19
Chinese Food
--I’m retired from the Auburn University English Department. In 1985 I was privileged to go to China on a faculty exchange program between AU and various Chinese provinces. That first time lasted a full academic year, and I was able to bring my wife, Margaret, and our three children. For me it was a Saul on the road to Damascus experience: I fell in love with the country and its people. Since 1986 I’ve been able to return to China 8 more times, in each case for one semester’s teaching. The country has changed immensely during these 25 years, and I’ve been a lucky man to be able to witness it. [slide of China map] Here’s where I lived and worked.
A Parable
One Saturday when I was teaching in Sichuan, I had to do some shopping downtown that required an interpreter, so I invited my student Hai3 Bing1. She was a lovely and conscientious girl, and we spent a productive hour or two. When lunch time came, I said, “Hai Bing, let’s go eat some lunch.” She hesitated, and I saw mild embarrassment on her face: “Maybe it’s not very convenient,” she said. “Aren’t you hungry? You really ought to eat something,” I replied. Then she said, “You see, it’s because I’m a Muslim. I can’t eat in most restaurants; even if I avoid pork, still they use pig oil [she did not know the word ‘lard’] they use pig oil for cooking most other things.” “But Chengdu is a big city, Hai Bing; surely there must be some Muslim restaurants!” She nodded, “Yes, of course, but I didn’t think you would want to eat in one.” I laughed, “C’mon, take me to your favorite! I’m hungry.”
As I remember, we ate some delicious grilled fish. But during the meal I was curious. “Hai Bing, as a Muslim, do you go to the mosque each week?” “No,” she replied. “I never go to the mosque.” “Do you read the Holy Koran?” No. Do you pray to God when you’re in need? No, never. Hmm. I pondered this a bit. Hai Bing, do you even believe in God? No, she said, I’m an atheist. But Hai Bing! I exclaimed, why do you call yourself a Muslim? “I don’t eat pork” she replied.
Ordering A Restaurant Meal Today
--In the fall of 2009 I was lucky enough to be able to return, for the 4th time, to teach in Guangdong University of Foreign Studies [GDUFS slide]. It’s a nationally famous school, attracting students from all over the country, who can major in many of the world’s languages, as well as foreign trade, mass communications, and so on. The Chinese believe that girls are better language students than boys, so the classes for English majors are roughly 90% female [M.A. class].
This is a sub-tropical part of China, so the school has a lovely campus [3 campus photos]. The city of Guangzhou itself is big, noisy, hot and dusty [downtown Guangzhou]; but my campus apartment was up in the northern suburbs, at the foot of White Cloud Mountain [photos from my balcony]. From my balcony I could look off to the mountain and down below to a garden. My apartment itself was Spartan but quite all right [apartment photos] for one person.
--When I’m living in China I eat breakfast in my apartment, usually just fruit and coffee. I buy my fruit on the street [fruit vendor], and ideally they will have golden mangoes or, even better, magnosteens from Thailand [two slides]. If you’ve never had magnosteens, watch out! So, breakfast in my rooms, but I always eat lunch and supper in restaurants, sometimes alone but usually with students or friends. I don’t want to waste my time grocery shopping and cooking for myself. This way of life has several disadvantages: first, I spend most of my monthly salary in restaurants; second, my life becomes intensely social—I have to use a cell phone and send text messages—“Xiao Zhang, are you and your roommate Liu free for supper tonight?” And third, I open myself up to the occasional bout of food poisoning; or I unwittingly consume rancid cooking oil, a risk in the grotty little restaurants where I sometimes eat. For example, right off campus is this place: [slide of Xiang Wei Yuan]. This is Xiang Wei Yuan; Xiang means the Xiang River, which means Hunan province; Wei means taste; and Yuan literally means “garden” but is often used for a restaurant, as we do with The Olive Garden, for example. This place looks dubious but has great food, authentic Hunan, so my friends and I take the risk. All in all, it’s an intense and stimulating life, where my work and play blend as one.
--So over the years I’ve had hundreds—maybe 1,000—restaurant meals. That’s the main reason I’m standing before you—1,000 restaurant meals in China. I’ll walk you through a typical lunch or supper.
