Everyone's Asking about Food

I've received several questions about food. Food is plentiful, spicy, and good! We have been served chicken feet, but it is much more common to eat small pieces of meat chopped up with vegetables in stir-fried dishes.

Wheat and corn are more plentiful in the northern part of China - so noodles and dumplings are prevalent there. We were taken to a banquet in Xian where the meal consisted of 18 different courses of dumplings! Several dumpling courses were shaped consistent with their filling (e.g. shaped like a duck, shaped like a walnut).

In southern China where we are, rice is more plentiful. With the current world rice shortage, farmers are being encouraged by the government to grow two seasons of rice. (Historically, they've only grown one.) The rice fields are very small plots of land, carved out in whatever space they can find among rivers, roads, and hills. Rice is planted and harvested by hand. It would be very hard to mechanize. I have been told that rice straw can be fed to livestock (which is different than the straw I am familiar with from wheat, rye, flax, or oats).

In our town (Beibei), it is hard to find dairy products. Cheese is unheard of. Milk comes primarily in powdered form with sugar already added. We can get wonderful yogurt, however, and use that for our dairy fix.

There are few "ethnic" restaurants in Beibei. In other words, you can eat wonderful, inexpensive Chinese ($2-3) everywhere, but not Mexican, Indian, Thai or Japanese. We have heard there is one Korean restaurant in town, so Jim and I are going to seek that out. Kentucky Fried Chicken is here, but that's it for American food.

There are several Muslim cafes. The one we've eaten at is owned by a family of an ethnic minority of China called Uighur. The food is stir-fried, very spicy (which I love), but the spice does not taste like the red pepper taste of Sichuan nor the cumin taste of curry. Maybe when my Chinese gets better I can ask them what it is.

Fruits and vegetables are plentiful. Small shops exist in every other doorway. Rural people truck or bike to town with their produce. Some walk, with the produce hanging from a pole stretched across their shoulders. They then sell their produce along any city street, sidewalk, or on bridges.

Grocery stores are fascinating! I can spend hours in them, just looking at the packaging and trying to figure out what's inside. The main grocery store I go to has live fish and frogs in tanks. Haven't bought either yet.

There are several good bakeries. Jim and I buy croissants to eat with our coffee in the morning. Other than a few times, we haven't gotten into the local custom of eating noodle soup for breakfast. (Connie)