Chef Zhang in the CIA kitchens

Recently I went with the head chef of Barshu, Zhang Xiaozhong, to give some presentations at the Worlds of Flavour conference at the Culinary Institute of America (generally known, amusingly, as the CIA). As we were driving back to San Francisco after the event, I asked Chef Zhang about his plans for the Chinese New Year, and he replied with this wistful little poem about the life of the chef, slaving away over a hot stove while everyone else celebrates with their families:

他人家中聚   Other people gather in their homes

我望锅中油   I gaze at the oil in the wok

妙手烹万物   Using my subtle hands to cook ten thousand

ingredients

厨房度春秋   Working in the kitchen as the seasons pass

Driving through the countryside near Beijing on the way back from the Great Wall, we passed through a fruit-growing region, which advertised its wares through this enormous fruit bowl! It’s actually a half walnut shell, filled with totally out-of-proportion fruit.

I spent the afternoon doing a few errands, and while I was walking around in the old Foreign Settlement area, I noticed these salted fish and pieces of pork wind-drying on a traffic light!

Illustration on left by Sebastian Wilkinson

I don’t know why, but it’s put me in a really good mood.

我的博客一般是用英语写的

麦克尔·波兰的建议是：“要吃事物，但不要太多，而且最好多吃植物。”（’Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.’）

“食物”一词在他看来是用可以辨认的成分做成的真正食品，不是那些在当地的超级市场上出售的那些怪异的、高科技的“类似食品的东西”。他也指出，我们的祖母一代远比我们了解如何吃得好，因为他们的大脑里没有被自相矛盾，而且是一些误导性的建议弄得六神无主，她们采用是一种大致相同方法喂养她们的家庭。所有这些都是我本人受到他在《纽约时报》发表的最新文章中得到的启迪。

他的观点与我在中国的亲身经历有共鸣之处。我对中国的一个基本印象是人们吃得真好——他们知道如何丰富他们的精神和身体，如何根据季节和气候调节饮食，如何加速从疾病中康复。然而，颇具讽刺意味的是，我遇见的许多中国人，尤其是从事饮食行业的职业人士，总是不断地询问“西方的营养学”和这门学问是何等的“科学”！显然，他们觉得他们自己的营养学知识财富中有某些落后和过时的东西，他们认为按照西方式的营养学考虑食物将是中国的饮食一大进步。

在我看来，这绝对是悲剧性的，中国人——无疑是全世界人民当中最知道如何吃的，却对自己的饮食文化缺少自豪感。据我所知，中国传统的饮食和健康方法对整个人类都是一个榜样。如果我的（英国）同胞——日益依靠被加工处理过的食品——将从中国的榜样中学到教益的话，他们将会变得更健康。然后，不幸的是，事情完全朝相反的方向发展，中国人遵循的西方饮食建议的“先进榜样”，越来越关心“减肥”和“营养”，与此同时却变得更肥胖，更不健康，而且更容易患上像糖尿病和心脏病之类的问题。

麦克尔·波兰的《捍卫食物》已经翻译成中文了吗？我希望如此，我希望每个人都来读一读！

扶霞

（谢谢刘耀春帮我翻译！）

I was chatting to a friend who works in the Chinese restaurant industry here in London, and she was lamenting a change in the UK immigration laws which means that foreign students will no longer be allowed to work part-time while they live here.

Anyway, she said, large numbers of Chinese students and young people had decided to leave the UK for Canada, because of Britain’s ‘CCTV culture’. ‘They just have the feeling that they are being watched all the time, and it’s no longer fun to be here. And first the authorities asked for fingerprints, now irises, and they want to take everybody’s DNA and keep it for six years!’

When people from China want to leave the UK because of the decline in civil liberties, you know you’re in trouble…

(NB we have had to change the name of the restaurant from Bar Shu to Barshu for trademark reasons – the Chinese name remains the same)

Last Saturday I went back to Zhenjiang, the old vinegar town on the Yangtze. My friend Gwen and I spent the day exploring the old streets around the former British Consulate, which were as charming as I remembered from my last visit two years ago. I was particularly happy to find that the woksmith was still there, in his old workshop, running a business that has been in his family for more than a hundred years. It’s incredibly unusual to see such a shop these days, and especially to be able to watch the red-hot woks, fresh from the furnace, being hammered into shape.

It’s also pretty unusual to return to anywhere in China after a two-year absence and find that it hasn’t changed. Apart from the woksmith, the avenues of wutong trees were still there, casting their shade over the road, as was the shop where you could buy singing crickets in their tiny openwork bamboo cages. 

But, almost inevitably, we discovered that the whole area is due to be demolished in the next couple of months. The woksmith, along with his neighbours, will be moved away to another district. As he is clearly close to retirement age, I’m guessing that will be the end of his business.

Of course this made me sad, but not as much as the news that the Xinjiang government plans to demolish 85% of old Kashgar. I have been to Kashgar twice, once in 2002, and once in 2004, and it’s a fascinating place. Despite the bland uniformity of the new Chinese town, the old Uyghur quarter held much of its magic. There were markets and teahouses, craftsmen hammering pots out of copper and carving wood on a lathe.

After all the atrocious mistakes made in China’s development over the last fifteen years (not least the total destruction of old Chengdu, including the last two old lanes, Kuan Xiangzi and Zhai Xiangzi, which have been ‘preserved’ by a total rebuild in an inapproprate style, and the incorporation of international chain stores including, incredibly for anyone who knew the lanes as they used to be, a Starbucks), I still find it hard to believe that the authorities would do anything so stupid in Kashgar, if only because it has the potential to be a lucrative tourist destination for them – and  I can’t see anyone wanting to travel that far across the desert to see concrete buildings finished off with a few touches of what I call ‘Islamoiserie’. But I suppose the writing has been on the wall for some years – they had started knocking down bits of the old town when I last visited.       

It was another of those moments when I felt so upset that I wanted to leave China immediately and give up on the country. It’s heartbreaking to see the ruination of yet another irreplaceable cultural treasure, and I just can’t understand the mindset of the people who do it.

I heard the news in an email that arrived just before I left to meet some friends for dinner, and I was in such a bad mood that I just had to talk about it, to explain the clouds of thunder that no doubt hung over my demeanor. My Chinese friends sympathised, and said they agreed that the decision was regrettable, but they were also apathetic, as one might be after having lived through the aftermath of previous attempts to challenge the system (I’m writing this post, of course, on 4th June). But I don’t think they are duped – one woman I talked to privately later on was sceptical about the official explanation that the town will be razed ‘to protect people from earthquakes’, and thought it more likely that the reason was a desire to Han-ify the region.

Anyway, I’m still here, somehow.

Coppersmiths

New Kashgar

Another view of the old town