CHINESE COOKERY.

Lyttelton Times, Volume IX, Issue 587, 19 June 1858, Page 3

CHINESE COOKERY.

The special correspondent of the ' Times' in China seems to prefer Chinese to English cookery. He gives an amusing account of a Chinese dinner served for the behoof of a select party of Europeans.

- "In cookery the Chinese hold a middle position, below the French and above the English. There is a certain degree of philosophy in a ! Chinaman's smallest act—he never does anything for which he cannot give a reason. He sees an especial connexion between cookery and civilization—wherein he agrees with some great names among ourselves—and he conceives that the English must be very low in the intellectual scale, and must hold their high rank only by brute force. An Englishman's mode of feeling is, says John Chinamen, the nearest approach to that of the savages of Formosa. He does the chief work of the slaughter-house upon his table, and he remits the principal work of the kitchen to his stomach. 'In remote ages, before we became civilized,' a polite Chinaman once informed me, ' we used knives and forks, as you do, and had no chopsticks. We still carry a knife in our chopstick-case; but it is a remnant of barbarism; we never use it. We sit down to table to eat, not to cut up carcases.' "

The correspondent himself gave the dinner, at the sign of " The Gallery of the Imperial Academician," in Ningpo. The party consisted of himself, a Chinese master of ceremonies, and four Englishmen and their wives. The diningroom was open on one side to the street, and crowds of Chinese had collected to see the barbarians dine. They ate by the aid of chopsticks and porcelain spoons.

" The table was laid with the preliminary trifles, provocatives to the coining repast. There was a small square tower built up of slices from the breast of a goose, a tumulus of -thin square pieces of tripe, hard-boiled eggs of a dark speckled color, which had been preserved hi lime, and whose deiicacy is supposed to be proportionedto their antiquity; berries and other vegetable substances preserved in vinegar,' a curious."pile of some shell-fish to me unknown, wnicli had been taken, from its shell and cut in thin slices, prawns in their natural, or' rather in their artificial red state, ground-nuts, ginger, and candied fruits." ";

_ Then came the serious business. " The first dish was, in accordance with all proper precedent, the birds-nests soup. I believe some of us were rather surprised not to see the birdsnests bobbing about in the bowl, and to detect no flavour of sticks or feathers or. moss. . . .'.

Their existence at table is apparent in a thick mucilage at the surface of the soup. Below this you come to a white liquid and chickens' flesh, It was objected that this was a fade and tasteless delicacy." Sauces were handed round to flavour the mess.

"The next course was expected with a very nervous excitement. It -was a stew of sea slugs. As I have seen them at Macao they are white, but as served at Ningpo they are greeu. During the discussion of this' dish our Chinese master of the ceremonies • solemnly interposed. We were neglecting the rudiments "of politeness. No one had yet offered to'intrude one of these sleek -and savory delicacies, deeply rolled in sauce, into the mouth of his neighbour. Efforts

were made to retrieve the barbarian honor, but ■with ho great success? for the slugs were eva:sive, and the proffered mouthfuls were not always welcome.

" The next dish was sturgeon skull-cap—rare j and gelatinous, Irat I think not so peculiar in its { flavour arte excuse the death of several royal < 'fish. This dish being taken from its brazen,, lamp-heated stand, was succeeded by a stew of. shark fins and pork. The shark fins were boiled to so soft a consistency that they might have' t»een tnrbot _.ns. Next in order came a soup of balls of crab. " Meanwhile, the ministering boys flew and fluttered round the table; for ever filling the little wine-glasses with hot wine from the metal _>o'ts. There were three kinds, the 6trong sam«hu for every occasional •'spiked the medicated wine"; and something Tike sherry-negus. The quests asked for "bread," but "bread at a ■Chinese feast is contrary to the ' rites.'" "The next dish named was •* The Rice of meaning,l suppose, 'the foedof the genii,' for there was no rice in the composition. It was :a stew of plums and preserved fruits, whose sweets and acids were an agreeable counterpoise ♦to the-fish and meat dishes already taken. Then T-ve haS-a dish of a boiled hairy vegetable, very like that stringy endive which they call in _ ranee ' Barbe de Cap-chin"—then stewed mushrooms from Manchuria. Then we relapsed into another series of fish and meat entrees, wherein "vegetable of the vegetable marrow species and a toot somewhat between a horseradish and a turnip were largely used. There, was a bowl of ducks' tongues, -which are esteemed an exquisite Chinese dainty." So they continued until " nature could do no more"; the first untasted dish being the signal for the close of the feast. ; There were twenty more courses in reserve.

Then followed a curious part of the " rites." "" The master of the ceremonies now looked round him with a swollen and satisfied air, and—eruscit mons; from his mouth came forth a loud sonorous noise, which a certain dramatist has not scrupled to bedeck with knighthood, and to christen Sir Toby. He, the Chinaman, seemed proud of his performance. We sat uncomfortable on our chairs, did not know which way to look, and some of us would have run away had there been anywhere to run to. Some one who could speak his language gave him a hint which made him declare emphatically that it would be an insult to the founder of the feast if this testimony was not loudly given to the sufficiency of the entertainment and the pletion of the guests. It was with some difficulty that he was prevailed upon to turn over this chapter of the book of rites. And thus ended our Chines dinner.

" Of course, I do not affirm that this dinner was to bur tastes, but it was one to which education and habit might very reasonably incline a people. It was eminently light and digestible, and, like the Chinese themselves, very reasonable and defensible upon philosophic grounds, but somewhat monotonous, tedious and insipid."