Pork-and-Chive Dumplings That Offer a Taste of Home

At her home in the Riverdale section of the Bronx, Helen You made dumplings and told her children stories about growing up in China. About how when she was a little girl, she would visit her father — their grandfather — in a prison, far from home, on an island that turned pitch dark after sundown.

Back when they were still small, her children thought this was the stuff of comic books and scary movies. “Mama, be serious — is it true?” She had raised them in such a different world that they could only imagine her own as a kind of fiction. “Yes,” she assured them, “it’s true.”

Just before You was born in Tianjin in 1963, her father was sent to a labor camp for speaking out against corruption in the government. The family’s home was marked with a sign, indicating their status as dissidents. Once a week, You had to stand on a stage with her mother and listen to her neighbors tell them all the reasons her family was “bad.” “I couldn’t make friends at school or go out for fun,” You says.

So she stayed home, and her home became her playground, and her mother became her best friend. She made a game out of the domestic minutiae of their days, tagging along around the house, picking up on everything her mother knew. “I was so well loved,” You says. “I have such sweet memories of learning from my mother.”

By her mother’s side, You washed greens, fried eggs, chopped vegetables. She rolled fresh dumpling wrappers with extra-thin edges, so that the folded dough would form a delicate ruffle instead of a thick lump. As she got the hang of it, she pinched dumplings shut with beautiful, even folds, the sheer dough gathered like a doll’s pleated skirt.