BBC article: To the People, Food is Heaven
This was a recent gig for BBC StoryWorks, a soft power fluff piece on Chinese cuisine paid for by Xinhuanet, the biggest media organisation in China. I also commissioned the photography and illustration. See the original here (not viewable in UK due to advertising restrictions). Photo by Liz Phung
China is the home of 1.4 billion foodies. That might seem like hyperbole, but in the world’s most populous country, food culture is simply just culture. The art of cultivating, cooking, and eating food is profoundly interwoven with what it means to be Chinese, whether you’re a farmer, a factory worker or a tech billionaire. In the capital Beijing, the phrase chī le ma? (have you eaten?) is how friends and neighbours greet one another. Food is business, pleasure, health and happiness. Food is life. It’s the glue that binds all Chinese people together, no matter their background, social circle or bank balance.
Food is Adventure
China is undeniably vast, a tapestry of some 34 provinces and regions; encompassing mighty mountain ranges and rivers, rainforests, grassland, deserts and coast. When the sun sets on the eastern edge of the Great Wall, it takes almost two hours until it dips behind its far-western reaches along the old Silk Road into Central Asia. When rice farmers in straw hats sow their seeds in southern regions such as Guizhou, thousands of kilometres to the north in icy Heilongjiang, fur-clad fisherman are cutting holes in ice to net their catch.
China’s incredible diversity of climate and terrain, upon which civilisation has flourished for thousands of years, equals a seemingly endless spread of cuisines and dishes. Journey south to Guangdong and you’ll encounter the tradition of breakfast dim sum served from creaky carts piled high with pork shaomai dumplings, steamers of ‘phoenix claws’ (aka chicken feet), sweet custard tarts and other delicate treats, all washed down with copious cups of tea. Over in China’s Sichuan basin, everything from noodles to tofu to bullfrog are served up with a one-two punch of ‘ma la’ - the marriage of chilli heat (la) with the mouth-numbing tickle (ma) of Sichuan peppercorns. In coastal Qingdao, heaps of stir-fried clams are washed down with the city’s famous beer. In arid Gansu, Hui Muslim chefs twirl bunched ribbons of chewy wheat noodles before serving them in beef broth, while in far-flung Yunnan, jutting up against Laos, Vietnam and Myanmar, you could slurp fragrant rice noodles for every meal and nobody would raise an eyebrow.
Food is Celebration
In China, where feasting is a way of life, the table is so often the setting for life’s many milestones and memorable occasions. Every Chinese New Year, the world’s largest human migration takes place, as millions make the journey home to celebrate with loved ones. For many working families scattered like seeds across the country, it’s the one occasion annually when they all come together, which makes the ‘Reunion Dinner’ on Chinese New Year’s Eve one of the most cherished meals of the year. The feast typically features auspicious dishes aplenty, including fish (yú) which sounds like the word for surplus; and dumplings, prepared and wrapped communally, which promise wealth and good fortune by their resemblance to old silver ingots.
Most meals throughout the year in China are served family-style, where communal dishes are shared between diners. Eating this way is an expression of community and togetherness, even when just partaken by a few friends, classmates or colleagues. The joy of shared dining is best embodied in interactive food experiences like huoguo, (hotpot), where diners cook their own food by scalding raw meat, vegetables, tofu and other ingredients in a bubbling cauldron of soup. These can be wickedly spicy, like Chongqing’s famous sweat fest, or more austere like Beijing-style shuan yang rou, where slices of hand-cut lamb are cooked in a clear broth then dunked in sesame sauce before eating.
Food is History
Many famous Chinese dishes have a profound link with the past. In the 14th century, Peking duck was an Imperial dish, the food of emperors. It’s likely the recipe found its way into well-heeled residences and restaurants. Some of these would become household brands known as laozihao. Bianyifang, a famous Peking duck laozihao with branches throughout the capital, was established in 1416. Quanjude, another laozihao established four centuries later, pioneered the technique of roasting ducks by hanging them in open ovens over the wood of fruit trees to impart aromatic flavour into the meat, and wrapping the meat in thin wheat pancakes.
Other well-known dishes have whimsical legends attached to them. Yunnan’s much-loved ‘Crossing-the-Bridge’ noodles, served with a layer of oil atop the soup to keep it warm, is said to have been created for a scholar by his wife. He was studying for his imperial exams on a small islet where his wife would bring him food, but by the time she had crossed the bridge the soup would be cold. The oil was added as insulation. There are countless other such dishes, from ‘beggar’s chicken’ to ‘husband and wife lung slices’, where to eat them is to journey back into Chinese folk history.
Historically, food has also been inseparable from Chinese medicine and health. During the Tang Dynasty (618–907), many texts were produced about the Tao of eating, covering diet, nutrition and food therapy. Then, as now, the Chinese believe that the way to holistic health and wellbeing is through your stomach.
Food is Diversity
Universal use of chopsticks and seasonings like soy sauce have fuelled the misconception outside China that its cuisine is homogenous. In fact, China’s patchwork of food regions is similar in size and has a diversity of taste and techniques approaching that of the countries of Europe. In the wheat belt of the dry, colder north, dense breads, chewy noodles and dumplings dominate, along with stewed meats and preserved foods. A love of yoghurt in the north comes courtesy of the pastoral Mongolians and Manchu peoples formerly of the grasslands beyond the Great Wall. In the far west on the Himalayan plateau, Tibetan cuisine is based around tsampa (a staple of roasted barley flour) and milk tea enriched with yak-butter.
In contrast, China’s well-watered southern climes are dominated by rice, a huge abundance of produce and seafood, and an obsession with fresh ingredients and culinary perfection. Huaiyang cuisine, in the lower reaches of the Yangtze, is as artistic and sophisticated as the sculpted gardens of Suzhou. In once-remote regions like Yunnan, home to dozens of distinct ethnic groups, locals dish up everything from edible flowers to rare mountain mushrooms; even fried goat cheese. Historically, Chinese food is subdivided into the ‘Eight Great Cuisines’, but in practice, the regional differences can be broken down much further. Every place – even small towns – are famed for certain produce, from walnuts to watermelons. Some places are attached to a signature dish, such as the soup dumplings of Shanghai, or jingde chicken in Jingdezhen, birthplace of Chinese porcelain.
China’s bounteous diversity is even visible in its landscape. Millennia of food production has shaped the country itself. The spectacular rice terraces of Guangxi, farmed for centuries, cascade down mountainsides like the scales of a dragon. Similarly sculpted are the tea mountains of Zhejiang, or the grasslands of Inner Mongolia fashioned by the migrations of millions of herding animals.
Food is Heaven
A well-known Chinese epithet goes: ‘Mín yǐ shí wéi tiān’ (民以食為天) - “To the people, food is heaven”. Even though the line comes from an ancient text written some 2000 years ago in the Han Dynasty, today it rings truer than ever. The speed of change over the last half-century in China has been breathless, but one thing that has remained constant is China’s cultural connection with food. Even though a Chinese city today might look quite unrecognisable compared to how it once did, its unique food identity in the form of produce, provenance and dishes remains as robust as ever. In fast-changing China, food is one of the most important anchors to a sense of cultural identity. A love, appreciation and understanding of food defines what it is to be Chinese, and no matter what happens in the future, that is never likely to change.