There and Back Again

We returned home from China a few days ago, my mind is still awash with all of the fantastic food I encountered on our combination family vacation and food research trip. We sampled a wide variety of food from fine restaurants in big cities serving national and regional specialties to street vendors dolling out snacks for a single yuan or two. We toured outdoor markets serving cooked food as well as huge, modern supermarkets where locals buy fresh produce and staples as well as fresh dumplings, rolls and breads. I even bought an armful of unusual, local snacks at the Xi’an Airport which included Yak Jerky and Dried Chicken Feet. In addition to sampling and enjoying food, I’ve brought back recipes and food ideas that I will have to reconstruct and share with you.

In Beijing and Shanghai, we sampled classic dishes such as Shark’s Fin Soup, Bird’s Nest Soup, Hong Kong Roast Goose, Deep-Fried Pigeon and Stir-Fried Abalone. We also enjoyed a modern take on Peking Duck, called Ba-Ye Duck, that is prepared exclusively at Hua’s Restaurant in Beijing. This last dish is interesting, because it is representative of a new, lighter Chinese cuisine called Beijing cuisine in which traditional dishes are prepared with modern health sensibilities in mind.

Xi’an was all about local food and drink for us. We sampled a variety of local “wine” which was really corn-based liquor (aka Chinese moonshine) flavored with pomegranates, saffron, ginseng and wolfberries and the strangest with starfish, sand dollars, a turtle and what might have been a lizard. The drinks flavored with pomegranates and saffron were good and had a great flavor, the other two just tasted sharp to me – not something I would reach for a second time unless they had fantastic health benefits attached to it. On the other hand, the tea we had in Xi’an – blooming jasmine, pu’er, and dragon-well tea were keepers that I brought home loose or pressed in decorative tea cakes

Other local food we had in Xi’an include hand-stretched noodles in a rich broth and thousand year eggs as part of an incredible buffet. We also had grilled mutton spiced with cumin, babaojing rice cakes flavored with jujube and jam, and persimmon cakes – all food that arose from the Shaanxi Muslim community.

Dumplings were everywhere – stuffed with pork, cabbage, fish, and combinations of meat and vegetables, and we enjoyed them with dipping sauces or sliced baby ginger and salted cucumber sticks. They also have marvelous “soup dumplings” that are served with straws for you to enjoy steaming hot soup before the cooked dumpling dough. These are made with a mixture of meat and aspic that then becomes “soup” when steamed. We trudged through the long queue in Shanghai’s Yu Yuan Bazaar for an authentic soup dumpling from the source at the Nanxiang Bun Shop.

I’ll be writing about these experiences and more over the next few weeks and I hope you tune in to enjoy the descriptions, cultural significance and when possible, recipes for some of the food we sampled.

(Words and Photos by Laura Kelley).