Bitterness is an important, but perhaps a minor, taste in Chinese cooking: there are not so many dishes that are bitter, but some bitter ingredients are particularly prized, such as bitter melon and the Sichuanese speciality bitter bamboo shoots. Bitter foods often have medicinal associations: for example, bitter melon is seen as a cooling food. And I think in general with Chinese cooking, variety is extremely important, so the more flavours, the better!
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Good point!
The Dragon Well Manor (龙井草堂) in Hangzhou, Yu’s Family Kitchen in Chengdu, Yu Zhi Lan in Chengdu.
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There are many issues with food safety in China, for sure: it’s a major concern for most Chinese people. As a regular visitor to China that’s not a resident, I do try to eat safely, but I don’t obsess about it. And I’m fully aware that my Chinese friends have to deal with this all the time… In general, I don’t think it’s worth worrying too much if you are visiting China only occasionally or for a short time.
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I’m interested in them all!
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Thanks! I read about Yu Zhi Lan I think on New York Times before. And I just came across your article about it on Financial Times. I will read that after the Q&A.
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I had a wonderful lunch recently at Hao’s Noodle and Tea in New York, which serves a mixture of Sichuanese and Shanghainese food, and of traditional and modern, in contemporary surroundings - delicious! And Neil Perry’s Spice Temple in Sydney is a wonderful example of a restaurant inspired by but not tied to Sichuanese tradition.
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Happily, a much wider variety of Chinese regional cuisines is becoming available in many Western cities. I would also encourage people to seize any opportunity to visit China or Hong Kong for a taste of the diversity of Chinese cooking!
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There are many of them! China is just a treasure chest of amazing regional cuisines.
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I have been eating street food in ChinaFor more than 20 years, and I’m still alive! Speaking more seriously, I have rarely encountered any problems with eating street food in China: certainly no more than I have dining out in London restaurants. In general, I avoid very commercial street food operations in touristy places, and look for smaller snack shops or street vendors who seem to take a pride in what they do.
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I first became interested in China while working for the BBC in the UK, but I went to live in Sichuan as a student on a British Council scholarship. I just fell completely in love with Sichuanese cuisine, and that is why I decided, eventually, to try to write a book about it. Hunan was more of a conscious choice: I thought it would be interesting to write about food in the context of China’s revolutionary history, and Hunan (Mao’s home province) seem a suitable place to do it. Also, Hunan was another spicy cuisine that was largely unknown in the West. With Jiangnan, it was just a matter of falling in love all over again!
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I agree! I think there are two issues with making good Lionshead meatballs: 1. you need really good pork with the right amount of fat (plenty), and 2. you have to cut the pork by hand. I think most restaurants use ground pork for obvious reasons: this gives the meatballs a grainy, mealy texture, which is just wrong! Lionshead meatballs should just melt in your mouth. In China, the meatballs are regarded as a Gongfu (Kung Fu) dish because they take time and effort to make: you should not expect to eat a good Lionshead meatballs in a cheap casual restaurant
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Nice, thanks!
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Many, many, many - too many to list!! I do wish I could get my hands on fresh bamboo shoots and some of the myriad and wonderful varieties of Chinese greens when I’m at home in the UK.
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There is a recipe for xiao long bao in my new book! It’s a little complicated, but I hope achievable, and I hope the results are worth the effort! I’m a fan of both Din Tai Fung and Jia Jia Tang Bao.
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I hope you’ll be able to read about them at a later date!
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Thanks- I must have missed that. I will check it out!
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I think these are all the questions that are submitted. Thank you very much @Fuchsia for joining us tonight and sharing your perspectives and stories with us.
Best of luck with your future cookbooks and travels!
And thanks everyone for the questions. Have a wonderful time cooking Fuchsia’s recipes!
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