The taste of China

19.01.2009

Teddy Collins shares his taste buds about the foods of the provinces.

Around these parts the taste of China is HOT! For someone who is used to the plain taste of Irish style cooking, where salt and pepper are the only additions to our traditional cooking, the red and green peppers of Jiangxi province are explosive.

I don't know if I'm a typical case, but I break out in rivers of sweat from the top of my head to the soles of my feet, every time I sample the local dishes. Even when I ask that they use little pepper I still react in the same way. One of the first phrases I learned was: 'Bu tai la le-not too hot.' It's just as well that the rice is cooked in the plainest of fashions with just water and salt added. At least I know I'm safe with that.

Confucius didn't think it beneath his dignity to give some attention to food and ways of cooking it. The eighth chapter of the Analects is devoted to Confucius's eating habits: it ends, 'although his food might be coarse rice and vegetable soup, he would offer a little of it in sacrifice with a grave respectful air.'

Lu Buwei (died 235 BC), said there are five tastes and in mixing food one must correctly balance sweet, sour, bitter, spicy and salty. It's said that the statesman Yi Yin was able to win over King Tang to his designs because he served the king so well as a cook. Even today, in many homes the man is a better cook than his wife. I have asked the students if this is true, and they assure me that it is.

Of the students who have offered to cook for me, all without exception have been boys. Many of the girls are unable to cook as parents want them to devote all their time to study - so that they can go to university. Cooking is not taught in any primary or second level school.

Let me say that I have not tasted dog or snake, and do not intend to! I have tried frog but found it uninviting. I have also tried eel and would never be tempted to order it again. Fish is my favourite but you have to beware of the bones as it is never filleted.

China is famous for its noodles and I love them - after all they cook in two minutes and make a handy lunchtime snack. Then there is 'man-tou,' a kind of dumpling made from flour and yeast, filled with meat and steamed. It's popular with the students for breakfast.

'Man-tou,' means 'barbarian-head' and they were supposed to have been invented in order to use them in place of human heads at sacrificial ceremonies in time of war. Another type of dumpling is 'jiaozi.' It's also steamed and eaten after being dipped in a mixture of soya sauce and sesame oil. Bean curd-tofu, is always a favourite at mealtime.

Most Westerners are familiar with the Cantonese style of cooking which is associated with a sweet taste. Peking is famous for its savoury Peking duck. Shanghai is associated with a sharp taste and with sea food, and the spicy Sichuan style is associated with the East. Some dishes have exotic names like dragon, tiger and phoenix, which is in reality snake, cat and chicken.

In addition there are bears' paws and sharks' fins - not to mention birds nest soup, made from the gelatinous saliva which the sea swift uses in nest building.

Teddy Collins teaches in China.


Read more stories from the The Far East, January/February