YEAH! My brothers Sweet n Sour Pork is MY recipe too. One of the first gourmet meals I ever learned. He had just come home from Okinawa on leave, I must have been 16 or 17. When I was 25, courting my soon to be wife, she was showing me off to her family – and I was showing off my cooking skills to impress them even further than my good looks and charming personality already had . . . (insert chirping of cricket here).
As you know if you’ve read my Persimmon Pudding story, my mother-in-law is a world class cook, she was checking me out. Sweet & Sour Pork is one of there favorites to order when eating out. She was indeed impressed with my cooking. They all were impressed when we sat down to eat and they tasted it! And then something v e r y strange happened.
Everybody was prepping their plates with rice before they piled on the S&S Pork. My finance’ lays down a thin bed of rice, a slice of American cheese, another thin layer of rice, then several spoon fulls of S&S Pork. . . and topped it all off with ketchup. . . . . YEAH, ketchup. I sat directly across from her and watched with my mouth hanging wide open. I’d cooked for her before of course, but never Sweet & Sour Pork. The whole family was talking away as we dished up our food. And everybody got quiet for a few seconds when they noticed I was staring in horror at what Debbie was doing to my Gourmet Sweet & Sour Pork – Not The Crap You Get In American Restaurants Traditional SWEET AND SOUR PORK ! ! !
Look, I got no problem with somebody tossin’ salt & pepper on something I cook for them. Heck, salt and pepper shakers are on the tables of the finest restaurants on the globe. Hey a little sauce de juir of what ever – no problem. Hey, I love ketchup. . . but come on. I believe I said something like “W.T.F. . . ” and it went on from there. Debbie’s dad was in hysterics. (this is still one of his favorite stories to tell about his daughter). Debbie’s explanation was simple. “Hey, I always eat my Sweet and Sour Pork like this! What’s the big deal?!”
I’m happy to say that my wife Debbie has since seen the errors of her ways and shudders when she thinks of that night and her nasty ketchup habits of long ago. (I got a little queasy writing that story for you all).