hot meal. This "you love to eat, I'll make it again next time" can certainly also be translated as "I love you."
Recently, my cousin came over to my house and my mom offered to take her to a restaurant for a meal. But my cousin declined, saying she had brought fish balls and vegetables with her. She then headed to the stove, pulled out a cutting board, and began chopping vegetables before cooking. When my sister was young, she grew up at our grandmother's house, and at that time, my mom (her aunt) hadn't gotten married yet, so they were always close. After my cousin left, my mom happily mentioned this a few times. It suddenly dawned on me that my mom enjoys using this kind of language that only close family members can understand: entering each other's private kitchen, cooking food that suits each other's taste without a word, laughing and eating together, and making sure the other person is well-fed.
I don't like cooking and often bring takeout to eat with my mom, wanting to save time on cooking and have more conversations with her. However, my mom often loses track of my conversation and interrupts me to remind me to eat my vegetables. She's afraid I'll stay up late reading and go to bed hungry. Her eyes and heart skip over my topics and land on my bowl. I'm slightly annoyed that she's not paying attention to me, but I realize I'm using the wrong language and not understanding her love through food. Now, I often think about learning to cook the dishes my mom likes and being quiet during meals, savoring each bite, and communicating through the joy of food, reaching each other's hearts.
I want to learn the language of love.
Communication with people, the world, and everything else relies on language, which includes vocabulary and grammar. When we enter a forest, the scent of the trees is also a language, provided that you have the "language ability" to smell and recognize it. Then you will smell the fragrance that healthy and relaxed trees can emit, and when they are stressed, they emit warning scents. You can also smell the painful secretions of plants forced to obey human ecological arrangements (such as leaf blowers and lawnmowers). Trees constantly emit scent molecules that combine in a certain grammar, forming their inner voice. All of these require the ability to read.
Food is one of the foreign languages. People who love to eat are like compatriots who speak the same mother tongue. By understanding food, they can understand others better, like finding a geometric solution line in a problem. In "Shark's Fin and Sichuan Pepper," a British author follows a small restaurant owner to buy the freshest eel and sees it transform into his own dish. The Eastern attitude towards killing animals with honesty and treating them as the highest level of kindness by eating them is something that Westerners cannot accept. However, through the process of resisting live animals and savoring their innards, the person who eats not only broadens their palate but also learns a more vivid Chinese language than the vocabulary of the Chinese proficiency test, completing cultural identity.
I suddenly feel moved. We Chinese love life, and our love is really loud. It's not the passionate love of a volcanic eruption or the spirit of a torchbearer, but the small coal block that shines like gold in the stove, radiating heat and slowly cooking the days. We savor the chewy texture of sea cucumbers, squid, and tendon, which are like jelly, gelatin, and rubber. We love to suck the marrow from the bone and be meticulous. I used to indulge in memorizing and identifying Chinese color names, naming the green in my room based on the color chart, and placing them in a drawer of the Chinese color language. It is also a feeling of awe for our ancestors who carefully observe every scenery and savor every aspect of beauty like using every part of an ingredient. The delicacy of the Chinese language and the refinement of Chinese food are two expressions of the same love.
Food speaks the language of love to life. For festive occasions that require a good mood, like the Lunar New Year, I always look for books written by foodies. People who love to eat write with joy, even in their essays or memoirs about nature, they are all filled with happiness.
And Ye Lingfeng's book on the study of plants and trees makes him seem very knowledgeable, as well as having insight into the gossip of the world, making him a "worldly" scholar. However, within his lively and bustling surroundings, there is a hint of coldness. He has a good appetite and is proud of his hometown specialty, which is nothing more than stinky gluten and fried rice, which is popular among the common people. Even the simplest "aromatic green beans" has a taste of "detachment". In fact, it is just freshly fried edamame, turned green, sprinkled with a few sharp red peppers, and served on a white porcelain plate. This stimulates his appetite. His "elegance" is also not expensive, such as "lettuce rolls", fresh lettuce leaves pickled and rolled up, with rose petals in the middle, served with "tea rice". Water chestnuts, the cheapest of all things, can also be chewed into "sweet and fragrant powder". In Hong Kong, he bought a few inedible water chestnuts and simply used them as a "clean offering" on his desk. However, in the end, a Yangmei is still a Yangmei... The title of that article is "Happiness Brought by Lettuce and Yangmei". There is another article about admiring flowers, which talks about the cotton trees in Hong Kong. The flower stems are very heavy, like six-bladed propellers, and when they fall, they spin. He likes to watch the falling flowers under the tree, which is a great pleasure in life - reading Ye Lingfeng's "taking things as they come" often makes people think of the word "lovely".
Food is also a dialect, expressing not only a small love but also hometown feelings: Tang Lusun and Liang Shiqiu, who went overseas, lived their entire lives in the taste buds of the Republic of China. They yearned for the small restaurants and snacks of old Beijing on paper, and complained that the fried sauce noodles here were not authentic. Occasionally, they followed their noses and found a snack that was seven or eight points similar, just like exiles hearing their hometown dialect, feeling happy. Food represents the stubborn homesickness, recording the stories and people of old Beijing while enjoying the food. It's like S.Y. Agnon writing in Yiddish, living in the spiritual homeland of the past.
Deng Yunxiang's food writing is very lively, following the seasons with dishes such as spring yellow croaker and vine cake, summer ice bowls and cool lamb, autumn crabs and fried chestnuts, and winter grilled meat and hotpot. But he is also stubborn, insisting that Northern food is better than Southern food. Deng Yunxiang lived in Shanghai and lamented that the cabbage was not as good as Beijing's and the tangyuan (glutinous rice balls) were not as good as those in the North. The boy who woke up from his nap under the shadow of the locust tree in the North spent his whole life in that memory.
Many foods are social foods, such as hot pot, so they are inevitably carriers of collective emotions. Taste buds remember those moments of happiness and togetherness. In the joyful childhood of Ren Rongrong, there was always the grand occasion of frying shrimp with taro before the Chinese New Year. Frying food consumes oil, so only during the New Year when each neighbor brought one or two pounds of oil could the group effort complete this masterpiece. Everyone fried and fried while onlookers watched, mischievous children played and fought - food is like an old photo album, once on the tongue, it immediately reaches the heart, and is immediately translated into the laughter of the crowd by saliva, echoing in the ears. And those who shared the meal, passing through the years, live forever with the taste buds.
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