Though you probably can't tell from the selection of most Chinese style restaurants in the US, there are at least four very distinct branches of Chinese cooking. Much of what is found in the US is Guangdong, or Cantonese style cooking, and includes well-known dishes such as dim sum. Guangdong province is in southeast China, and many of the residents of this area fled to the United States via Hong Kong or Taiwan during the turbulent periods of the communist revolution.
Hunan is grouped in the western style of Chinese cooking, along with Yunnan and Szechuan provinces. Often referred to as the land of rice and fishes, Hunan is covered with rolling green hills, and is lucky to be situated along the fertile region along the Yellow River and have a warm, wet spring. The province grows more rice than any other province in China. Since I lived in the XiangJiang River Valley, this information is primarily focused on this regional style of cooking, which emphasizes cutting style and includes such dishes at a fried, hot and spicy chicken, stir-fired tripe slivers, and dogmeat in hot pot.
Cooking Methods
Often the most time-consuming activity involved in Chinese cooking involves cutting and chopping all ingredients so they can easily be eaten with sticks. Then you need fire - be it under a wok, or under a vat of water to boil or steam something. Food is most commonly fried in animal fat (pig) or oil (fish), although peanut oil is used by some for it's healthier connotations and non-animal origins.
Bring on the la jiaoChili peppers are the most vital ingredient to Hunan cooking. Although Szechuan food is more well-known outside of China for it's heat-factor, Hunan cuisine is hotter. Szechuan food often calls for the use of chili bean paste, while in Hunan the entire pepper is used, fresh and dried, pith, seeds, flesh, and all. Hunan girls are even referred to as "spicy beauties," renown for wiling away the rainy springs in a romantic reverie of heady chili smoke and pig's fat (it's good for your skin, they say).
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Hunan experiences wet, stormy springs, mind-blowingly hot summers (imagine central Texas with few air conditioners), and densely foggy, cool winters. It snows a few times each winter, when coal fires and industrial pollution reduce visibility to half a block. The weather is not unlike that of north/central Texas. Chili peppers are thus used to both cleanse the palate and to cope with the humid climate, as the spicy food helps dry out and cool down the body, making it easier to handle the heat and dampness.
Sometimes these two choice ingredients are brought together in one dish - pig fat fried in pig fat and peppers, served on a bed of tea leaves. Fat - of all animals - often takes it's place as the lead role in a dish, along with a healthy dose of oil, green onions, cilantro, garlic or ginger, and soy sauce/vinegar. Vinegar, by the way, is a folkloric symbol for jealousy - and those who eat lots of vinegar (like me) are said to be very jealous. |
Peppers, originally brought to China by Portuguese traders. |
Thankfully, garlic, or the "big sour," is also a vital part of Hunan cooking. Spurned by Buddhist monks for it's ability to rouse the passions, and known for it's health-promoting characteristics, a small plastic grocery bag can be filled to bursting with fresh, peeled garlic for a quarter.
Cooking with Tea
Tea is not only for sipping. It is featured prominantly in dishes with pork, pork fat, or eel, and is a common filling for steamed rolls (baozi). The slightly crispy, fried tea leaves which accompany a popular pig fat dish is quite good, if you're in the mood, but the tea leaf baozi are always a horrible surprise, as there are often sticks included, free of charge. Baozi, by the way, are a delicious way to start the day. Sweet or sour, filled or plain, my favorite is filled with peanuts and granulated sugar. Be careful of the meat baozi, as after you bite into the center you might be splashed with grease that has been trapped on the inside. Bite carefully, and let the excess grease drip on to the ground to avoid making a mess.
Tea is also used in smoking meats or boiling eggs. Making tea eggs is easy - just throw a little loose tea in with the boiling water.
Spices for sale at SouYou market, Yunnan. |
Noodles (mien)
The Chinese have been eating noodles since the Han dynasty (206 BC - 220 AD), and some even believe Italy's culinary heritage was jump-started when Marco Polo brought pasta to Italy from his travels in the east.1 Noodles are inexpensive - you can often find a big bowl for 4-8 kuai (less than a dollar), and it's a popular breakfast. Walk down an alley in the early morning, and you are sure to see people of all ages starting their morning over a steaming bowl of noodles, more often than not, slurped quickly with a few friends or classmates while perched on a tiny pink plastic chair with cartoon kitties, or a little wooden stool which reaches about 18 inches from the ground. Though noodles can be found in a variety of dishes and styles throughout China, the basic noodle dish in Xiangtan consists of long, uncut noodles (to symbolize long life) in a thin soup of chicken broth, with a generous helping of green onions, minced garlic, and dried chili peppers, and a few thin, inch long slices of pro-cooked beef that has been marinating in a greasy chili pepper sauce. One of my favorites is a little lighter on the chili grease, and consists of the noodles and spices being topped with a fried egg instead of beef. |
Italian style pastas can be found in large supermarkets in Changsha, such as in the French franchise Carefour (this place also has cereal and cheese!!), although a Chinese version of a nice spaggetti or alfredo sauce can be approximated with fresh Chinese style wheat or rice noodles. Just in case you were curious...
