A Bite of China: Episode 2 The Story of Staple Food

It is really true that China has a varitey of  natural, conditions across the country. This makes Chinese people live in different areas enjoy absolutely different staple food. Southern people mostly rice, on the other hand, people live in north enjoy flour food.The diverse staple food breed human by providing energy. Moreover, they influence people's feelings towards the change of four seasons and enrich the lives of the Chinese.

(By: Queen Lee youtube.com)

Rice

As a person who is grown up in South China. I'm proud to say that I am a  rice person. Basically, I have to have rice everyday. If I don't, I would feel like I have not have a real dinner yet just like most rice Chinese do. 

In general, steamed rice is the most popular way to be served on tables. With various flavor dishes, plain rice seems to be a minor role. However, for majority of the Chinese, the pure and intense rice scent and soft, moist taste make rice become a indispensable staple food of our meals.

                                                          (By: www.fdc.com.cn)

Flour food

Flour food has been popular with the Chinese people, especially for the people live in the North China, which can date back to the ancient times. The special land, weather in that area suits the growth of wheat, a main ingredient of making flour.

Flour is used to make all types of delicacies using an awful lot of cooking ways, such as steaming, boiling, frying, roasting, frying and stewing etc. You would be impressed by the intelligence of Chinese people who make the plain flour into diverse amazing staple foods.Common flour food include noodles, dumplings,wontons, stuffed buns, steamed bread and so on.

Wonton

(By: ninghao www.nipic.com)

Noodles

(By: www.steamykitchen.com)

Stuffed Buns

(By: www.nofrillsrepcipe.com)

From friends or classmates who are from the north, I can clearly feel their attachment to the flour food just like what southern people feel about rice. There is a funny saying in China. "Different water and soil raised different people" which is always referred to differnt staple food cultivates huge differences between southern and northern people. Just take the personality as an example. Generally, people in the north part would be more straightforward, enthusiastic and not so care about the detail. The southern is believed to be more delicate and polite.

Hope you can enjoy this episode, if you have any question, feel free to leave your comment. Thank you.

A Bite of China: Episode 1 Gift of Nature

(By: Queen Lee youtube.com)

Recently, a TV program which is produced by China national television channel CCTV, has become a great hit sweeping over China. This high-definition documentary offers insights and distinctive perspectives about the geographical, historical and cultural dimensions of what Chinese people eat. In the following blogs, I would talk about traditional Chinese catering based on the episode and hope I can give you a brand-new perspective and more insightful understanding about our catering culture.

(By: english.cntv.cn)

China has the world's most strange natural landscapes, plateaus, mountains and forests, lakes and rivers, coastline. We are blessed by nature and have lots of raw food ingredients, which are gifts from nature. Intelligent Chinese people make full use of your indigenous ingredients and enjoy the purest and most delicious tastes of our gifts.

Matsutake

The matsutake only have 2-day short fresh life, which is known as an elf-like food. They only survive at certain high altitude amount and free of pollution area, which also make them extremely expensive. Even with the simplest way to cook them, roasting, a high-quality and luxury ingredient like matsutake can also have a fascinating mineral flavor and intense scent which will linger at your mouth for a long time.

                                                                                           (By: www.freeinfo.com)
                                       

                                                                                           (By: www.rpgwebgame.com)
Winter bamboo

On the menu of traditional Chinese cuisine, there is another food that grows in mountain. The winter bamboo shot hides in the earth and it’s hard to find in the surface. Only the experienced bamboo digger can easily locate the position of shoots.

                     (From http://tuiar.com/blog/8869705) 

 The way to retain freshness of bamboo is very hard. Bamboo shoots are only a kind of bud, which is the most vigorous part of the whole plant organism. Winter bamboo shoots can be found in four major Chinese cuisines. Cooks prefer it also for its pure flavor, which is very easy to take in other taste. It is incredible when it cook with the fatty meat.

