A Passage to China (走近中国) - Cuisine, Miscellaneous

Alcoholic Drinks and Habits

China is one of the first countries to have invented alcohol as a drink. A large number of pottery wine vessels were discovered in Shangdong at the ruins of the Dawenkou culture, which dates back 5,000 years. Recorded history tells about wine-making techniques of more than 4,000 years ago. The earliest wines were made from food grains, mainly various kinds of rice, broomcorn and millet. As a result of improvements in brewing skills, the yellow wine made its appearance probably in the Warring States Period. From an ancient tomb of the Warring States Period in Pingshan County of Hebei Province, large numbers of wine-storing and drinking vessels were excavated in the 1970s. Two of them contain an alcoholic drink made from wheat 2,280 years ago. It is probably the oldest liquor ever bought to light in the world.

Nowadays, alcohol, wine or beer is usually served on tables. In some areas, people show their hospitality by getting their guests around to drink a lot of liquor, wine or beer.

Noodles

Noodles are a kind of very popular staple food among the Chinese. They can be made either by hand or more often nowadays by machine. By the way they are made, noodles can be divided into cut noodles or dried noodles. Made in whatever way, they may be of different widths, varying from ribbons to threads to suit the taste or habit of different people. As a prepared dish, they can be served warm or cold, dressed with chilli oil or without, eaten with fried bean sauce, pork or chicken sauce, duck chops and soup of any concoction. There is also a variety of “instant noodles”, which are precooked, dried and commercially packed. Before eating, all one has to do is to soak them in hot, boiling water for a few minutes. They are very handy for a quick lunch in the office or on a journey.

As noodles are always in the form of long strings, they are symbolic of longevity and therefore indispensable at Chinese birthday dinner parties. As noodles are smooth to eat, they are symbolic of good wishes for people when they depart, and the wish is often symbolized by smoothness of noodles: people wish everything would go smoothly with friends.

Moon Cake

The Chinese moon cake is for the Mid-Autumn Festival and is so called because it is made in the form of a disc representing the full moon of the festival.

The cake consists of a crust and stuffing. The crust is made in varying ways and with varying degrees of crispness, but the usual main ingredients are wheat flour, oil or fat, sugar and maltose. Part of the flour is mixed with water to make dough, and the rest is kneaded with fat. Arranged in alternate layers the flour becomes the crust after baking. A wide variety of materials may be used for the stuffing, including Chinese ham, sausage, walnuts, pine nuts and almond. The usual flavorings are flowers, rose, ham, jujube paste, pepper and salt, and so on.

Moon cakes are normally called by the fillings they contain – assorted fruits, five nuts, rose, ham, jujube paste, pepper and salt, and so on. The stuffing may be either sweet or salty or mixed in taste. There are literally a thousand and one kinds of moon cakes made in difference regions of China, but it is generally agreed that the best moon cakes are produced by three schools – Jiangsu, Guangdong and Beijing.

Spring Rolls

Spring rolls are a great favorite with the Chinese. They are also very much appreciated abroad. At receptions given by Chinese embassies or consulates, spring rolls often prove to be a gastronomic delight to the guest. It is not without reason that they are served by Chinese restaurants abroad. In China, their appearance on the dining table with their inviting brown color has rarely failed to make foreign tongues click in admiration.

The principal ingredient for the filling in spring rolls is usually bean sprouts, which are mixed with shredded pork, dried mushroom, plumped and shredded vermicelli, shredded bamboo shoots and the necessary seasonings. The fillings are deep-fried in oil and served hot when the wrappers are still crisp.

Bean Curd (doufu)

Bean curd may be justifiably called a great invention in old China.

An ancient work on medicinal herbs mentioned bean curd in these words: “The method of making doufu dates back to Liu An, the Prince of Huainan. It is made of soya beans, either the black or the yellow variety.” Legend has it that the prince of Liu Bang, in his search for a panacea to help him achieve immortality, experimented with soya beans and bitten and, through the chemical reaction, stumbled on the earliest bean curd. That was more than 2,100 years ago.

An analysis of 100 grams of bean curd shows that it contains water (85 grams), protein (7.4 grams), fat (3.5 grams), calcium (277mg), phosphorus (57 mg) and iron (2.1 mg). As a good of high nutritive value, it has met with widespread acclaim.

Roast Duck

The Beijing roast duck is a dish well-known among gastronomes the world over.

To cook ducks by direct head dates back at least 1,500 years to the period of the Northern and Southern Dynasties, when “broiled duck” was mentioned in writing. About eight hundred years later, Hu Sihui, imperial dietician to a Mongol emperor of the Yuan Dynasty, listed in his work Essentials of Diet (1330) the grilled duck as a banquet delicacy. It was made by heating the duck stuffed with a mince of sheep’s tripe, parsley, scallion, and salt on a charcoal fire.

Today the Beijing roast duck (or Peking duck, as it has been called) is made of a special variety of duck fattened by forced feeding in the suburbs of Beijing. After the duck is drawn and cleaned, air is pumped under the skin to separate it more or less from the flesh. And a mixture of oil, sauce and molasses is coated all over it. Thus, when dried and roasted, the duck will look brilliantly red as if painted. Perhaps that is why it is known among some Westerners as the canard lacquer or “lacquered duck”.

A highly experienced chef of a duck restaurant can produce an all-duck banquet of over eighty dishes made of different parts of the fowl.

“Buddha Jumping over the Wall”

This is a well-known dish of Fuzhou. It is made of an assortment of materials: shark fin, shark lip, fish maw, abalone, squid, sea cucumber, chicken breast, duck chops, port tripe, pork leg, minced ham, mutton elbow, dried scallop, winter bamboo shoots, mushrooms, and so on. These are seasoned and steamed separately and then put into a small-mouthed clay jar together with cooking wine and a dozen or so boiled pigeon eggs. The jar is covered and put on intense fire first and then on simmering fire for some time. Four or five ounces of a local liquor is added into the jar, which is kept simmering for another five minutes. Then the dish is ready.

The origin of the dish is explained by a local story. A Fuzhou scholar of the Qing Dynasty went picnicking with friends in the suburbs and he put all the ham, chicken, etc. he had with him in a wine jar which he heated over charcoal fire before eating. The attractive smell of the food spread in the air all the way to a nearby temple. It was so inviting that the monks, who were supposed to be vegetarians, jumped over the temple wall and partook heartily of the scholar’s picnic. One of the party’s participants wrote a poem in praise of the dish, of which a line reads: “Even Buddha himself would jump over the wall to come over”. Hence the name of the dish, “Buddha Jumping over the Wall”.

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