Posted by Wan Yan Ling, September 22, 2008 at 2:45 PM
Wandering the streets of Hong Kong, I stumbled upon a sight I’d usually expect to see at a farmers’ market—a fresh noodle store. Unlike the oftentimes too-pricey-for-a-grad student handmade pasta, these noodles were much more affordable. At an average of four nests of noodles for sixty-five cents (each nest feeds one!) it made me wonder: what makes Italian pasta so much more expensive? Is it the ingredients? Or could it be that pasta-making is far more laborious than Chinese noodle-making? Are the two processes very different?
History is littered with stories of how the string-like food made from unleavened dough came about. Some claim that Marco Polo introduced noodles to the Italians on his return from China (now debunked), and that these same noodles followed the Arabian conquerors to Sicily during the 10th century.
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Posted by Wan Yan Ling, September 8, 2008 at 2:00 PM
If you were on the run and had no access to electricity, what food would you pack? Field rations, space food, and/or squeeze packs of Nutella? (This last option gets my housemates’ unanimous vote.)
400 years ago, the Hakkas—an ethnic Chinese group fleeing South from the constant warfare in North China—invented "lei cha" or thunder tea rice to sustain them over the long, hazardous journey. With no means of heating water and limited resources, the original dish consisted of a handful of grains and beans ground to a fine powder and mixed with cold water. The “thunder” in the dish refers to the racket made as the ingredients were crushed with a traditional wood pestle in a coarse-surfaced clay bowl.
While the dish staved off hunger, munching on it must have been as appetizing as munching on raw, sodden grits. Fortunately, once the refugees made it South, they settled in the hills and were able to cultivate rice paddies, tea plantations, and other vegetable crops. The original “hard times” dish of lei cha evolved to a far more palatable—but no less modest—offering that remains popular today.
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Posted by Wan Yan Ling, July 28, 2008 at 2:15 PM
If you’re of South East Asian descent, you know that being called a “potato eater” is a grave thing. It implies that you’ve rejected your culinary heritage of rice as the basis of, and main source of carbohydrates in, your diet. Instead, you’ve embraced the “white man’s” dietary staple of potatoes. The stereotype-laden metaphor encapsulates everything from the languages you speak (or are unable to speak), choice of pastimes, and even the values you hold.
While my diet is a heart-healthy, wholegrain-heavy one, my fondness for potatoes (and inability to speak multiple Chinese dialects) slaps a great, flashing, potato-eating sign on my head. Strangely enough, one type of potato-eating is “excusable," but unlike normal potatoes, this one grows on trees.
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A study by the Harvard School of Public Health found that modest soy consumption may significantly decrease sperm production due to the soy's isoflavones, the chemicals that act similar to estrogen. However, the study points out that soy consumption is higher in Asia, where there isn't a decreased fertility problem.
Posted by Robyn Lee, March 13, 2008 at 2:45 PM
Last month on a visit to Butuan City in the Philippines, writer Robyn Eckhardt and photographer David Hagerman of Eating Asia witnessed the traditional processing of the sago palm, a plant mostly used for its tapioca-like sago flour. They thoroughly document the breakdown of the "Tree of Life" in three parts: extracting starch from the hack-out trunk shreds, using the flour in sweet coconut-flavored sago flatcakes, and frying up the fat-rich sago worms that hatch in the sago palm's trunk.
Never before have I wanted to try something made of sago so badly. But I think I'll save the fried worms for later, even if they tasted "crispy, salty, and greasy, with a lick of smoke."
Posted by Robyn Lee, March 3, 2008 at 3:45 PM
One reason I don't like eating street food in New York City is because I either have to eat it while walking or find a place to sit down before digging into my food as it gets progressively cooler. If I lived in Tokyo I could just eat ramen or oden in front of a cart on the side of the street, as seen in PingMag's feature on Tokyo's mobile food bars in which they interview a handful of food cart vendors about how they run their businesses.
Posted by Erin Zimmer, February 22, 2008 at 2:45 PM
According to Business Week, bigwig Western chocolate companies like Nestle and Hershey are trying to please Asian tastes, given a booming chocolate industry there. Say hello to azuki-bean Kit Kats in Japan, green tea Hershey's Kisses in China, and ginseng-enriched confections in South Korea. Here we thought Abba-Zaba was crazy! Check out the article's matching slideshow.
