This book is Chinese history seen through the lens of regional Chinese cuisine. “If cooking was key to the evolution of humans in general, only the Chinese have placed it at the very core of their identity…. The Book of Rites noted that some of the wild tribes of the east and south were not only tattooed, but ate food untouched by fire…. Some foreigners were less uncouth than others. While those who were beyond the pale could be described as ‘raw’ (sheng), more amenable barbarians were ‘cooked’ (shu).”
Dunlop begins by describing the setup of a standard meal. “A Chinese meal normal consists of fan, usually rice in the south, plus cai (or song in Cantonese) which means dishes, which is to say ‘everything else’. The Chinese character cai means both ‘dish’ and, literally, ‘vegetable’; it is built from the sign for ‘grass’ above the sign for ‘pick’ or ‘gather’, which itself is a pictogram of a hand over a plant…. Yet however delicious and extravagant the dishes, their ultimate purpose is to accompany the staple grain, or, as people say, to ‘send the rice down’ (xia fan)…. Fan can mean any kind of cooked grain, but there is a traditional hierarchy of cereals. Rice is most highly prized for southerners, while northerners prefer wheat in the form of dumplings, noodles, pancakes and breads. Less desirable are the so-called ‘course’ or ‘miscellaneous’ grains (cu liang or za liang) eaten by the poor and in marginal areas, including maize, sorghum and oats. At the bottom of the pile lie starchy tubers such as potatoes and sweet potatoes, which are normally only eaten as staple foods during famines or because of dire poverty.”
The basic format of a typical Chinese dish is detailed thus, “Chinese ate food that was transformed through cutting into small chopstickable pieces. One ancient term for cooking was ge peng — ‘to cut and to cook’. The habit of cutting food into slices, slivers or dice was, of course, inseparable from the habit of eating with chopsticks, and the two evolved together…. Most Chinese dishes are blends of two or more ingredients cut into similarly shaped pieces and cooked together…. Much everyday Chinese cooking involves vegetables cooked with morsels of meat. Perhaps the archetypal modern Chinese supper dish is a few slivers of pork stir-fried with garlic chives, bamboo shoots or any other vegetable…. You don’t even need much of the meat as such, because even a trace of pork can enhance the taste of vegetables: a dash of pork broth, a scattering of cracklings or a spoonful of lard as the cooking medium…. To be Chinese was not just to eat cooked food; it was also to eat grain. Describing the barbarian tribes on the fringes of the Chinese heartland, the Book of Rites mentioned, besides their tattoos and their weird habit of eating food untouched by fire, that some of them didn’t eat grain.”
Chinese also appreciate different aspects of food than those in the West. “When Chinese people discuss something they have eaten, they rarely omit mention of its mouthfeel…. Achieving textural perfection is a key concern for any cook worth his salt…. The Chinese not only relish a much greater range of mouthfeels than most westerners; they also appreciate contrast…. This creative exploration of texture allows the Chinese to eat not only a much greater range of ingredients than most westerners, but a much greater range of parts of those foods…. Elite Peking duck restaurants famously offer banquets made from ‘every part of the duck but its quack’, from webs to tongues, hearts to gizzards, each part prepared in a different way…. In most places in China, offal is still more expensive than meat.”
Another aspect of Chinese cooking is how the ingredients that are used are prepared, “Chinese chefs always try to strike a balance between ‘root flavours’ (benwei) and ‘blended’ or ‘harmonized’ flavours (tiaowei) — the latter meaning flavours that are created through the addition of seasonings…. Often, dishes like [the former] have the word ‘clear’ (qing) in their names as a reminder that the character of the main ingredient should shine out, clear and bright, uncluttered by extraneous elements…. The most elitist food in China is often the most understated…. Even within regions, the higher you ascend the social scale, the lighter the flavours…. A light soup (tang) is an essential part of almost every Chinese meal. In fact, a kind of shorthand for a basic meal is ‘four dishes and a soup’ (si cai yi tang)…. At simple suppers in Chinese homes, a light broth may be the only liquid refreshment, serving the same function as a glass of water or wine at a western meal.”
Finally, Dunlop describes the most essential aspect in the preparation of Chinese food. “The crux of Chinese cooking is what is known as huohou, the command of heat, in terms both of intensity and duration (the first part of the word, huo, means ‘fire’, while the second can mean ‘waiting’ and/or ‘watching’)…. Written or printed Chinese recipes tend not to specify timings in seconds or minutes because this would be impossible, yet their instructions for huohou are meticulous…. The pressure on a chef working at the wok range in a high-level restaurant with an exacting clientele is unbelievably intense. If he is cooking for discerning Chinese guests, he will know that they expect him, with every dish, to hit all the targets of se xiang wei xing — ‘colour, fragrance, flavour, form’ — each of which depends on his command of huohou.”
Dunlop concludes, “There are some commonalities to Chinese cuisines: the use of chopsticks and the cutting of food into small pieces, the centrality of fermented legumes and tofu, the lack of dairy foods, the ubiquity of steaming and stir-frying, the concept of a meal consisting of fan and cai. But beyond these generalities, Chinese local and regional traditions are so diverse that they resist a unifying definition…. Areas that are now fully integrated and of the utmost culinary significance like the Cantonese south were once regarded as beyond the pale: primitive swamplands filled with snake-eating barbarians…. China, with its vast geographical diversity, is more like a continent than a nation. Within the borders of post-Qing China are many terrains and climates…. During the Song Dynasty, the key principles of healthy eating were thought to be moderation and ‘naturalness’ (ziran).”
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