China Part II: Food

Anybody who knows me knows that I love to experience culture through the cuisine of a country. And in China there is ample opportunity for this, with 6 major regional cuisines and many more from smaller districts and the minority populations. This trip was great for food – I had the opportunity to eat Beijing, Shanghai, Sichuan and Yunnan food. As in most cuisines, the best dishes are based on what grows well locally and ingredients that are fresh and seasonal.

Beijing, which is in the north near wheat-producing regions, is known for its dumplings, which is a simple street food that I quite enjoy. But being the site of political power in China for the last 800 years, Beijing is more well-known for an ‘haute cuisine’ that includes many dishes favored by the imperial courts and there are many restaurants that specialize in food and ambience befitting an emperor. In the old section of Beijing there are narrow alleys called 'hutong's, along which are crowded traditional buildings composed of large rectangular pavilions built around a central courtyard, with stone floors and tile roofs. A number of these have been turned into restaurants and we enjoyed a delicious meal at one called Ge Ge Fu – Ge Ge means ‘princess’. Too many dishes to list, but I especially enjoyed a beef dish with candied walnuts.

In Sichuan, we had our most adventurous meal – a hot pot restaurant where the food is brought out to your table raw and you cook it by dipping it into either of two large vats of boiling sauce. Hard to describe the sauces – one was fish-based, the other brown, loaded with tiny chili peppers and otherwise of unidentifiable origins. But you can think of them as ‘hot’ and ‘hotter’ in terms of the chili pepper component! Once the sauces are bubbling dangerously in front of you, trays of things are brought out – green pea shoots, a kind of mustard cabbage green, mushrooms, ham and smoked beef being the most innocent from a Western palate. But then comes the chicken kidneys, slippery looking ribbons of duck intestines, miniature catfish gazing mournfully up from their tray as if to say, ‘don’t throw me into that boiling hot liquid!’. I was told there is an expression in China about the Sichuanese – that they ‘eat anything with legs except a table and chairs and everything with wings except airplanes.’ Although I wimped out on the duck intestines, the food was very good and accompanied by traditional music and dancing, including a sort of circus routine called ‘face change’ where a dancer whirls and stomps while manipulating a set of masks almost by magic changing his face with the steps of the dance.

Shanghai food is as elegant as the city. We didn’t really have a lot of time to go out, as I had
conference calls the night we arrived, so we ate at the hotel restaurant, which was quite good, despite being the Marriott. I highly recommend this hotel, which is most elegant and affords wonderful views of the Shanghai skyline – which looks like something out of the Jetsons – and the Huanpu river.

I confess that my favorite Shanghai food is one of the most simple and least elegant – the dumplings that are called ‘shao long bao’, or ‘soup dumplings’. I first had these in New York, where I assumed they were dumplings served in broth. But actually the soup is inside the dumpling, along with a lump of tasty meat or seafood – and the experience of popping one of these juicy little things in your mouth is not to be missed! Here's a place in NY you can get them, in case you can't get to Shanghai - Grace took me there once and I know its good!

Our last meal of the trip was back in Beijing at a restaurant called S'Silk Road that specializes in Yunnan cuisine. Yunnan is the province south of Sichuan, which is on the border of China with Myanmar, Laos and Vietnam. It is quite rural and agricultural, with gorgeous scenery. I think I enjoyed this food the most of any on our trip – delicious vegetable dishes including delicately sautéed greens, crisp cool cucumbers with hot peppers, and a sweet little pumpkin with pork filling. Meat dishes – pork and beef, dry-fried and braised - were spicy, with wonderful flavors and sauces. An interesting dish of bean curd skin (or was it a mushroom?) called ‘frog skin’, because that’s what it looks like. A gigantic vat of fish soup was brought to the table with delicate bites of white fish, mushrooms and scallions, and some unidentifiable berry that is said to be good for your eyes. Very tasty!

Confucious said: "Everyone eats and drinks; yet only few appreciate the taste of food." Hard to imagine with the food I got to try last week!