Yum, yum!

Before I left for China, lots of people wanted to give me advice about what to eat and what not to eat and what foods to watch out for while I was in China.  Some told me to bring my own snacks in case I couldn’t find anything suitable.  Others worried that I would be unhappy with the food and feel homesick for American food.  Many said that I would loose weight while I was here.  The brochure that the travel clinic doctor gave me after my vaccinations said, “If you can’t cook it, boil it, or peel it, forget it!” Food was one aspect of this trip I was not worried about, but with all of this advice I wondered if I should be.

I was right not to worry. I’m not shy about eating, and I’m not fussy.  I enjoy trying new foods, whether they are in a fancy restaurant or from a street vendor.  Everything I’ve gotten to eat in Shenyang has been absolutely delicious.

Workday breakfasts are the least exotic meal I eat because I usually have it on my own with food I bought at Tesco.  I have coffee (boil it), and an orange (peel it), and a hunk of Maky bread, which is flaky and buttery and tastes like brioche.  “Maky” is the name of a bakery, and the slogan printed in English on all of their advertisements and products is “Enjoy the time! For more delicious to share with you.”  Yes, Maky, I will enjoy the time.

On a few mornings I have breakfasted with Vicky and her family.  One day she brought home these delicious little pancakes from a vendor on the street below.  They looked somewhat like silver dollar pancakes, but they were fatter and had cornmeal.  Another day Vicky bought a different kind of pancake.  These were larger, and the batter had been ladled onto the griddle in a spiral motion, and so to eat them, we sort of unwound them.  They were very stretchy and chewy and were flavored with scallions.  The best street vendor breakfast I’ve eaten so far has been a little loaf of spiced bread that was studded with almonds.  It was so soft and puffy that “cake” is probably a better word to describe it.  It was similar in flavor to gingerbread, but it was a most interesting blue-grey color, like poppy seeds.

I eat lunch at school from my lunchbox.  This does not mean the same thing in China as it does in the U.S. My “lunchbox” is actually a stainless steel bowl with a big handle on the side. There is no cafeteria, but there is a small kitchen where the school cook prepares rice, two vegetables, and a meat dish for the faculty and staff. When the lunch bell rings, everyone in the English department office grabs her lunchbox from her desk and walks through the school courtyard to the kitchen to fill it up. We have to be prompt, or we will miss out. When we have wormed our way through the tiny, crowded room, we take our lunchboxes back to the office to eat together. The children have their lunches delivered in big coolers to their classrooms and eat with their base teachers. The lunches have all been really good and fresh, but they are always a surprise. My favorite dish is scrambled eggs and stewed tomatoes. We have gotten this twice now. Yum!

Vicky’s mother prepares dinner for the family and is an outstanding cook. She shops through the street market and finds things that look good and fresh.  With every meal she serves white rice, and sometimes she mixes in quinoa or some sprouts.  There are usually three dishes: one will have beef, pork, or chicken, one is usually a soup, and one has lots of vegetables.  Anything we don’t finish is covered and saved and served again at dinner the next night.  She uses lots of types of mushrooms and tofu, both of which I love, and I enjoy these dishes the most.  A couple of nights ago she brought home barbecued pigs’ feet.  I had to pick around the connective tissue with my chopsticks, but they were very good and smoky. Vicky and her mother won’t let me help with the cooking or cleanup, and I feel a little guilty that I can’t repay them the favor. I try to bring home fruit and sweets to share instead. I hope to treat the whole family to a big dinner at a nice restaurant before I leave.

In the meantime, I have been treated to several outstanding dinners out.  I have been to two Korean barbecue restaurants, two hot-pot restaurants, and one place that served everything on big bamboo skewers that had been boiled in a very spicy broth.  I especially like the hot-pot dinners.  Each person orders a pot of hot broth and puts it on a hotplate or burner in front of him.  Then, platters of different meats and vegetables are brought.  The diner chooses what he likes best and puts it into his own boiling broth until it is cooked to his liking.  This meets the doctor’s admonition to “boil it” and “cook it,” I think.

The most memorable dinner I have had so far was last night, though.  I was invited to a Korean Barbeque restaurant with the head of the English department, Eva, and her husband and parents.  Eva ordered for the whole table, and while we were waiting to be served, she showed me the pictures from the menu of the items she had chosen for us.  It all looked very delicious. She pointed to little, pink pork sausages, floppy, weird mushrooms, thinly sliced beef and lamb, prawns, bright green vegetables, and chunks of purple potatoes.  Then she pointed to something I had never seen before on a menu – cocoons.  Or at least that’s what Eva called them.  I don’t remember enough from my biology class to be sure in what stage these caterpillars were (pupa? larva?), but these were definitely some sort of wormy-things that were going to turn into butterflies. They had hard, little exoskeletons that were black and shiny with big eyes. Sure enough, as our food arrived, there were two plates of these little insects. “Two plates of cocoons,” I observed, trying not to show my anxiety. That is a lot of insect to eat in one meal, especially if one is not accustomed to eating insects. “They are very delicious,” Eva’s husband assured me. “You’ve never had them before?” They were not moving, but I’m not sure they were dead. We roasted them over the hot coals until Eva’s mother said they were ready.  They didn’t look much different than they had before.  Eva said not to eat the shell, to spit it out. I didn’t understand and asked to watch her eat one. She put it in her mouth, chewed it, swallowed the meat, and then spit out the crunched-up shell onto the table. So, that’s what I did. And Eva’s husband was right; they really were delicious! The texture of the shell was much like that of a cooked shrimp. When I bit down, it cracked open and the meat inside squished out.  It was creamy and a tiny bit gamey, but in a good way. There was hardly anything to it, and so I understood why Eva had ordered so many.  We had eaten through our cocoons in a matter of minutes. The most unpleasant part was having to look at the little shells sitting on the table top for the rest of the meal.

I can’t wait to have more culinary adventures in the remaining weeks of my trip! And, by the way, I’m not losing any weight. Quite the opposite, actually.