Dongpo Pork with winter bamboo

                                                                              （By: www.zhms.cn)

 There are much more raw ingredients in this episode. I highly recommend you to watch the video and I assure you will have a brand-new view about Chinese catering.

Dragon Boat Festival—Zong zi (Rice dumpling)

The Dragon Boat Festival, which is also known as Double Fifth Festival, is celebrated on the the fifth day of the fifth moon of the lunar calendar.  When it comes to this festival, every Chinese would think of rice dumplings, which are meant to honor a divine person, Qu Yuan (340-278 BC.), the pioneer poet of ancient China.

(www.hudong.com)

The origin of this summer festival centers around a scholarly government official named Chu Yuan . He was a good and respected man, but because of the misdeeds of jealous rivals he eventually fell into disfavor in the emperor's court. Unable to regain the respect of the emperor, in his sorrow Chu Yuan threw himself into the Mi Low river. Because of their admiration for Chu Yuan, the local people living adjacent to the Mi Lo River rushed into their boats to search for him while dropping dumplings of glutinous rice wrapped in bamboo or reed leaves into the river in order to keep the fishes from attacking his body. (Shi Liwei, the Dragon Boat Festival)This is also believed as the origin of rice dumplings.

（By:caijunjun www.nipic.com）

Zong Zi - a glutinous rice dumpling wrapped in bamboo or reed leaves.  The bamboo or reed leaves which form the wrapping and make Zong Zi distinct from other types of Chinese dumplings. The filling often contains either dates, sweetened red bean paste or meat. You are sure to be impressed with the delicacy of this snack, and with the faint scent of the leaves imprinted on the skin of the dumplings.

（By:chen wang www.nipic.com）

Spring festival

In terms of Chinese catering, we definitely should mention the most important festival, Spring festival, Chinese New Year. It has a overwhelming impact on every Chinese and it just likes a bond which ties families together. People who scatter around the country or world would go back to their hometown and celebrate this awesome festival by enjoying the traditional foods.

Dumplings

Dumplings are one of the most typical foods during Spring Festival also every Chinese would have them for new year’s eve dinner. Here are several reasons contribute to their dominate position in Chinese new year’s dinner tables.

(By: dake1986 www.nipic.com)

Firstly, the shape of a dumpling is just like a gold ingot. Having dumplings represents a hope of harvesting wealth and fortune in the next year. 

(By: larrysun www.nipic.com)

Secondly, stuffing a dumpling means putting happiness, health and other best wishes into it and giving our blessing to our families. More interestingly, we would put a coin or a candy in one of the dumpling. The people who eat this one is believed to be the luckiest one.

(By Huiling Wen)

Sweet dumpling/ Tang Yuan

Another traditional food in Spring festival is sweet dumplings, which are obviously different from the dumplings we just talked about not only by their flavor, but also their meanings. 

(By: Yu chongyang, City News)

Basically, the Chinese new year lasts for 15 days and the Lantern Festival is the last day. In this day, the families would gather together to make the sweet dumplings, which make with glutinous rice and stuff with sweet filling. Round in shape, tang yuan symbolizes family unity, completeness and happiness.

                                      
                                                               (By: newcar.xcar.com.cn)
If you want to know more about the traditional Chinese new year's food, please tell me and I would prepare another post about them. Thank you！

Welcom

Hi, everyone. I'm Irene (Huiling Wen) and welcome to my blog.

If you are interested in Chinese traditional food, catering or culture, I think it is a great place for you to start your culture journey. I'm born and raised in a traditional Chinese family, who is fond of food. Everytime when I go to travel, I would rather tasting the indigenous and typical food than going to the crowding tourist spots, because I think food is a great intermedia which synthesizes and inherits cultures as time passes, it is also a straight forward cultural signs which most of people can easily access to and comprehend.
In this blog, I would introduce you different traditional Chinese catering in terms of holidays, festivals or areas.

Hope you can enjoy it!