Dumplings (jiaozi)
Jiaozi shouldn't be confused with wonton. These steamed Chinese dumplings are often filled with meat and vegetables, such as beef or pork and green onion. They have thicker "skins" of dough than wonton and are served with vinegar and chili paste dipping sauce. Eaten most often around the holidays, they are nonehtheless available year round, all day long. A plate or steamer basket of about a dozen jiaozi can be bought for 4-6RMB (50-75 cents) in most small, family-owned open-air restaurants.
This is really the only Chinese food I ever miss, in part because of the massive quantities of aged vinegar I could eat with each and every dumpling, and the lack of grease or oil involved. I ate dumplings every day. Delicious.
Dumplings are very easy to make at home. See step by step instructions with images on glogger.
Rice Dishes (fan)
Rice dishes make up pretty much every other Hunan dish - as anything but noodles and dumplings is served with rice, although this often comes at the end of a meal to "fill up," as it is a way for the host to show their affluence and generousity by providing the choicist dishes first, and plain rice only as an afterthought.
Common dishes to eat with rice include fried vegetables, such as baicai (white cabbage), or a spicy, cumin flavored ground beef similar to what fans of Tex Mex will immediately want to throw into a taco with gobs and cheddar cheese, sour cream, and guacamole...
To simplify, making XiangJiang River Valley rice dishes involve pretty much anything that can be cut and eaten, fried together with the above mentioned spices, and served with rice. Eggplant and bell peppers are particularly delicious served in this manner.
SouYou, Yunnan |
And now, for a little creativity...
As you can see to the left, eating dog is not just a stereotype or a joke. While it's becoming less acceptable as people start to view dogs as pets, dog is still served often, and I can tell you why: it's delicious. Dog meat can also be bought in corner stores in vaccum sealed packs, but one of the most popular dog dishes serves up the meat in a hot pot with rice noodles. Hot pot (huagua) is a large bowl heated over the process of a meal by a small flame, often set into the table at specialty restaurants, or part of the aparatus. Like at a fondue restaurant, sides of uncooked vegetables or meat are ordered and poured into a thin broth with ample garlic and spices. The animal rights movement has not yet struck in China. Dog meat in particular is thought to be more delicious when the meat is flooded with adrenaline just prior to death. In order to accomplish this flavor, the dogs are shocked with some sort of intense pain before being slaughtered, which causes a rush of the hormone to fill the muscles. This is often accomplished by submerging the live dog in boiling water, or by pouring the contents of a steaming kettle over the dog, in addition to whatever beating or striking that may be seen fit. Frogs, snails, snakes, turtles, crabs, shrimps, and all manner of aquatic creatures, insects, rats, rabbits, moles, birds, and all parts of the animal are eaten (such as feet, neck, or organs), in addition to beef, poultry, and pork. The only thing I haven't seen eaten that is alive around here is bats. There are tons of bats, but they must be too quick to catch. |
Do not forget! Try the Yangshuo snails! Superior Taste! Number one cultural value!
In XiangTan, eels are a common food eaten in restaurants or from street vendors - fried with chili peppers, garlic, and oil, or served with noodles. They are my least favorite food to encounter because of the way that vendors prepare them, and their popularity in little alleyways, always seemingless next to the steamed bun man I am trying to buy breakfast from.
An eel deboning set-up |
Each vendor has four basic supplies in addition to cooking apparatus: a plastic bowl with live eels from flooded rice fields (not the river), a plank of wood, a knife, and a nail or stud.
From the squirming eels one is selected and held to the wooden board. A stud is driven through it's head, the eel is slit open, and with a horrifying zipper-like noise the eel is deboned in one movement. The vendors will often perform a flick, and if you're walking by at the wrong time you could find yourself generously decorated with eel blood. It is for this last reason that I am particularly leery of eels. |
1. "Chinese noodles" About: Chinese cuisine by Rhonda Parkinson