"Eat more - it's good for your skin."
I passively absorbed a lot of these traditional Chinese medicine bits growing up, accepting a lot of it both without resistance and with some skepticism. And then my first job was at a collagen company, and I thought frequently about pork trotters. My parents had one of those stovetop pressure cookers, which must have been dedicated to making braised trotters because I don't remember them using it for anything else. We braised our trotters in soy sauce, both dark and light, shaoxin rice wine, and a blend of fragrant spices. The characteristic aroma makes me salivate on cue like one of Pavlov's dogs. I could barely stand to wait until the bowl of trotters were cool enough to handle before I picked one up to gnaw off the gelatinous skin. When it's perfectly cooked, it should slip right off and melt like jell-o on your tongue. After sucking every knuckle bone clean, my fingers would be sticky with collagen and my belly warm. But there's still all the braising liquid left. I drown the rest of my rice with it, thick and viscous, and shovel every grain into my mouth.
pc. Joyce
