What is the first thing you notice about the Chinese word “dim sum”? If you speak even just a bit of Mandarin Chinese, it would probably be: the word is not in Mandarin. The word “dim sum” is in Cantonese, as is the food itself; specific to the Cantonese cuisine and usually found only in Guangdong (AKA “Canton”) province.

Contrary to common belief, dim sum is not a dish but rather a type of meal, comprised of many different dishes. In the west we sometimes mistakenly attribute the word dimsum to other Chinese foods such as “jiaozi” (饺子), “baozi“(包子), or any other sort of dumplings. In fact, dim sum can be steamed or fried, solid or liquid, sweet or sour or spicy, and so on: [click here to read the rest of this post...]

On Chinese New Year’s eve, I was invited to a Chinese colleague’s home for dinner. Not wanting to come empty-handed, I brought with me a bottle of good Cabernet Sauvignon. My hosts gladly accepted the wine, poured it and… added a good measure of Sprite to all the glasses.

This anecdote is not an isolated incident, but rather represents a country-wide phenomena in China. As part of the fast changes in China for the past few years, Chinese were quick to adopt western habits: among them culinary habits, such as wine and coffee. These habits, however, were adopted mostly because they were hip and stylish - indeed, most Chinese are completely unused to the flavors of these beverages, which are an acquired taste. [click here to read the rest of this post...]

One of the popular foods in northern China (and, to an extent, in the rest of China as well) is called Jiaozi (饺子). These are dumplings, usually boiled in water, with a meat-based or vegetable-based filling. Other less-common variants are steamed or fried jiaozi.

Making jiaozi is relatively easy, and a while ago I had the opportunity to experience the process myself. First a dough is prepared , which is cut into chunks. Each chunk is rolled into a ball and then flattened to a round disc:

Then some filling is put on top of the dough disc and the disc is folded into a dumpling:

Finally, all the prepared jiaozi are boiled in water. Jiaozi are usually eaten with a sauce made of soy sauce, vineager, ginger and chilly pepper:

search keywords: how to make jiaozi

This second post in my series of posts introducing Chinese foods will be dedicated to Baozi (包子, pronounced “bao tze”), a type of food very popular among both locals and foreigners. Baozi are basically lumps of steamed dough with some filling - usually a combination of minced meat and vegetables:

baozi in Sichuan province

The picture is of baozi in Sichuan province. In general, the baozi in the southern areas of China are bigger than their northern counterparts and have a thicker outer layer. The typical way of making Baozi is steaming them:

xiao-long baozi being steamed

The picture above is actually not of baozi but of its smaller “cousin”, xiaolong-baozi (小笼包子). “xiaolong” means “small covering” and this baozi variant seems to be a mid-way hybrid between baozi and jiaozi (which will be covered in a different post). A few steaming containers are stacked on top of a wok with some water in it, which is placed over a fire. The steam passes upwards through all the containers, steam-cooking the food inside.

Baozi are commonly eated as a breakfast. A very typical Sichuan breakfast might consist of baozi along with rice porridge, a hard-boiled egg and maybe some pickled vegetables on the side. It is easy to find baozi on the street in the morning - many vendors and small restaurants sell them - but it is harder to find them during the evening and afternoon. This is because baozi is considered “breakfast food” and many restaurants actually have a different menu during breakfast, serving stuff like baozi or youtiao.

There are two local variants of baozi worth mentioning. The first is a sort of baozi which is sold in Xi’an, named tangbao (汤包), or “soup baozi”. These are baozi which, along with their regular filling, are also filled with some sort of scalding soup. If you bite straight into the baozi the soup will spill all over you, so you should first bite a very small hole and use it to suck out the soup, after which you can safely eat the baozi. The second sort is a trademarked baozi sold in a chain of restaraunts in Hangzhou named Yao Bu De (咬不得), or literally “cannot bite”. These are basically soup-baozi like the ones in Xi’an, the difference being that they are deep-fried instead of steamed. I believe the name “Yao Bu De” to be a spin-off on the name of a very popular baozi chain named “Gou Bu Li” (狗不理), or literally “dogs can’t handle” - the name implying that their baozi are so good that the leftovers should not be wasted on dogs.

on the left: Tang Bao (soup baozi), on the right: Yao Bu De baozi

This post is the first in a (hopefully) long series of posts, gradually introducting some of the Chinese foods. We’ll start it off with a very simple food which is one of the more common breakfasts in Beijing: Youtiao (油条) and Doujiang (豆浆).

