Canton Cuisine

Published May 22, 2005
Zhongshan Ribao

“The Cantonese people will eat: anything that moves except a car, anything that swims except a boat and anything that flies except a plane.” This quote from my students offers a humorously accurate take on Cantonese cuisine. While the Chinese palate may extend farther into the animal kingdom than most Westerners would care to go, the variety of dishes is refreshingly different.

Each Chinese province or city is famous for some variety of food. Beijing is famous for its duck wraps, or ‘Peking duck.’ The food in Sichuan Province, such as ‘hot pot,’ is notoriously spicy due to the hot peppers and aniseed capers commonly found in dishes.

Zhongshan’s specialty is fried pigeon. In the United States, pigeons are often found in public parks, being fattened up with breadcrumbs by park visitors. I’m becoming curious about the pigeon’s migration habits…

Other local favorites are barbequed snakes, cat soup and dog meat steaks. This sounded pretty strange to me at first, but these are just cultural differences. Despite not having come across any vacant leashes in the central Shiqi district, the village of Xiaolan is rumored to have some fantastic Labrador.

Aside from the different nature of Chinese dishes, the true difference is in the preparation. In Chinese cooking, the heads, bones, skin and fins are presented in an artistic fashion to accompany the dish. This represents the wholeness of the animal and the spirit of we who eat it.

When I asked a Chinese colleague of mine why her favorite part of the fish was the tail, she said it was because it requires the most work. Her satisfaction derives not only from the food but from also from the accomplishment. I replied, “I want to eat my food, not disassemble it like a shrimp jigsaw puzzle.”

This ‘peel your own’ concept was difficult for me. Western food removes the consumer from the much of the preparation process. At first, my stomach was queasy to see exactly what I was eating. After a few months, I’ve learned how to surgically dissect a shrimp with my fingernails and my stomach has learned to how handle it.

With this ‘eat all’ food philosophy, it seems to me that the Chinese cooks are far less wasteful than Western cooks. Common orders that include chicken are given hips and joints with plenty of meat on them. In Western cooking the bones are rarely, if ever, included. (Steaks, ribs and fried chicken come to mind as exceptions to this rule.)

Dinner table etiquette in the United States is quite formal. Rules like: no elbows on the table, chew with your mouth closed and fold your napkin in your lap have been instilled in me since I graduated from of the high chair.

The excess bones in Chinese cooking have to go somewhere, so why hide them? Here, the sign of a good restaurant is the presence of bones and debris on the floor. The more mess, the better the business.

Each style has its merits. In Zhongshan, western restaurants serving imported food are available for a needed break. Pigeon and green tea is delicious, but pizza and beer will remain my comfort food.
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*This article is the intellectual property of Paul Wegerson and may not be reproduced or syndicated without express written consent of Paul Wegerson or Zhongshan Ribao. Think fo yoself foo!