Posted by Cathy Danh, January 22, 2008 at 3:00 PM
After six months of living in Saigon, I haven’t even come close to sampling all of the fruits and vegetables available. I love how every "season" brings a plethora of new delights to try. Sugar apples have been my favorite fruit for quite some time, but they may soon be replaced by vú sữa.
In English, vú sữa kinkily translates to "milky boob." Hubba hubba. The fruit earned its name based on its appearance and the process by which it is consumed. After the fruit has properly chilled in the fridge, one needs to massage it thoroughly before eating. When the milky juice and flesh are ready, the vú sữa feels pliable to the touch.
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Posted by Wan Yan Ling, January 21, 2008 at 11:00 AM
A friend of mine has a "theory" regarding Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM). He reckons TCM stems from a simplistic belief the Chinese have: food resembling body parts must be beneficial for those same body parts. For instance, walnuts resemble the brain and are therefore nourishing for the brain. Ginseng roots look like little men (or voodoo dolls) and so are considered therapeutic for total body wellness. I'm no TCM expert, but a cursory search online indicates "ancient Chinese doctrines" (no citation whatsoever) support my friend's theory...
Add to this list the prized (and pricey) sea cucumber. With it's decidedly phallic appearance and behavior—"on being kneaded or disturbed slightly with fingers...it swells and stiffens, releasing a jet of water from one end...after releasing the jet, it looses its stiffness and reverts to its original state"—it's no great leap of the imagination deducing what the Chinese reckon it valuable for.
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Posted by Wan Yan Ling, January 14, 2008 at 3:00 PM
In Singapore, watermelon seed consumption is a predominantly Chinese affair. At wedding ceremonies the seeds are fertility symbols for the couple (representative of their family’s eager wishes), and at traditional Taoist three-day funerals the seeds are everywhere you look. Strangely enough, despite the Chinese love for symbolism there does not seem to be a significance for the watermelon seeds’ ubiquity at funerals.
In the past week, I’ve asked all the matriarchs I know as to whether a deeper meaning lies behind it, and I’ve come to a (half-baked) conclusion. But first, a little preamble (bear with me): The Chinese believe that the deceased’s body needs to be watched over at all times—lest a pregnant cat jumps over the coffin, prompting the corpse to sit up. Now, I don’t know how true this is, only that it’s a very good thing Chinese families tend to be large and extended…so relatives can take turns to "chor ye"—the filial duty of staying up to shoo cats away. Everyone knows staying up requires munchies, and what better to munch on when struggling to stay awake than something as tedious and time consuming as watermelon seeds?
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Posted by Wan Yan Ling, January 7, 2008 at 8:00 PM
Editor's note: Our Grocery Ninja, Wan Yan Ling, is currently visiting Singapore, from where she's filing additional Snapshots from Asia.
The concept of "chestnuts roasting over an open fire" is an alien one to Asians, and the notion of buying chestnuts raw and roasting them yourself even stranger—why would anyone choose to go through all that hassle when the streets are lined year-round with hawkers frying them right before you?
When I lived in Australia, I was horrified by the price of hot griddled chestnuts sold on the streets, and no wonder they were exorbitant: Each individual chestnut would be meticulously turned and cosseted as it cooked, and it would take (to my impatient mind) till the cows came home for the vendor to roast up a goodly sized paper bag full of them.
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Posted by Robyn Lee, August 16, 2007 at 5:00 PM
Lori Baltazar features favorite Jakartan street foods in her latest blog post, one of which is gorengan, literally "fried things." The golden offerings of this gorengan stall included tahu (tofu), tempe (bean curd), pisang (bananas), singkong (cassava), and ubi (sweet potato).
And now I add "Jakarta" to the list of places I must visit before I die.
Posted by Ed Levine, May 22, 2006 at 7:37 AM
My friends Barry and Betsy e-mailed me yesterday looking for one great restaurant in Hong Kong. Food & Wine's website had two really useful pieces on Hong Kong food. Here are three choices from the two stories
Victoria City Seafood Restaurant
Carrianna
Dynasty Restaurant in the Rennaissance Harbour View Hotel
Hope this helps. Any other suggestions from the Serious Eats community?
