Tomato and egg dish creates cultural connection for Brooklyn woman

The taste of a certain dish has the ability to provide a sense of warmth and comfort. WNYC's Community Partnership Desk ask New Yorkers to sift through the recipe box in their minds to pull out the one that brings back the fondest memories.

Tracy Shu lives in Brooklyn, NY. WNYC's Community Partnerships Desk talked with her as part of a collaboration with the Queens Memory Project.

The transcript of Tracy Shu's story has been lightly edited for clarity.

My name is Tracy Shu, and I'm from Brooklyn, New York.

I'm Chinese, and my parents are from southern China, from an area called Guangdong. It's right next to Hong Kong, so it's a lot of the same, like, Cantonese type of dishes. When I was younger, I wasn't a very picky eater. I ate everything that my mom served me. But in particular, if I could say what my favorite food was that I could, like, eat every day. It'd probably be this tomato egg dish where you have a little bit of scrambled eggs and cooked tomato together, and super easy to make 15 minutes, and then you put it on rice. Super simple, but it's a staple of my childhood.

Because I was more picky on the days that I, like, didn't eat that much, my mom would only cook me the tomato egg dish. And even to this day, two weeks ago, I had to, like, call up my mom and say, ask her which onion should I buy because I don't cook. Just, like, having that connection with my mom is really important. And I think it's a point of, like, cultural connection. A lot of these dishes aren't, like, in American culture, and I find myself wanting to bring it back now that I'm almost 30, and it's not a typical dish that I eat with my friends.

So, I like the fact that I can keep this as a means to connect with my mom. It's also a way for me to connect to other second gen children of immigrants who are also Cantonese because I know this is probably a universal dish. Every single Cantonese person like knows of this dish. So it's also a way to connect to other second-gen American kids.

And I really advise people to try it because all you need are tomatoes, onions, eggs, you know, all your seasoning, salt, pepper. I know people are going to be a little bit surprised by this, but my mom always said to put in a little bit of ketchup, and I know it sounds weird. But it adds in a little sweetness to the tart of the tomato.