Youtiao is a sort of long bread. It’s made by taking wheat-based dough and deep-frying it in oil. It’s relatively airy and of course greasy, and should be served fresh and warm (otherwise it’s not very good).

Doujiang is basically soy milk. It’s somewhat more bitter than the soy milk in Israel, so it is common to add some suger to counter the bitterness. It’s typically served warm, in a bowl, and drunk with a spoon. Sometimes people shred the youtiao into pieces and put the pieces in the doujiang, resulting in something slightly resembling breakfast cereal.

Both of these are commonly sold in small restaurants on the street (only in the morning) and are quite cheap. In my opinion they make a very good breakfast.

I know that the following has been said many times before by many other people, but I feel a need to comment about some Chinese habits regarding food. It seems to me that, in Chinese’s eyes, inviting someone to eat is one of the “basic” forms of hospitality. This can be done at home but is most often done in a restaurant. Now, eating in the restaurant has a few differences from what I’m used to back in Israel (and back in the West, for that matter):

The first difference is that, typically, in China, the meal isn’t on a dish-per-person basis as in common in the west, where usually every person gets a plate with a main course and some side dishes on it. Instead, a bunch of dishes are ordered and are all shared by everyone. Sometimes people transfer food from the big dishes into small “personal” plates, but often the food is just eaten directly from the central plates.

The second difference is drinks. It seems to me that the most popular drink to accompany food is beer. As I remember writing somewhere long ago, Chinese beer is typically weak (about 2-3% alcohol), typically cheap and typically drunk often and in large quantities. Following beer, common options are tea (the tea served during meal is relatively “plain” tea) or just plain boiled water, served hot. Cold water is often carried around in bottles but not usually drunk during meals (at least as far as I could see).

The third difference is quantities. Actually I think this is more an observation on Chinese hospitality than on Chinese eating habits, but whenever I happen to be eating with Chinese they tend to order obscene amounts of food. There is almost always way too much food for us, but to their credit, at the end of the meal they usually ask to take home the leftovers. These are packed in white dispensable food-containers which all the restaurants seem to have. The Chinese consider their Ultimate Responsibility making their guest eat and drink as much as possible so they either keep urging their guest to eat more or just use their own chopsticks to take food from a dish and put it in their guest’s plate. Sometimes it seems that the entire meal is a complex struggle in which the hosts look for excuses to feed the guest, while the guest tries to avoid getting more food shoved into him. One of their “straight out of the book” tricks is asking you whether some dish is good. If your answer is positive, they’ll make you eat some more of that dish. If your answer is negative, they’ll be offended that their hospitality is lacking and might order some more dishes to make it up for you. I found that the best way out of this trap is a non-commitive “not bad”.

This bizzarre form of hospitality is not limited to food, but extends to drinks too - especially beer. Once your cup reaches somewhere around the 2/3-full level, someone will probably grab the bottle and top it off for you. Every now and then someone will raise his glass in a spontanious toast to you, and you are expected to do the same (and of course drink from it). Sometimes he’ll drink it all at once and then display the empty glass to you. You are expected to do the same. Drinking beer involves a second, simultanious struggle in which you try not to overdrink, so sometimes it can be a good idea to avoid it altogether.

An interesting anecdote to end this post: sometimes, when you pour someone else’s drink, he will respond by placing his hand on the table and tapping it three time with his middle finger. I was told a story which is supposed to explain this habit: In ancient times there was an emperor who used to wear plain cloths and go mingle with the common people. When he was eating with his advisors he would sometimes pour their tea, an action to which they should respond by bowing to him. But they can’t bow as this would “blow his cover”, so they devised a replacement in which they perform this finger-tapping gesture as a substitute for bowing. Since then the emperors are long-gone but the gesture remains.