Hist 410 Keynotes 7

Chinese Foodstuffs Today

Basics:
PLANTS
1. Grain (rice, wheat - in north, central, and west China-, millet, sorghum (= tall millet); maize; buckwheat; [white and sweet potatoes]):
Preparation: whole, boiled soft (porridge), dry, steamed; products made of grain flour (usually steamed or fried)

Sorghum

2. Soybean products, bean (products): mung beans; red beans (often used for sweets)

3. Vegetables :
cabbage: Chinese cabbage; bok choi; carrots;
roots: raddish (fresh in soups, pickled); yams; taro (South China); water chestnut, bamboo;
peas; squash and melon family (winter melon, bitter melon, hair gourd, cucumber, water melon, Hami melon;
spinach; lettuce (in clear soups); celery;
solanaceae: tomatoes, eggplants, chili pepper

Bitter melon


4. Seaweed, mushrooms: grass mushroom, winter mushroom, black and white mu erh ('tree-ears')

winter mushroom
black 'tree-ear' fungi

5. Fruits: apricot, plum, peach, apple, crab apple, pear, apple, coconut, lichi, longyan, loquat (= pipa), banana, citrus fruit, pomegranate, grape, guava

Loquat or Pipa fruit

ANIMALS:
1. Aquatic foods: sea: fish; shrimp; abalone; sea cucumber; river: fish
2. Meat (poultry, pork, beef; mutton), snake, frog; dog;
3. Supplementing ('bu') meat: pangolin, racoon dog, turtles, tortoises; wild ducks, wild fowl, game

Sea cucumber

Yes, it's an animal ...: inside the sea cucumber: getting hungry ? :-)

Chinese pangolin

BEVERAGES:
1. "Wine": undistilled and distilled alcoholic beverages: beer, grape wine, liquors from fermented starch (vodkas)
2. Tea: green, half-fermented (Oolong); black (= red)
3. Coffee

Cooking methods: boiling, steaming (steamed breads, dumplings), stir-frying

Boiling:

Boiling wonton dumplings

Filling jiaozi dumplings for boiling

Steaming:

Bamboo steamer

Steaming baozi (Chinese rolls with a filling) for a restaurant

baozi

Stir-frying:
Wok

Seasoning methods: soy (sha cha jiang = sate sauce); ginger; garlic; onions; leek; cong [= bunching onion]; cinnamon; sesame oil; pepper sauces