The Food In China

The food in China is not what I expected and I’ve had to throw out all my preconceptions. Some of the food items are very familiar while others are completely alien. It’s comforting to see rows of familiar fruits and vegetables such as carrots, watermelon, spring onions, celery, strawberries, and mandarin oranges but it’s extremely disconcerting to see containers filled with live frogs, snakes, turtles and other indescribable creatures that look as if they’ve just crawled out of the Black Lagoon.

       The supermarkets are very civilized compared to the markets but most products have little or no English wording on them. There are familiar brands such as Nestle, Nescafe and Palmolive but for the most part, the majority of products in the supermarket are unfamiliar. This makes it very difficult to determine exactly what is in the package or container. I picked up, what I thought was a packet of dried apricots, which happen to be a favourite of mine, and when I asked one of my Chinese friends what it was, it turned out to be dried sweet potato. Lesson number one: Life is like a Chinese supermarket; you just never know what you’re going to end up with.

       Being in the most populated country in the world, it’s safe to assume that Chinese supermarkets are crowded. They seem to be crowed at every moment of the day and most people appear to shop on a daily basis. You rarely, if ever, see a shopper struggling with a supermarket trolley filled to maximum capacity. There also seems to be an abundance of Chinese confectionary some of which defy all attempts at description.

       The markets in Fujian are a sight to behold. Swarming masses of people all pushing and shoving and each of them seems to shout as loudly as they can. There are rows and rows of tables filled with all manner of produce. Fish tanks or plastic containers filled with eels, fish, frogs, turtles mostly sold fresh as it would appear the Chinese prefer their food to be fresh. There are also lots of dried fish, dried fruit and nuts. Whereas the supermarkets have set prices, in the markets bargaining is the traditional method of shopping. The vendor will almost always ask for an exorbitant price, particularly if the shopper is a Westerner, and the shopper replies with a ridiculously low price. The object is to find a mutually agreeable price and the transaction is complete.

       The restaurants in Fujian can generally be divided into two groups. The first are the small and very inexpensive eateries where for a few cents, you can buy a meal, usually made of noodles. You can also by rice dishes consisting mainly of pork, fish and some beef. There are also street traders offering a variety of snacks but these are best avoided and hygiene standards are somewhat lacking.

Very little cold food is sold in the restaurants and the Chinese regard warm or hot food as healthier for the digestion. If you ask for water in a restaurant you will generally be served with a cup of steaming hot water. 

       Service in the restaurants is so good that it verges on the point of annoyance. Most of the wait staff are in their early twenties, very friendly and eager to please. The menus are nearly always in Chinese with only photographs to guide the foreign diner. Meals are often served in large bowls or compartmented trays with a spoon and a set of chopsticks. Knives and forks are not available. Condiments usually consist of soy sauce, chilli or pepper salt and vinegar. Tea or beer is served with most meals. Tea is a specialty of Fujian and held in high regard. I’m told there are over 350 different varieties of tea and some of the better quality tea can fetch hundreds of dollars for a single kilo. There is an amusing tea ritual carried out in this part of China. When a visitor arrives he or she is offered tea. Out comes a small tray on which are several small, handleless bowls, a larger teacup with a saucer and a lid into which is placed the dried tea. The teacup is then filled with boiling water and the tea poured into the individual bowls and offered to the guest. Beer is usually what is regarded as low alcohol beer in Australia and quite refreshing although most Chinese, it would appear, prefer tea to beer.

       Unfortunately, the influence of the West has extended to McDonalds and Kentucky Fried Chicken and they are to be found in Zhongzhou. They are more popular with the younger middle class Chinese but are regarded as too expensive for the average working Chinese. A Big Mac, fries and coke will cost you Y18.50 (AU$3.15). There are some Chinese owned and operated fast food outlets that compete directly with KFC and McDonalds. These are called “Happy Tom” and “Dicso”. They serve fried chicken and a Chinese-style hamburger or “Hampowpow” in Mandarin. These Chinese fast food outlets have adopted many of the marketing strategies used by their Western competitors whilst retaining a distinctive Chinese flavour.

       The local butcher is a sight to behold. They usually set up in a market or a supermarket on two or more trestle tables. The poor pig is dismembered and cut into smaller pieces, which are then sold to the general public. It would appear every part of the pig is offered for sale including the tail, the ears and even the snout. In the supermarket, most tinned meat is pork and there is a pork luncheon meat sold in supermarkets that is not dissimilar to that sold in Western supermarkets. I’ve also seen tinned pig trotters in a barbeque sauce.

       What strikes me most about Chinese supermarkets is not so much what they sell but what they don’t sell. For example, there is very little in the way of dairy foods with the exception of some yogurt, long-life or condensed milk and I’ve yet to see any cheese. The only bread available is a soft, sweet white bread that are more like cakes than bread. I’ve not seen any wholemeal or wholegrain breads since arriving in China. In the supermarkets you can only buy cooked portions of chicken and the only sausages available are rather fatty pork sausages. Beef is a rarity and any beef I have sampled usually consists of fat or gristle and is as tough as old boots.

       Nevertheless, the food in China is fascinating, nourishing, healthy and generally quite safe to eat. The fast food restaurants are just that – fast food restaurants. The markets are fascinating if not fraught with traps for the unwary shopper and the supermarkets are clean and civilized. All in all, shopping for food in China is challenging, exciting and can sometimes be very rewarding.