Dear Chinese mother-in-law is honoring us currently with her presence and thanks to that I have no shortage of stories to share with you. Originally I had something else planned for today but this blog is like a therapy for me and I really need to get this out. You have read it probably too often already but my MIL is certainly something else. She knows everything better than anyone else and she does everything better than anyone else, at least that is how she sees the world. The reality is very much different but she would never accept that.
Before coming to Germany my wife gave her mother a little food shopping list. To be precise this shopping list was all about Liangpi 凉皮 the best noodle dish ever created. There are specialized restaurants in Xi’an which offer these noodles in a box to take away and mix the noodles and sauce yourself. You should consume the food within two weeks otherwise it might be not that good for you any longer but two weeks are more than enough. When we were last time in China we brought home 16 boxes for just the two of us. I think they didn’t even last a week and I don’t even feel bad about it as they are just too delicious. When MIL heard that she should buy them for us her first reaction was “They don’t taste at all, they are terrible, I don’t buy them!” (She has never tried them before). Her second reaction was “They are too heavy, I don’t buy them!” (She wanted to take more of her weird stuff with). However my wife insisted that MIL would get them and her third reaction was “My homemade ones are much better!”. In the end my wife won and MIL took at least a few boxes with to Germany.
Now coming back to “My homemade ones are much better” I have to say that her Liangpi ain’t bad. They are actually pretty good as soon as you add some salt and spices (something she never does, she never uses salt for anything). But they are still no match for the takeaway Liangpi yet alone to the freshly made ones in certain restaurants. My mother-in-law believes that her food is so much better than in any restaurant. Last year she tried to proof that to me and my dad when we were in China by making Pizza for us. She had never made pizza before and had no clue what to add. She even tried to put in Durians and Bananas, thankfully my wife stopped her from that. I can’t remember the taste but I do know that my stomach was upset for the next two days.
MIL is preparing food for us now every day, same as she had done during the past visits over the years. While her noodle dishes are rather good, the other dishes are barely eatable. Whenever she made some dishes to be eaten with rice I prepared myself for the worst. The good thing is that my wife concvinced her mother to make noodle related dishes at least five times a week. No matter how much my wife complains about the cooking skills her mother still believes she is the best chef who has ever walked this (round) earth (MIL kind of believes that the earth is flat). In fact MIL does not even like most of the food she prepares but she won’t admit to it but we can clearly see it when she suddenly stops eating after one or two bites. Her explanation for that is usually that she doesn’t want to eat too much so that we have more, yeah right.
How are your cooking skills?
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My cooking skills are okay, although I don’t entertain as often as I used to, so I prepare food that’s mainly healthy, fast, and tasty. Although I generally like my cooking, I’m always happy to eat out and taste something different. When my husband was alive, we liked to cook together. We put together some nice dinners that way.
My cooking skills are just so-so. I can make some simple dishes such as lasagne etc but only with the exact instructions in front of me. My wife is on a totally different level and many Chinese love to come over when she cooks as it tastes just like what they remember from home
I can follow a recipe and mostly not burn anything. Mostly.
I am also very good with boiling water, anything beyond is magic to me:)
So if you call your wife a witch, it really just means she’s a good cook?
Haha yeah something like that
Your MIL is frightening, yet hilarious (from an outside perspective). I would have thought that at least she likes her creations in the kitchen. How can you make something without trying it, not eat it because of the taste and then try to convince others it’s the best ever? I’d like to have the level of confidence this woman seems to carry XD
Btw, the noodles really look delicious, have to ask my husband if he has tried them.
She has way too much confidence and it is scary. However often she talks big and then doesn’t do it anyways :p
My cooking skills are so so, I should try to make more dishes but if they involve many ingredients or too much time I feel too lazy to do it!
My MIL’s food is quite good, however she is cooking lamb soup all the time even though she herself doesn’t like it! So sometimes it is too bland because, as she didn’t taste it, she didn’t know it needed more salt, haha.
Wonder why she is cooking lamb soup always or does the rest of the family love it?
