Let’s Eat
I remembered from before I went to Asia that urban myth in the West that if you eat Chinese food you are hungry again an hour later. With the benefit of experience, actually I would say there is a little bit of truth in this. Clearly it is not that people do not eat. Chinese people, in fact everyone throughout Asia, would never think of leaving the table for any meal if they are not full. And nor should you. But it is true that with authentic Chinese food you do not eat as much carbohydrate as you might normally do elsewhere, and so the body processes the food quicker than if you were eating thicker, carb-heavy Western food. I soon worked out that I could feel free to eat as much as I wanted, without feeling bloated later or putting any later meals under threat.
In fact, Chinese cuisine dictates that you order many dishes, usually combinations of things like meat, soup, and vegetables. Then at the end, and only if you are still hungry, you finish with a carbohydrate dish, such as rice, noodles, or dumplings. If you are full on the main dishes, then you can leave out the rice altogether. Emptying your sweet and sour pork on top of your fried rice in the local Chinese is an entirely Western habit, and it took me a few meals to get used to not seeing the rice come round until the meal is almost finished. This, along with the lack of pre-prepared or processed foods, must also go some way to explaining the comparative lack of obesity in Asia compared to the West.
The majority of Chinese food eaten outside of China is of Cantonese origin, Canton being the historic Anglicised name for Guangzhou, in Guangdong, the province that borders Hong Kong. This is also why the people of Guangzhou speak Cantonese, a dialect that they share with Hong Kong but no other part of China, giving them a strong sense of regional pride. There are exceptions to Cantonese being the main Chinese food overseas – Peking Duck is, of course, from Peking (now Beijing) for example – but the flavours of Cantonese food somehow seem more attuned to Western palates than, say, the fiery tastes of Sichuan cuisine or the preponderance of noodle soups in the north-west.
The Cantonese in particular have a reputation within China for eating pretty much anything, offering a wider choice than other parts of the country. Cats and snakes, for instance, form part of some traditional recipes, as do mice. A particularly exceptional example became obvious when strains of SARS were found in civet cats (a mainly nocturnal animal that looks like a larger, longer cat) being sold in a live-animal market in Guangdong. The theory was that the disease originated in humans after people in the region had eaten infected cats. I have not yet taken the courage to visit Qingping, the most well-known of these markets, but I have read and been told numerous accounts of rows and rows of caged animals, including lizards or birds, alongside tanks of seafood including rare fish and turtles. These cages are all kept close together, with little thought of the health risks of spreading disease between animals or between species. Indeed, this was the premise of the film Contagion, wherein “the wrong bat met the wrong pig” in China, and half the world ended up dying of a SARS-like flu virus. Now, post-Covid, such markets are finally being closed down.
Now, if you are expecting to hear some horror stories of meals that I have had, I have to confess that actually I am not too sure how many strange creatures I have eaten in China. My initial strategy when eating at a banquet with clients, with so many dishes being served in front of me, was a simple one: rather than worrying about what I was eating, I just didn’t ask. As the different dishes came up, I would try a little bit of everything and then stick to the ones that I liked. If, as was likely, I had something untoward, then ignorance was bliss. I have also become slightly immune now to what once upon a time would have seemed strange dishes. Bullfrogs are a common Shanghai specialty, eating pig or cow intestines is a regular occurrence, and ducks’ necks (very spicy) are a delicacy in Wuhan. As you know, I have also chewed on chicken feet, which I find functional but not particularly appetising.
There have still been a few occasions, though, when I have been left in no doubt about what I was eating and when the fare still caught me by surprise. For example, I remember visiting a client close to Guangzhou, who told me that we were having lobster as one of the dishes. That was good, I thought. I quite liked lobster, even if I sometimes found it frustrating messing around with the tongs and those nutcracker-type implements that you need to scoop such a small amount of meat out of the claws. In this case, however, there was no worry about fighting for every piece of flesh. This lobster was huge.
“It weighs 4.5 kg!” said the client triumphantly. He swung one of the legs over onto my plate, and it was close in size to a baby’s arm. Where or how did you get lobsters this big? Which nuclear power plant was this thing swimming next to when it was caught, I wondered. Anyway, no force is as strong as peer pressure, and so I ate it. Once I had started, I actually quite enjoyed it. There was so much meat on it, it was like eating a lobster steak.
Another time I had another lobster – which was slightly smaller but equally memorable. One popular form of serving lobster is to kill it only minutes before bringing it to the table – it is then sliced and served on ice as sashimi, as fresh as it is possible to be. This lobster was brought to our table propped up with its head in the air, its antennae pointing straight upwards. It looked impressive, and I was about to start, when one of the antennae suddenly lowered down.
“It’s still alive!” I exclaimed.
“No, it’s not alive,” reassured the client. “The head just fell down.”
I thought about this for a second and again was going to start eating, when the antenna picked back up again!
“It went up! It’s definitely still alive!”
