40. Food 4: Provincial Food

Rice

Every mealtime, from where I’m from the meal is deemed incomplete without rice.

I’ve heard that China was surprised when they discovered India had a lot of rice as well. They had thought that rice was their staple food and only theirs.

Their celebration of rice isn’t just obvious by its presence in every school meal, but it is also recognized in Chinese writing.

The word for entrance signifies a door slightly a jar and a man there holding rice. The man thus welcomes him into his home. While the script for ‘buy’ shows a woman at the market with rice on top of her head, and thus the script for ‘sell’ is exactly the same without the rice.

It is thus mystifying why they still insist on chopsticks to eat it.

Chinese Food around the country

I have as of today bought my tickets to and from Hong Kong for the Hong Kong 7’s. Whilst I’m there I’ll be in experiencing the Cantonese food that is known all around the world.

It is said that 95% of Chinese folk who leave the country and travel the world come from this pocket in South East China where Cantonese and Fujian food reign such as Dim Sum and Sweet and Sour food.

Therefore that leaves a lot of China’s cuisine that has not been tasted.

China is split into different flavours. For instance, in the North East where it is cold and things are hard to grow. The food is very salty because a lot of salt is put into the ground.

If you go to Sichaun and Yunnan in the South West, the food is very hot and spicy. I’ve eaten at one Sichaun restaurant and the dish consisted of meat hidden in tons of peppers. This is probably also down to the climate, but also a different style of cuisine.

While the province in the North West along the Silk road, the food is very Muslim. There are many skewers and other food eaten out of hand.

Rice isn’t as popular the further north you go you would find more people eating noodles.

There are also signature dishes to each city or province, such as the Mongolian Hot Pot which I’ve tried and didn’t think much of, Beijing’s Peking Duck and Shanghai’s Hairy Crabs which admittedly I have not found.

Take a look around a supermarket or any kind of market and it is evident that this country is willing to try any kind of food. If you enter a restaurant, I can predict that you will never have the same dish made the same twice, cooks have different ways of making their dish.

 Zhi rou shi shenme- What meat is this?

Learning the language helps you understand the culture a lot better and it gives you the confidence to talk to anyone.

I'd just come back from another session, where i'd been fueling myself on chocolate and Fanta after a pretty tiresome day, and I really fancied something to eat. Something meaty. 

The smell from outside the station enticed me in from the minute I got off the train at my home stop of Zhongtan Lu. I'd seen this stall before. It obviously did meat and before I could decide the nice lady had put one kebab stick on her coals to heat up.

3 yuan it set me back. It didn't take long to heat up and she handed me the stick. I had a bite. Chewy, quite fatty, very weird texture so before I left, I asked the titled question one I'd learnt at the evenings class. The answer:

Dog. 

She said it as she pointed to the now very obvious smiling canine on her poster.

I was that hungry I still finished it. I'm becoming an animal.