Category: food/cuisine

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Eating Unique Cuisine while Studying Abroad in Beijing

By Angela Jin

Growing up in a Chinese family, it is no wonder that I partake in Chinese cuisine. There is the standard fare of rice and noodles, though ‘standard’ gives the wrong impression that there is only one version of each. There is also a variety of dumplings and buns, usually stuffed with meat and/or veggies, and in the case of the buns, occasionally contain a sweet center. These staples of the Chinese meal are accompanied by a multitude of dishes, which may consist of meat, seafood, vegetables, fruit…anything and everything imaginable. Here, in Beijing, China, the truth of that phrase is proven each and every day.


While walking down 南锣鼓巷 (Nanluoguxiang), a street filled with shops, stands and, of course, people, you can not only buy any kind of souvenir imaginable, but you can also discover a lot of the typical street food of Beijing. There are the typical skewers of chicken, lamb and octopus, although these can be abnormal in that they can reach two feet long in length, as well as skewers of crabapples and other fruits covered in a sugar glaze. You can also buy boiled balls made from fish, cuttlefish, sea urchin, crab, and many other types of sea creatures, as well as the snack 臭豆腐 (choudoufu), commonly translated to “stinky tofu.” You can purchase the Beijing specialty drink 酸奶 (suannai), a delicious liquid similar to yogurt, and juice smoothies of strawberry, melon, corn, papaya, and more. Some stores even sell churros, cotton candy and Japanese snacks, attempting to attract customers with their foreign products. But one of the more interesting foods you can find here is from Beijing itself: fried insects.

 


For reasons I cannot fathom, consuming insects does not seem to faze the people of Beijing (or China, for that matter). While I can understand the practicality of eat these things, which possess a high nutritional value, I would never actually do it; the idea of crunching down on one, with its many legs…I shudder just thinking about it. The shop was even selling fried scorpions, which makes me wonder whether their venomous stingers were even removed. This particular shop was also selling fried starfish, which one of my friends decided to try. He decided it wasn’t quite worth the purchase.

 The snacks of Beijing are not the only weird food to be found. Last night my Foreign Study Program group ate at a restaurant that, like many others in Beijing, served sea cucumbers, birds’ nests (which are the actual nests), and frog, among other delicacies. As you can see below, we ordered a dish of frog legs. It was a little disconcerting, to say the least, to see their little toes and limbs. However, I must add, the meat was quite tender. And as to whether or not it does actually taste like chicken, I am sorry to say (or perhaps not so sorry) that the dish was too spicy for me to taste anything. Perhaps you can try frog yourself one day and tell me. Would you eat it?

 

Note: All photos taken by me

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A Taste of China: Unexpected Ice Cream Adventures in the Far East

By Nicole Boyd

For a girl who loves to travel, I haven’t done it nearly as much as I’d like. So when I do go abroad, I’m always eager to soak up as many of the nuances of a place that I can, in a lot of ways — the beauty is in the details. Which brings us to a particular peculiarity I’ve noticed, and that is the Chinese approach to ice cream.
Green tea-flavored soft serve.
Chinese people don’t eat a lot of desserts in the Western sense: cakes, pastries, cookies, and chocolate are available but expensive (sometimes extremely) by Chinese standards and are not terribly popular with natives. Ice cream, on the other hand, has been adopted wholeheartedly as a summer favorite. Most afternoons you can expect to see people of all ages walking down the street cold treat in hand. One of McDonald’s most popular items is their vanilla soft serve. Cheap and ubiquitous, most cones or pops are available for 3 kuai or less (about 50 cents U.S.) and have a decidedly Asian twist. You’ll still find your chocolate and vanilla of course, but the best-sellers are a bit more in line with the flavors of everyday Chinese cuisine: jasmine tea, green tea, mango, dragon fruit, and even pops filled with red-bean paste, a common ingredient in traditional desserts and festival foods. One of the strangest things I saw in China was a shining golden ear of – you guessed it – corn-flavored ice cream. A friend of mine was brave enough to risk it. Her consensus: tastes, somewhat disturbingly, just like the corn.

“Er… Ice cream?” Courtesy Lisa Li.

Something you’ll see everywhere is the particular ice-block pictured below. White, skinny, and not entirely flavorful, these pops were our salvation on 100-degree days. In particularly crowded places, parks, and tourist hot spots like Tiananmen Square, sellers line up every 30 feet or so to call out their wares. The sheer number of vendors makes the price fairly stable at a single kuai (17 cents). If a savvy entrepreneur tries to get more out of you because you’re a foreigner, you’re in luck: the next seller is usually just a 15 second walk away.
Courtesy Lisa Li.

Though it wasn’t something I expected to see half way across the world, I ate more ice cream the summer I spent in China than I have in the last four years in the ‘States. Beijing is a hot city – any traveler would be wise to take their cue from the locals and cool off with an icy treat. It’s a wonderful excuse to consume huge quantities of cold confections at a delightfully guilt-free rate: As they say in China, ru xiang sui su (When in Rome, do as the Romans do).

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West African Cuisine

By Jane Zhang

Last Saturday night, I sneaked into the West African Cuisine class in McCulloch International Residence, taught by the lovely Baaba. I thought I stumbled into food heaven. I looked inside their trash can, and I have to say, I was impressed—plantain peels, burnt rice, yam skins. Baaba, who is from Ghana, though has lived in the U.S. for a while, was teaching peers to make spinach stew.

Spinach stew consists of a primary ingredient that, excuse my ignorance, I had never heard of before: palm oil. Palm oil is actually widely used for cooking in West Africa, Southeast Asia, and Brazil. For cooking enthusiasts, the rest of the ingredients were bouillon cubes, tomato paste, diced onions, diced green pepper, diced garlic, and smoked turkey.
While the stew was simmering, students in the class patiently peeled plantains and yams using knives. The plantains and yams were cooked in water and salt.
Then, mushrooms and spinach were heated in a pot before combining with the rest of the stew.
Other students opened containers, happy to discover that the leftovers smelled just as good. I had never seen so much food in a dorm kitchen at Dartmouth before. My mouth was watering from just looking at all of the food scattered throughout the kitchen. Such a gluttonous person as me really shouldn’t be covering food events.
Overall, it was a wonderfully lighthearted atmosphere. We drank Malta Goya, though I wasn’t such a big fan of the syrupy texture. Unfortunately, I had to leave before the food was ready, but I’m sure everyone who stuck around got to eat several helpings and go home with new recipes and plenty of leftovers!