No 3 of 100 things I love about Cabramatta

My Chinese grandmother was very insistent that I buy gifts for my parents this Moon Cake Festival. It’s your duty as  a good daughter she reminds me. Ok, let’s buy moon cakes then! So I smugly saunter over to my mother and proudly declare to her that come this September, I was going to buy her a tin of moon cakes….because I’m a good daughter and she ought to remember this!

“No” my mother replies casually.

Yes I am.

“No.” She repeats, as if I hadn’t heard the first time. (I think she was waiting for me to ask her why). Ok…..

“Why not?” I say.

“My doctor said that my cholesterol is high. Moon cakes are high in cholesterol. No good. No moon cakes.” I must have looked disappointed because then she quickly adds, “But you can can get me something else instead.”

She then proceeds to explain how she wants me to buy her half a kilo of her favourite Chinese delicacy,  lap cheong (chinese dried sausages, similar to salami) and curry beef jerky and satay beef jerky AND dried porkbelly. I’m sure the doctor would not prefer her to be eating lap cheong instead of moon cakes. I’m sure on the scale of saturated fats per 100grams, lap cheong would outdo a cake!

Seeing my cynical expression, she quickly adds “It’s special lap cheong. Not like the normal ones. Ay ya! This one has very little fat. Just meat.” Truly? a low fat lap cheong? Being a lap cheong fan myself I surrender.

“Ok, which butcher or grocery store do i get these from?”

“No, not fresh. I don’t want you to buy it from a grocery store. I want you to go to buy it at the dried goods shop”

So mum launches into a chaotic explanation of the location of this “dried goods shop”…which I realise she means delicatessen. Somewhere behind a bank, but near a zebra crossing and not too far from the train station. After ten minutes, she’s exasperated and i’m still as lost as ever. For someone who thinks they know Cabaramatta, I have no idea where she wants me to go!

“I know, I know” She beams. Mum quickly shuffles over to the fridge, takes out a crumpled plastic wrapper with half a lap cheong in it and hands it to me grinning. “You can go here. Hunan Smallgoods”. She wants me to go to China??!?! I start to object at the absurdity of it all, then I see the small red writing on the packet, Cabramatta. No way! They make these here!?!

In disbelief I take a closer look. Factory: Railway Parade, Cabramatta. Shop: 196 Cabramatta Road, Cabramatta. This is right near my shop, how haven’t I ever notice it before?

So the next day I track down this local producer of the “low fat” lap cheong.