One of the highlights of my recent trip to China was a lesson in braising a whole pig’s head. I couldn’t resist posing for a few photos with the half-cooked head. The final product, served with steamed buns, spring onions and sweet fermented sauce, was magnificent…
Pig
Pig 2
Pig 3
According to this report in the Guardian, student groups in China are beginning to challenge the custom of eating endangered animals for their supposed health benefits. I remember when I was researching a piece on eating endangered species for the Financial Times a couple of years ago, I interviewed Jim Harkness of the WWF, and he told me he was hopeful that the younger generation would reject some of the more exotic delicacies favoured by their parents. I can’t say I’ve seen much evidence of this so far, but I was heartened to meet someone in Chengdu in March who said she no longer ate shark’s fin or wild animals for a mixture of health and environmental reasons (the health reasons were the high mercury content of shark, and the risk of disease from eating wild animals – as highlighted in the SARS crisis of 2003, when civet cats were fingered as a possible source of the virus).
Anyway, let’s hope that these students in Guangzhou, which is, after all, the epicentre of Chinese trade in exotic animals, start to change opinions…
European Union ministers are demanding urgent action to protect sharks in European waters, because a third of shark species are endangered because of chronic overfishing. It’s easy to guess who the main culprits are – lovers of shark’s fin soup, most of them, I assume, Chinese. I’ve been avoiding shark’s fin on my trips to China for the last couple of years for environmental reasons. But I do sometimes wonder whether this is pure tokenism: I mean, almost all the fish and other seafood one eats nowadays is from threatened species, and if we carry on as we do now, there won’t be any left (have a look at this chilling article by Andrew Purvis in yesterday’s Observer Food Monthly). What’s the point of not eating shark’s fin a few times a year if I’m still eating oysters, cod and wild sea bass? Isn’t it just a silly sop to my conscience, a way of feeling good and pretending I’m doing the right thing, when I’m overexploiting the planet like everyone else? (I’ve always thought it ridiculous that people should object to the cruelty of fox-hunting when they eat factory farmed meat and cheap clothes made by child labour for similar reasons. ) On the other hand, I suppose one does have to start somewhere…
Apparently the makers of Stilton, that delicious blue-veined English cheese, are to start exporting it to China!
As is widely known, the Chinese traditionally have little taste for cheese. In the past, eating it was seen as a barbarian habit. The American anthropogist E.N. Anderson mentions in his The Food of China that he once heard it described as ‘the mucous discharge of some old cow’s guts, allowed to putrefy’ – a quote I always like to repeat to Westerners expressing disgust at Chinese eating habits.
When I lived in Chengdu in the 1990s, it was impossible to buy any cheese except for small packages, exorbitantly priced, of some horrible processed stuff – and even this was available only at the city’s single backpackers’ cafe, the Flower Garden. This was why, when a British TV producer for whom I’d done a little translation work asked me if her crew could bring me anything from London, the first thing that came to my mind was cheese. A week later, a large piece of Stilton, perfectly ripe, was handed over to me in a hotel lobby – it was such a treat I threw a dinner party in its honour.
I’ve had little success in introducing cheese to my own Chinese friends. Most of them find it pretty revolting, if they’re willing to taste it at all. I’m very curious as to how the Stilton venture will go, particularly as Stilton is towards the more extreme end of the cheese scale in terms of its smell and appearance. The European ex-pat community will be thrilled, no doubt, but will they be able to persuade the locals to give it a try?
A journalist friend of mine passed through London last week on his way back from Iceland, with all kinds of goodies, including a sheep’s head, horse meat and some cured puffin. Most excitingly, he brought back a little of that most infamous Icelandic delicacy, rotted shark. As anyone who’s read my recent memoir will know, I don’t have many food taboos, and I was longing to see if this stinky stuff would defeat me. I really expected it to: I had visions of some slimy, putrescent gunge that I’d only be able to taste with closed eyes and pinched nostrils.
To my amazement, however, it was fine, and not shocking at all. It came in small cubes, with a heady, high, exhilarating smell reminiscent of ripe roquefort and Chinese preserved duck eggs. It was no worse than the aroma of durian fruit or cheese, and actually rather bracing. Smell aside, the rotted flesh looked like any cured fish, waxy and slightly translucent. In the mouth, it had an oily, chewy texture, like a cross between real cold-smoked salmon and biltong.
Oh dear, if I can eat even this without blanching, where on earth am I to go for a real gastronomic challenge?! Any suggestions?
I’m quoted in Wednesday’s Boston Globe, on the culinary uses of trendy ‘superfood’ goji berries, otherwise known as 枸 杞 子 , gouqizi, or Chinese wolfberries.
The picture on the right is of the berries in an eight-treasure rice (babaofan), which I came across in Liuyang, Hunan:
Even by my usual standards, the breakfast I had the other day in Beijing was a bit weird. When I talk about my usual standards, I mean that I’m not like most foreigners in China who insist on eating toast and jam, cereal or some other normal Western food first thing in the morning. Nothing pleases me more than to be offered xi fan (rice porridge) with fermented beancurd, steamed buns or noodles with chilli sauce when I wake up. But the other day was exceptional. Continue reading…