--Most places have a menu, often nowadays with color photos of the dishes, though 25 years ago some places made do with a chalkboard [photo] and some places even today have photos on the wall [photo]. It’s not uncommon, especially in south China, to be handed a menu with 500 or more dishes. The more pretentious the restaurant, the more likely to have an English menu [photo of Aomen Dou Lao]; but even ordinary places are easy to order in, if you speak some Chinese [Fisherman’s Restaurant] The dishes can be organized in several ways: by the feature ingredient, or according to its nature as soup or noodles, by cooking method, or by region.
--I have invited four of my students to a place right off campus [2 lunch with students photos]. After we’ve been seated the waitress will ask us what kind of tea we want. Typically we’ll order a pot of chrysanthemum tea, or green tea, or oolong tea. Then she will bring one menu—only one--and likely hand it to me, as I have the biggest face, as the Chinese say. We four will each have our own cup of tea and our own bowl of boiled rice, but we will share all of the dishes. That’s the first big difference between Chinese and Western restaurant meals. Sharing food is as basic a social practice as humans have created. It also allows us to eat a greater variety of foods each time. The fastidious among you might be wondering about hygiene right about now. Imagine that our waitress has brought a large plate of let’s say bell pepper strips in black bean sauce. I extend my chopsticks, pinch a few strips, and carry them to my empty rice bowl. I momentarily raise my now empty chopsticks, then descend into my bowl and carry some pepper strips to my mouth. Notice that I do not eat directly from the communal plate; doing so would be exceptionally crude. I must create a tiny barrier between the communal plate and my mouth. But what if I have a bad cold? Might not my chopsticks contaminate the communal pepper plate? Twenty years ago or so, a Chinese premier popularized a slogan which, translated, might go like this: “Chinese food, Western way of eating.” He was urging that each dish be served with a communal pair of chopsticks to be used to carry food to one’s bowl; only then would we use our own chopsticks. As far as I can tell, this slogan went the way of most propaganda: it was ignored.
But let’s return to the girls and me. Since we’ll be sharing the dishes, we need to discuss what to order. If I’m really tired I’ll just hand the menu to a student and say, “you girls decide.” But I usually enjoy leading our little discussion about what to order, and I like talking to the waitress. There’s an artistic element in ordering a set of dishes. So I’ll probably ask the students, “How many of you cannot eat hot peppers?” But since we are in Guangzhou I needn’t bother asking, since most cannot; by contrast in Sichuan or Hunan I would take peppers for granted. So today, at most one fiery hot dish. Let’s see, there are five of us, so we’ll need to order 6 dishes. If it were five boys, I’d order 7 dishes. If I were treating five university officials to a banquet, I’d double-check my bank balance beforehand, and then I’d order 12 dishes plus numerous appetizers. But back to the students. Since I’ve eaten in this restaurant before, I remember 2-3 especially good dishes and a couple to avoid. After perusing the menu and consulting students, we’ll probably order something like this: [Slide 10 “Dishes for a typical restaurant meal”] [Read List Aloud]
--Now let’s look at an actual menu. In some ways it is not typical, as it’s from a 5-star Marriott hotel in Guangzhou, with a mostly Chinese but often Western clientele. But it’s purely and authentically south China food. I’ve had to do some cutting and pasting so you can read the menu, and it ends up being 10 pages [10 photos of Food Street menu—hold on screen a good while…]
--As you can see, these Chinese are serious about food. What else do you notice here? Any comments? (Note e.g. how many internal organ dishes.)
--All right. Having ordered, we continue sipping our tea and chatting, and over the next half hour the dishes arrive one by one.
--Here I should point out an interesting difference between Chinese and Western dining. As you know, in a traditional French restaurant the dishes will be served in a strict order, according to a kind of culinary syntax; and it would be possible to violate this “grammar” by e.g. having the cheese or dessert course arrive before the fish! The Chinese do not seem to have such a strict order, with two exceptions: first, cold dishes will arrive immediately—since they don’t have to be cooked. Examples of cold dishes would be preserved eggs [photo], peanuts, or jellyfish [photo]; and second, maybe a bit of a surprise to you: the more formal the meal, the more likely it will be that rice or noodles are brought only at the end of the meal! After all, if you’re throwing a banquet for the Communist Party Secretary, you want him to focus on the expensive dishes—the shark-fin soup, the fat frogs flown in from Cuba, the delectable abalone—not on something as cheap and common as rice.
