Food and the Chinaman

Horowhenua Chronicle, 18 July 1910, Page 4

Food and the Chinaman

A MEAL m A STRANGE JjJASTBB-N-HBSTAURAINT.

(London Daily Express Correspondent.) Ait- first tho stranger in Poking yearns for the pastures which he has Wt belvind him in the West, ami lie wonders how long he cam endure. Hut if ho is wise he learns to stifle imagination and olioke desire for cleanliness; he then ceases to care that the staff of life is soiled and

:lirt-encrusted, his olfactory origans become, as those of the Chinese, impervious to had odours, and fro eats

simply because he has to. In "the matter of fowl a Chinaman's taste is unique and entirely his own. He admits no other standard. He favours the worship of ancestors in his religion, .and apparently has a taste for the antique in his 'food. For everything has a vague flavour of tho past, andl suggests the idea that you are dining off

the relics of a museum. In your own 'house you make an attempt to superintend the boiliivg of water, which is otherwise dangerous to drink, and you eat with' a certain feeling of securnty that aUJ is well. But in a. restaurant your uneasiness returns, and you are filled with strangs misgivings. Consequently it was with no little trepidation that we accepted an invitation to dino at a Chinese restaurant the other evening, though it proved to he on eiifiuiry one of tho best that Peking oftWs—it'he resort of mandarins, scholars, and men of business. THE ENTRANCE. The manager and his staff, in long crumpled bluo linen coats, received us each separately in a curious, jerky fashion, bending at the knees and waist. Then the head boy, a pockmarked, lanky fellow, took us into an uncanny-looking passage, winch felt as if it led to it he den or forty thieves. However, after feeling out way cautiously for an interminable minute, and stumbling over steps in the dark, we eventually climbed down through a small circular owning in the wall and saw, by the light of "an ornamental, red-tasselled lantern, our host and his guests assembled in a room beyond. From here.

as there were no doors, it was easy though not expedient, >to see into the regions whence issued the odours of cooking, and where a host of mgtailod grimy creatures prepared the delicacies of the eveninp. In one corner of the room wns an opium divan covered in dark blue linen, while a dozen low wooden stools Aver© placed near a small round table. This latter, bare of olotili, was littered with sweetmeats and set

for seven people. After the customary salutations and introductions, anr host genially waved us to he seated and to partake of such appetisers as mot our fancy. Before naoh of us lay a minute plate, bowl, and miseroscopic cup, from which to chunk .the hot rice wine served throughout the. meal. There were also a pair of ebony and silver chopsticks, an ebony two-pronged fork, and a round-howled, long-ha milled spoon resembling a soup ladle. Underneath every plate were a dozen tiny squares of coarse pap&r on which to "wipe our chop-sticks, after dipping them in one or other of the two eirps of hot water set for the Diirpose. When the water resembled soup it was replaced by a fresh supply, but this must have been a purely European innovation, 'for T noticed ou.n host dispensed with the water altogether, and only occasionally wiped his chop-sticks on the papers. BEST PART. On looking back upon the meal, it seemed to me that the <best part of it was that which was now set upon the table. There were, plates of roast melon seeds and peanuts, of fresh nuts in sugar; there were sweetmeats of lotus root, which looked like fondants an dtasted like the food of the unearthly; there, were squares of apricot jelly, hard, watery pears, oranges which had been soaked in water and made bitter, and small green bananas about the size of a pea pod. There were, too, ra-w beans soaked in oil, onions, pulverised meats, and unnamed salads. After a polite twenty minutes < had passed in sampling these confections, our host, with a queer sucking-in noise and spoon uplifted, cordially invited us to dip with him into bhe c«ntnal bowl. It looked like a white soup, but proved to he stowed) sweet potatoes. Havng secured a spoonful, it was no easy matter to get rid of it, for the top edge of the spoon caught the end of your nose. Consequently there was nothing to do but to lick out the bowl as gracefully as possible or throw what remained into a cup of hot water. After this plate after plate l and hovrl after howl followed each other in bewildering succession. And each time we helped ourselves simultaneously, or our host graciously selected a choice morsel and put it on our plates with his own chop-sticks. MANY SENSATIONS. One moment wo were eating ducks' eggs whoso blackened l , lime-flavoured whites indicated that their age was unimpeachable; the next we were grappling with sea weeds, macaroni, and the slippery sharks' fins that eiiided our clumsily manipulated sticks. Now we tackled—not w'thout fear—unknown mea.te and vegetables cooked in sugar, ■fresh shrimps mushrooms from Mongolia, young bamboo sprouts, pigeons' eggs, and a hundred , different foreign-tasting messes. Then clean ipktes were given to us, and ibawls of sickly syrup, sweet potato, and Indian corn cakes of dusky hue were set before each one. These were only crevice fillers, and concluded the first and lighter portion of the repast. Now came the real substantial meal, wherein every dish had an accompaniment of smaller ones, containing gravies, etc., in which to dip the morsel taken from the central bowl. There was stewed duck cooked without salt, roast sucking oig, forcemeat balls and chicken; there were soups of 'birds' nest, of mushroom, of vegetables, aiid of sea slugs. There was grilled fresh-water fish, which, according to custom, was helped from the top side only, tor the Chinaman remembers ihis servant. And, finally, at the conclusion the inevitable small "bowl of nice and rice water was set 'before each person. After some three hours, with a feeling of thankfulness that all was over pipes, cigarettes, and tea were served, and it seemed to me that the delicious aroma which rose from the latter soothed oinr sense and almost dispelled the antipathy that had been growing on us for all things Chinese.