To Mr. Lee, this dish cannot be made using strict measurements. “It’s up to you to decide how sweet or salty you want it,” he told me,“ but you must try it for yourself in order to find out what you like.” 

In his late fifties, Mr. Lee immigrated to the United States from Hong Kong in order to provide for his children’s education and future prospects. 

“I wanted to raise them to be good people in the society we live in,” he said.

In a radical change, Mr Lee left behind his government job at Hong Kong’s Water Supplies Department, instead working as a restaurant dishwasher in Boston before later transferring to a factory job. Every night, he cooked a little bit of extra dinner to pack away for lunch the next day and reheat in the factory microwave. 

However, it was only in America that tomato egg made its way into Mr Lee’s diet (although he can’t remember how exactly he learned to make it). When he and his family lived in Hong Kong, the dish never made an appearance at the table. 

“We mostly ate steamed fish,” Mr Lee recalled. 

“But at the factory, you would usually never bring any kind of fish,” he continued, “because once you opened your lunchbox, the smell would be terribly fishy and you’d get in trouble with the bosses.” 

So dishes like tomato egg, which were both nourishing and reasonably easy to store, became new staples of Mr. Lee’s diet, appealing to the adults and the children of the household alike.

At Fireman, he continues to cook for himself, learning new recipes from videos and books—just as he did before.