I am a real lazy person in the kitchen and try only the easiest and quickest dishes 🙂
I guess she thinks C. loves it, but we would be fine with any other soup that she can actually eat! Sometimes she also does weird things, like she often cooks bamboo shoots even though C. is allergic to them. She always forgets! C. says it is a miracle he survived until now xD
C is a real miracle! He should play some lottery with his luck.
My wife doesn’t like ginger but MIL puts it into really every dish and says each time she forgot about her daughter not liking it
The liangpi in your pics don’t look like the ones I’ve tried (and didn’t like too much). The ones I tried were done with rice noodles (the transparent ones) and clear spicy sauce. But in your picture, the noodles look like wheat noodles and the sauce looks more consistent, is it sesame or peanuts sauce?
The rice noodles ones I know as well and my wife got herself a few of them but I don’t like them.
The dishes in the pictures is one with sesame sauce and one with peanut 🙂
Oooh! Then I would probably love these liangpi too!
The ones I mean are fabulous and in Xi’an they have a couple of grand tiny restaurants for it. The version with the rice noodles I have only encountered seldomly in shaanxi
Good story. But what dreadful Shane you couldn’t get more of the noodles brought over for you.
Indeed it is a real pity and now I am longing for the next holiday to China which won’t happen till next y3ar
mine are fine – thankfully my mother in law’s are very good 😀
I just wish my wife would have more time for cooking again so we could avoid this madness here. However as we have our own little business she is busy the whole day
Good to know MIL can make decent dishes. If you all get bored of her noodles, maybe try to get her cook those instant noodles….very hard to go wrong with those but then again, MIL is MIL….
My cooking skills have been improving over the last couple of years. Last year I learnt how to make pasta and stir fried veggies. I also learnt how to make chicken sandwiches to take to work and save money (the food court downstairs at my work is hideously expensive). These few weeks I’m focusing on making big breakfasts 😀
I learned to cook a few dishes such as lasagne which actually taste as good as in most restaurants but then again I had few dishes you don’t want to look at even!
MIL should never make instant noodles as it would mean instant failure
Lasagne, love that. It sounds like your specialty 😀 Oh no, instant failure with instant noodles for MIL. Quite possible because it will involve her handling boiling water 😛
Dont mention boiling water. Whenever she is preparing food we lock the kitchen door, just too dangerous for our kids to be nearby
Haha, she sounds soooo stubborn! 🙂
I have no cooking skills. I don’t like much food anyway so I have no desire to even try to be good at cooking!
What you don’t like food much? Food is probably one of the main reasons to live 😁
Maybe my taste buds work too well, I just don’t like the taste of most things 😂
I’m intrigued by this case of ..instant food or whatever from China. Sorry, what is it??
My cooking skills do come from mother..and some of the dishes to me, are home comfort food. Quite healthy, peasant and simple. But no, my mother’s cooking doesn’t have the flash-dash and ton of oil and salt like in some Chinese restaurants. 😉
Well the noodles are not exactly instant noodles. They have been prepared already beforehand and are in an airtight bag. Besides the noodles theere is the sauce (sesame) and you basically just mix them right in your bowl. The dish is eaten cold so it is all fairly easy to prepare.
I think in many Chinese restaurants in the West they overdo it with the oil very much. I never had oily or salty food in China when eating out but as soon as I am in a Chinese restaurant in Germany or Finland the food is more often than not drowning in oil
I’m good at Asian food, and baking everything else not so much so. Hope your MIL doesn’t poison you with her rice dishes. Keep eating the noodles!
I am just happy that the rice dishes only happen once a week
Lol. 🙂
Ha, this post made me laugh.Somehow totally opposite from how I felt when I have prepared a dinner for my German neighbours here. I was too hesitant that they won’t like what I’ve cooked, but it all turned out well, they even asked for my recipe.
I think food should be celebrated together, not for the sake of criticizing. But I’m sure MIL knows her own ways :-)))
As long as she is staying with you–she’s the queen of your Kitchen!
Well she might be the queen of our kitchen right now but I am not so sure you can call it kitchen any longer in the end of September!
Maultaschen. Und Käsespätzle auch. Ganz wichtig. Bitte. 😄
Oh yes, missing those a lot. Back in Chemnitz we had them few times a month at school, here in the North I didn’t even know about them beofore