15. CHINESE GROCERIES

After a long day working with my father at the restaurant, my mother would take a bus downtown, get off at City Hall and walk the two blocks home. Sometimes, a bus driver who recognized my mother would extend a kindness and let her off at the corner of Erie and Park instead.

Although she would have likely preferred a simple supper -  a bowl of rice, steamed salty fish, and a green -  she indulged my brother and I by preparing some fancier Chinese dish that we liked. Yet, I know very little about Chinese foodstuffs.

Mother made dinner on her own while my brother and I attended to homework from school. That was the priority in our household.




When I left home, it was kind of exotic adventure and remembrance of home to venture into Toronto Chinatown, find a Chinese grocery store that looked welcoming, and squeeze along narrow aisles; scanning the crowded shelves for a product I recognized and knew how to cook.

Sheets of dried bean curd, vermicelli rice noodles, tiny dried shrimp, black beans, lotus root, dried dates, bamboo shoots – all looked familiar but lay beyond my skills and sometimes, beyond my tastes.

At home, my mother had bought soy sauce in a huge wooden cask and re-bottled it. I had no idea as to what kind it was. But I knew her preferred brands when it came to oyster sauce (Lee Kum Kee - easily recognized by the harvesting oysters picture) and hoisin (found in an impossible to open oval shaped tin).

I bought dried Chinese mushrooms sparingly (expensive and rarely used in my simple cooking), Chinese sausage (easy to cook but fatty, no matter how lean I thought it looked in the package), salted duck eggs (encased in charcoal and clay so unless crumbling away, OK to buy).

Treats were much simpler: preserved licorice plums wrapped in translucent wrappers with blue edges and print; haw flakes rolled up like coins in newsprint wrappers; small packets of red preserved ginger; steamed red bean paste buns marked with a red dot; barbequed pork, duck, and char siu hanging in a shop window that could be pointed to.

These required no preparation or cooking skills.

How did I learn about these foods?
Yes, my mother bought them but where?

Back then, general grocers and supermarkets did not have an ethnic foods section like many do now. Chinatown did have its own sources.

From 1923 to 1931, a shop named Kwong Lee Yuen Company was at 35 Cataract Avenue. In the directories, it is listed simply as “grocery.” However, the Kwong Lee Yuen Company must have been significant. They advertised in the Chinese Times. Their ads appeared alongside those of businesses in Vancouver, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Toronto, and Britain.

During this period, many Chinese lived on Cataract Ave. In addition, the Chinese Nationalist League was also located on Cataract for a time.

In 1932, Kun Wo Company (a “Chinese Grocery” according to the directories) was at 254 Park Street. DANIEL TONG was the manager in 1940. In 1945, TOY PANG (also called Fanny) was a salesman there.

Kun Wo remained at this address until 1952 when 254 Park Street came under the ownership of JIMMY LOW and became the Wing On Company.

Then, Kun Wo moved to 226 Park Street. 1953-1954, Kun Wo Company became listed as Kun Wo Importer.

Growing up, I knew 254 Park Street as where the bachelor men congregated, if not actually lived. Later, after learning some history about the Chinese in Canada, I thought of the place as kind of benevolent society. In essence, I don’t know what Wing On Co. was other than a grocery at some time.

Atypical for this block of Park Street, though, 254 was set back from the sidewalk. A gingko tree provided an umbrella of shade in the front yard. Clumps of grass and dandelions filled in the spaces beside a walkway leading to the front entrance.

On the east side, a laneway and a jumble of bramble, weeds and climbing nightshade with its appealing red berries separated the building from the train tracks. A tall tree stood in the midst. I want to say it was a mulberry but what does a young child know about trees?

Like the gingko, this tree was unusual because it did not have the kind of leaves known, and thereby implicitly approved, by my grade 3 teacher for our leaf collection.

I do remember, though, standing with my mother and gazing up at the tree as she tried to determine if the fruit was edible.

A dirt driveway of sorts separated 254 from the back of Empire Building on the corner and provided another access point to the back of the businesses on Erie between Queen and Park Streets.

My mother had forbidden me to enter 254. I never did. Well, I don’t remember ever going in.

I do recall how she and I would stop in at 254 Park occasionally. A grocery truck from Toronto would come on certain days.

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While my mother likely bought different kinds of items, only one stands out. The salesman/truck driver would ladle some liquid into our small enamel pan and then deposit the requested pieces of tofu.

The soft, silky blocks had to be carried with a steady hand lest they jiggle too much and break apart.

I doubt that my mother purchased much Chinese produce as she grew what she could. In our backyard, she had built raised beds where she mostly grew beans, peas, and gai lan.

Later on when she discovered how to save seeds from produce she had been given, or purchased, her garden expanded to include: tomatoes, garlic, onions, bok choi, en choy, kŭ guā, and dōng guā.

By then, though, she had moved away from Park St. to a regular-looking house on Gail Ave. first and then to the St. Paul Ave. restaurant property after my father died. She took her garden with her to all these places.

How big and how many prickly winter melons my mother could grow in a season provided her with much satisfaction.

My mother became so successful with her melons, HELEN LEW, Loy Chong’s sister-in-law told me that she use to get starter plants from her.

1989: Mother & Grandson - Garlic Harvest 

But where did the other foodstuffs come from?

Certainly, some items were from Toronto and provided as treats for special occasions – weddings, births, Ching Ming.

As in previous years, MICHAEL WAN drove to Toronto on the morning of Ching Ming to bring back steamed buns and barbequed meats for distribution to attendees.

I do not know if the Kun Wo when it was located at 226 Park Street sold much. I have an image of the shop with rows of jars containing dried things and perhaps some packages of cigarettes on the shelves behind the counter. There was also a box just outside of the door - an old wooden tea crate - partially filled with sand. Ginger roots had been buried in the sand as a means of keeping them. Perhaps my mother bought ginger from Kun Wo.

Mainly, my mother got her Chinese foodstuffs from Toronto. If she heard someone was going there, she’d get them to pick up an item, or two. She also ordered goods by mail.

Painstakingly, she wrote a letter: copying names from old packaging and searching a Chinese newspaper or dictionary for the right Chinese characters for the products she wanted. She’d mail the letter, wait for a response, send a money order to pre-pay for the goods, and then wait some more.

If she really wanted the items quickly, she wrote to a trading company in Toronto but she preferred to amass her order for the year and send it to Vancouver.

The company in Vancouver included a complimentary red and gold calendar with traditional Chinese scenes of prosperity as a token of appreciation of her business. Those were the calendars that my mother could read and deemed beautiful.