Homemade dumplings

By Zhuoya Ma

It was taken inside Grandma's house on March 31, 2025, provided by Zhuoya Ma's grandma.

Madeline Reilly, HOST:

We’re starting a series of commentaries from student reporters in our newsroom. Today, reporter Zhuoya Ma offers a story about her grandma’s homemade dumplings. Dumplings are a traditional food for family reunions in Chinese culture. Zhuoya Ma has been missing this delectable meal since she left home. 

If you ask me what dish I want most when I fly home to Urumqi in China, I would say my grandma’s dumplings without hesitation. My grandma has been a bad cook for as long as I can remember. Yes, that’s right, a bad cook. Dumplings are the only thing she makes that taste good. She doesn’t like soy sauce because, apparently, it makes freckles darker. She doesn’t like too much salt because it’s bad for your health. She doesn’t like cooking oil in her dishes because… well, I’m sure it’s also bad for you in some way. 

But amazingly, she makes the most delicious dumplings. 

Her recipe is simple, but her recipe for being a grandma is unusual. When I was born my mother joked that I was the most precious gift she could give to her mother. That’s because my mother was busy working as a tour guide and my grandmother raised me. My grandma was a high school teacher before she retired, so she treated me like a student, with a lot of discipline and tough love. While other kids were napping in their playpens, my grandma held my hand and marched me through all the parks in Guangzhou. Anytime I said I’m tired - I want to go home. She said we could take a five minute break. But then we kept walking. 

When I was about 5, grandma took me to Hong Kong Disneyland. Instead of letting me wave at Mickey Mouse from the comfort of a stroller, we walked through the park from the moment it opened at 8 until it closed at 8 p.m. Not only did I have unusually strong calves for a preschool kid, but I also learned perseverance.  

My grandma got divorced at a young age and raised her two daughters, my mother and my aunt by herself. The teacher’s dormitory they lived in wasn’t the most luxurious. It was tiny. With a bunk bed, and a communal bathroom. My grandmother put up partitions to create a space to cook. My mother told me her childhood dream was to buy a house for my grandmother because all her life she’d been like a candle, sacrificing herself to light others up. 

Now, her spirit has affected my life, and it is my hope to be the strong woman that she has always been. 

I’m her proud granddaughter, and I’m her best student. I’m studying journalism at Columbia University, a place she knows as the best in the world. 

By the time I get back home, I will be the one who takes care of her like she used to take care of me. Recently, I asked for her dumpling recipe:

Grandma's recording: 在切好的肉丁里放入花椒、食盐、鸡精等自己喜欢的调料， 用筷子搅拌好，挤干了水分的白菜放好，将调料白菜拌匀。

Translation in English: Add Sichuan peppercorns, salt, and chicken powder, or your favorite seasonings, to diced meat. Use a pair of chopsticks to mix well. Place the cabbage, which has been squeezed to remove excess moisture, and mix the seasoned meat well.

I’ll always follow that recipe. As for her other dishes, they’re probably better off forgotten.

Zhuoya Ma followed her grandma's recipe and made dumplings by herself in New York.