--If I had more time I’d talk about the Chinese banquet as a cultural institution. There’s nothing quite like it in our country.
--To return to the students and me, waiting for our dishes. When eating we will use only our chopsticks and a porcelain spoon. Did you know that Chinese and Japanese chopsticks differ? [Japanese, then Chinese slides] When eating in China, knives and forks seem barbaric, like weapons, to stab and cut. Such implements are used only in the kitchen. Our chopsticks at most pinch the food or spear it, or push the fish off the bones. In China we escape the brutality of meat…
--Speaking of which, I must mention the culture shock I experienced, not in China, but after returning to Auburn after a whole year in Changsha. My first day back my friend Chuck had us over for supper, and deposited, on my plate, a slab of pulsating meat, a grilled strip steak oozing blood. I had to push my chair back from the table, and I suddenly understood one reason why they would call us barbarians!
--Back in the restaurant, the first dish to arrive is our boiled shrimp [photo]. Chinese restaurant tables are usually round and have a big heavy glass lazy Susan in the middle. The waitress will probably set the shrimp dish in front of me, in respect to my age. As you can see, the dish is very simple and straightforward. The color is vivid, an important value. Think about peeling each shrimp, dipping it into a sauce of soy and vinegar. One at a time. It would slow you down, right? Yes, slow down—why are you in such a hurry? Look at your food, smell it; talk to your friends.
--My student Bao Xiao Wei I absolutely cultivated—especially after learning that her father’s job was to write restaurant reviews for Guangzhou newspapers—my God…She is the person who taught me how to shell a certain kind of shrimp—the kind in the photo. You don’t brutally behead him. You pull carefully, so as to preserve the shrimp’s brain—which is a vivid yellow color. The brain is tasty, and good for you. I didn’t ask her if eating it would make me slightly smarter.
But hold on. Maybe instead of shrimp we ordered a steamed fish [photo]. Typical south China fish. If we were in east China, say Nanjing, the fish might be sweet and sour…[photo]…. But if we were in Changsha it might be a peppery Hunan steamed fish head…[photo] By the way, the fish in this photo is the same kind of carp that has invaded some of our Midwestern rivers and threatens the Great Lakes. We should catch and eat those fish! A no-brainer source of protein!
--Next comes the soup. We’ve chosen a mild sweet corn and crab meat soup [photo] or an equally bland winter melon soup, served in the melon itself [photo]. We use our small soup bowls, a big porcelain ladle, and porcelain spoons.
--Soon our poultry arrives. We’ve ordered a common dish, simply roast duck with a garlic and young ginger dipping sauce [photo]. Imagine that instead of eating in a restaurant we were harried commuters needing to pick something up for supper. Maybe we’d stop at the duck stall. [hanging roast duck then 2nd one] Of course even a simple chicken can be served in an ornamental fashion [photo of wenchan chicken
--We’re slowly eating our seafood and poultry, and sipping our soup. Next to arrive is our bean curd. This food, common all over China, is made from coagulated soy milk, and its flavors in China are especially subtle. Bean curd—Chinese call it doufu--appears in many sizes and shapes; it can be boiled or fried, it is often fermented to yield a strong cheese-like condiment. I must say a few words about chou doufu: this means stinky bean curd, and it is often sold as a snack at outdoor night markets. [night market photo; then stinky doufu photo] No one would make it at home, as the odor is so strong, even though the taste is surprisingly mild. I’m fond of it. And it’s quite popular. It even gave rise to a political joke: how is capitalism like stinky bean curd? Answer: smells bad but tastes good. But stinky bean curd is unthinkable for our south China lunch. Instead we will order a delicately flavored braised bean curd with black mushrooms [photo]. A similar alternative would be deep fried doufu with oyster sauce [photo].