Feeding Your Face

You're not really visiting China if you go there and don't try out all the FOOD. And there is incredibly much of it, everywhere. Food is a big deal not simply as a basic need and enjoyment, but a very large social and economic factor. Sure, that's how it is all over the world, what's your point? But to say the least, it stuck out so prominently to me in China. In earlier decades, especially during harder times, people in China literally used to say, "Have you eaten yet?" as the standard greeting instead of "Hello/How are you?". It's not used so much in modern times now, but it's still a very frequent follow up of, "hello," especially if you're meeting up with friends and family or close acquaintances.

When we were in Shanghai, where my parents (who are both from Shanghai) still have a lot of friends and relatives, there wasn't a single time when we would meet up with any of them other than over lunch or the dinner table. I suppose this is fairly similar anyway to meeting up with a friend at a coffee shop, but it's usually on a much bigger scale in China, i.e. no coffee, unless you mean it with a whole meal, usually with anywhere from 6 to 20 dishes for us, depending on how many in the party. (Picture at right is from a dinner in Shanghai with many of my father's relatives. This doesn't even cover the final total number of dishes that were brought up! Um, as a random observation, I find it funny that the the whole left side of the table is drinking plum juice and the right side is drinking orange juice. Everyone poured their own drinks. Pure, strange coincidence...)

Another thing about China that the U.S. wouldn't be able to match in eons: sheer variety. Understandably, I never noticed this until I went on the trip. Compared to China, American grocery stores have seemingly no variety. Friends of my mother would ask, What did we eat in America? And they would always be surprised at the limited selection of produce that my mother would use in cooking. It's not to belittle the abundance and produce in America at all, but it is quite a shock to go through China and just see how many foods you couldn't even imagine getting in the States.

Firstly, half the streets of all the major cities in China are lined with produce markets. At least every morning, fresh produce is brought in. I don't know where they get it all or how, but typically, most of the green produce you find on the streets was probably harvested that morning. That's how fresh it is. Huge selections of leafy vegetables, melons, radishes, bamboo shoots, lettuces, chives, cilantro, celery, peanut and soybean oil that's groundright in front of you by demand, squashes, tomatoes, spinach, clovers, seasonings, spices, seeds, roots, mushrooms, fruits, berries, nuts, beans, rice... there is no way for me to successfully portray to you the sheer measure of all that is available to buy off the streets of China, because 1) there are countless sub-varieties of all the produce items, and 2) I don't know what in the world they're all called in English.

And that's only touching on plants. On the other side, almost remarkably equal in abundance, is meat. I use that as a generic term -- it covers red meat, white meat, dark meat, name-that-meat, seafood (so much seafood!), shellfish, and food-fleshes that I have no idea how to categorize (in what group does edible turtle fit?).

(right: An assortment of live aquatic food. See the little netted sacks? The red ones are holding some turtles and the green ones are holding live toads.) Walking down the street, you can see any of the following. As far as just fish go, there's bass, carp, bullheads, flounders, sturgeons, trout, salmon, "belt fish", butter fish, fishes from the rivers, fishes from the seas. And here's the thing: they're all kept alive. In fish tanks out on the sidewalks consisting simply of open-top styrofoam chests with bubbler tubes draped over the edged into the water. Most of these fish look like they were just hauled out of a river just a few miles away.

And other seafood? Clams, shrimps (both river and sea), oysters, crustaceans I can't name in English, lobsters, squid, sea cucumbers, snails, more things that I can't name in English (this is getting to a problem)...

(left: Whoot! FDA violations for the win!) And everything else? Well, beef, pork, and mutton are pretty ordinary, I guess. Chickens are ordinary, too..... but.... I don't think you buy chickens in America by selecting one out of several dozens in a cage and having it slaughtered in a bucket while you wait. More on that later... Finally, there's the slightly less "ordinary," which includes ducks, quails, turtles, frogs, toads, snakes, and more -- in most cases, all alive and breathing.

All of the above is raw produce or otherwise unprepared grocery goods that you can find in China. Telling about all the foods that I personally tried myself is a whole different post.

(So what do you call something that
has four legs, no skin, and has definitely... croaked?)