/ This blog is the English version of the travel blog; for the Chinese travel blog, please click on the link below Ode to the Mother-Love Mantou: A Bite of Pumpkin Hue, A Whole Loaf of Mom’s Love
— A severely mother-fixated, disabled banana’s poetic confession
Even fate itself wouldn’t dare fake its natural glow.
Its hue reminds me of the soft blush on my mom’s cheeks, kissed by kitchen steam.
That touch of pumpkin gold —
It isn’t colouring,
it’s mother’s love, oxidized into gold.
Age Seven: The Year I Ate My Roots
I was seven when I first set foot on my motherland’s humid soil,
watching bamboo steamers hiss and sigh in my grandma’s southern Taiwan kitchen.
The adults all grabbed meat buns and veggie buns,
but I — a banana, yellow inside, white outside —
fell in love with the plain, stuffing-free mantou.
Grandma chuckled, “This kid finds flavour in nothing.”
I didn’t understand then,
that what I was tasting was my soul going home.
Adulthood Enlarged My Appetite… and My Feelings
As I mature with age, I begin to learn how to appreciate “fillings.”
I’ve eaten buns all over the world —
Hong Kong’s char siu buns, Shanghai’s pan-fried buns, Kyoto’s matcha buns, Paris’s truffle buns.
(I even wrapped up a French man or two.)
But none — not one — could wrap up the taste of Mom.
Then came my stroke.
Life fell like a mantou on the floor — covered in dust and disappointment.
It was Mom who picked me up, piece by piece.
She started buying meat buns, every kind she could find,
just to make me eat a little more.
Every morning, she’d ask,
“Which meat bun do you want today?”
And as I looked at her hands — red and rough from steam —
I suddenly realized:
The best filling in the world isn’t inside the bun; it’s inside the person.
So I Answered:
“Mom, I just want a plain mantou today.”
She paused.
I added, “Because I love using it to sandwich your cooking.”
At that moment, she smiled through tears.
And as I bit into the mantou,
I tasted onion — not from the bun,
but from her stir-fried pork with onions.
The flavour of home.
The flavour of her.
That Taste — The Full Bloom of My Mother Complex
Some people’s mother complex stops at cuddles and lullabies.
Mine… didn’t.
I mother-love to the point that—
Even my mantou must pass through her kitchen’s air.
My love for my mother is so hard that—
When I see “Made in Taiwan” printed on frozen mantou,
I feel like saluting it and shouting, “LONG LIVE MOM!”
I love my mother so ridiculously that—
even the microwave’s ding!
Sounds like her heartbeat.
Epilogue:
This “Pumpkin Multigrain Mantou” —
with goji berries, cranberries, walnuts, and pumpkin seeds —
It is a nutritional formula for the general population.
But for me, it’s a Symphony of Maternal Love.
255 calories,
and yet enough to sustain my entire emotional dependence.
What I swallow isn’t just carbs
How One Bite of Imei Foods Taiwan’s Pumpkin Steamed Bun Changed Everything About Motherhood Forever