The client could not blame the antenna rising on any miraculous occurrence of antigravity localised above our table in the restaurant, and he had to confess that yes, actually, this thing might still be living. He sent it back to the kitchen to ask them to do something about it, which I would imagine involved either a sharp knife or a large brick. Either way, it did the trick, as a few minutes later the lobster reappeared – and this time it definitely was not going to move. When we finally ate it, it tasted pretty fresh.
I have also to make it clear here that while Guangdong area has a reputation for pushing the boundaries, the region by no means has a complete monopoly on eating what to Western eyes would be considered, shall we say, unusual. As I travelled around China doing my best British businessman act, on occasion the clients would try to give me their more localised delicacies, just to see if I liked them. Cicadas, which are a type of insect similar to a locust, are often deep fried and have been served up to me a few times in the north of China. On a couple of trips to Shandong I have been slightly surprised to see a big plate of fried scorpions being served. The first time this happened, I looked at the scorpions, looked at the people around me, saw that they were looking at me, sighed, and then picked one up with my chopsticks. I was about to eat it, when one of the clients stopped me.
“Wait a minute! Before you eat it, you have to break off the tail. That part is poisonous.”
OK, thanks for telling me.
Thinking of the different foods that I have eaten in China, I do not recall much that has defeated me. The only time that I have consciously avoided eating something was when I was served up a fish head. This in itself is not too bad; it is a very common dish, and the prevailing assumption that the cheeks of the fish are the best part is one that I would agree on. Consequently, then, the fish head is often given to the guest of honour during a banquet, after the rest of the fish has been consumed. However, on one occasion the fish was quite small, and so I was expected to eat pretty much all of the head, including the eyes. For the first time that I could remember, confronted as I was by a sautéed eyeball, I actually pushed it away and declined. I just could not eat the eye.
Having eaten pretty much everything I have been offered except eyes, I have so far been lucky in that I have managed to avoid what is probably the most famous place for strange food in travellers’ tales in China, the Beijing Penis Restaurant.[1] If you go there then, yes every dish on the menu consists of or contains the penis or testicles of one animal or another. The thought is that regular consumption is good for the health, in particular, reproductive issues – like a natural Viagra. The restaurant even has a VIP menu for honoured members (no pun intended), which consists of the genitalia of rarer animals, if you feel that yak, dog, sheep, or deer organs are just too common. Maybe one day I will go. Maybe.
One place famous for food that I did go to was Sichuan province. Sichuan is famous within China, and sometimes outside also, for having the spiciest food and the prettiest girls. I suppose it might also have the prettiest food and the spiciest girls, but either way, both are well known throughout the country. It also is famous for being the home to the (regrettably) few remaining wild pandas, somewhere up to 2,000, who roam the bamboo forests on the hills on the border between Sichuan and Gansu. Incidentally, if you ever stop at the airport in Chengdu, capital of Sichuan, there are probably just as many cuddly toy pandas, available for sale in the gift shops, as there are real ones on the hills; the panda has become the cultural symbol for Sichuan province.
Let’s start with the food. Yes, Sichuan food (or Szechwan, if you are American) is hot. Very hot. Not necessarily steam coming out of your ears, chicken phaal hot, but still hot enough. You will sweat, and you will feel it. This is because the Sichuan pepper not only is very spicy but, unlike other peppers or chillies, will actually make your tongue go numb when you get stuck into the food, along with, naturally, the beer you will need to cool the heat. As the meal goes on, you will feel your mouth starting to fade away and it startsh getting hardth to thalk. Although I suppose that might also be the beer. Sichuan has many specialities, but the ones I have tried include fish noodles and their hot pot, which not surprisingly, is generally spicier than in other parts of the country. As well as hot pot, two Sichuan dishes which have graduated into more mainstream Chinese cuisine are Kung Pao chicken (gongpao jilin) and Ma Pa Tofu (err … mapa tofu). They are not quite as hot, and I heartily recommend both.
Chinese food has historically been divided into four broad categories. The rich dishes fit for an emperor in the north of China are called lu cai. Huai yang cai is the subtler and sweeter cuisines of the east. Cantonese yue caidominates the south, with fresh and natural flavours. And then the rest, led by Sichuan, is last but not least; chuan cai takes local ingredients to create spicy and vibrant dishes not found anywhere else in the country.
As for the girls, well, purely in the name of research for this book, I do keep my eyes open when in Chengdu, and I look around. I am not going to belittle other parts of China by making comparisons, but I hear that in Sichuan the women’s beautiful skin is attributed to the purity of the local water; not being in the more polluted regions of the country may help. I would simply say that I do agree there is something to this. Chengdu also has a reputation for a more laid-back lifestyle and a more mature appreciation of life compared to the thrusting, ambitious centres of commerce in the East, which have the cacophony of Shanghai as their temple.
[1] Guolizhuang Restaurant, Dongsishitiao Street, Beijing. Feel free to go along, and let me know what the food is like. Honestly, I am interested. But do not feel that you need to bring me anything back.