Monday, November 24, 2008

Chinese food

OK, one last blog about China. This one is about the wonderful Chinese food.

We were often told that the Chinese eat everything! The adage goes something like this:
"The Chinese will eat everything. Everything from the sky except the plane; everything from the sea except the submarine; and everything from the lad except the stone.
This may likely be more poetic in Chinese.
We also heard of the regional differences:

North: in this region, the people need fat to keep them warm like the polar bear or Eskimo needs fat, so the food is often more substantive and oily.

West: this region is more known for its spicy food because spice preserves moisture/humidity in the body and these are the dry arid areas.

South: these people eat wild food like wild birds and snakes. Believe it or not, in Guilin, our furthest south site on our visit had snake on the menu. Of course, they also said that it would take a while to go get a snake.

East on the sea coast: eat fresh and finer foods and sure enough Hangzhou’s food was the best of our visit.


And here are a few of the challenging, fun foods and signs. First, dried duck:

Then: eel, frog and dog :(

Our favorite salad -- "The Dancing Salad" made of lettuce greens, other veggies, some dressing, and dancing to mix it all up.

The most popular American food in China. You might think it is McDonald's, but no, it is KFC. They are everywhere...kind of like Starbucks with multiple KFCs in the same block!


Finally, our favorite food -- the crispy fish. Yum.


And, now I'll go make a mundane dinner of broiled fish and salad.


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