FOOD!

I have been thinking about posting something about food since I arrived, and now I am finally getting around to it. As most of you probably know, my travels and experiences are usually heavily defined by the food I eat. I think of the friends I traveled Europe with and remember with great fondness the wonderful food we found and a few extreme situations where it consumed our daily purpose (eating gelato in Rome until we made ourselves sick, going into every bakery I passed along the streets of Paris…). And here I am in China, finding myself with essentially the same attitude, but a perhaps a little more careful about my consumption. That being said, and as I mentioned in my previous blog post, I realize that I have become incredibly accustomed to Chinese cuisine, and look back on the past 3 months with many a food story to share.

Chongqing (my current city) and Chengdu (where I was living during training/where PC headquarters is located) are both very famous for a specialty known as “ Huo Guo” or “hot pot.” It is pretty similar to fondue. You are seated at a table with a huge pot of oil in the middle of the table. Each table has a burner underneath and once you sit, the servers ignite the flame and soon you are ready to get the party started. The oil comes in two versions – spicy and really spicy. It is like cooking oil and pepper oil mixed together with tons of spicy and numbing peppers in the mix. You order raw meats and veggies to dip into the oil and cook. Once the food is cooked, you put it in your individual bowl and add more oil (!) to it so it cools off and you can eat it. I prefer the veggies to the meat (mainly because the meats that come out are highly unidentifiable), and they also serve a great flat/sweet bread with the meal. I’ve only done this a couple times, mainly because if you start adding up all the oil consumption, things get a little slick for your digestive track, if you know what I mean. All the same, it is a critical experience for tasting the Chongqing cai (food), so if any of you ever show up in the city, you can bet I will take you out.

I really prefer other types of Sichuan food, mainly the restaurants where you can order several different kinds of dishes and share with the entire table. The possibilities at what we refer to as “dishes” restaurants are really endless, and we usually order some standards (gongbao jiding – kung pao chicken, and yuxiang qiezi – sweet and sour eggplant). While we want to try new dishes, it is sometimes difficult because we’ve yet to learn how to read “Hanzi” or Chinese characters. We can try to say a lot of different foods, but the capacity to be understood and converse with the native speaker waitress is another issue entirely. Sometimes we leave it up to fate, and simply point to some characters and just wait to see what comes to the table. As you might imagine, this is extremely risky business. Yesterday, in fact, I tried it for myself, and was a little disappointed. There are several small shops/stands that sell tea drinks and blended fruit drinks, and they look very appealing. If there are pictures, I usually just point and ask for “this” or “that.” But yesterday I went to a place with no pictures, so I just pointed to some Hanzi . My drink came, and I let my friend try it first. His only response was, “Well. You’re going to find that….interesting.” It was strange. It was some sort of citrus fruit, but had an intensely sour and tangy aftertaste. I only ended up drinking about 1/3 of it. Next time I think I’ll point to the next line down – I find something I like eventually, right?

And then there is an entirely different dimension of food in china – my attempts at cooking. I have tried doing some “Chinese-inspired” dishes with my wok, but it is proving to be a bit of challenge. Not knowing what things are because you can’t read the labels makes it difficult to know what to do. However, I have tried a few “western” dishes, several of which turned out to be quite good. I’m not sure if they are really actually good, or if they just taste really good to me because I haven’t had a lot Western food in awhile. I bought an eggplant last week and two nights ago I was inspired to make a modified version of “eggplant Parmesan.” Of course, there is no Parmesan to be had here, so I used a little mozzarella for some cheese flavor. It was fabulous! I bought a baguette from the shop by my apartment, and had quite the dinner!

I realize now that I have a lot to say on the subject of food in China, but should probably save some other stories for later posts. I hope you are healthy and well, and think of me at your next meal!