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Taranaki Central Press, Volume IV, Issue 310, 16 December 1936, Page 8

ART OF LIVING

If there is anything we Chinese are. serious about, n is neither religion! nor learning, out loou, u rites Lan lutang in "My Country and M> r'eopie W e openij acclaim eating as one oi the len oi this human n.e. I'lie udterence oi attitude regarumg tne problem oi lood is represented in c-urope i\\ toe i'rench and the ciigiisli. 1 h t ‘ r rencli eat entnusiasmany while the English eat apologetr ui'ij. IHe ciniiese national genius leans towards the French in the matter 01 leeoing ourselves. lhe danger oi not taking lood seriuusiy aiiu allowing it to degenerate into a slipshou business may be studied in the English national hie. 11 they had known any taste lor lood their language would reveal 1U lhe English language does not provide a word lor “cuisine” ; they call it just “cooking” 'they have no proper word lor •ciiei': they just call him a ‘cook' lhey may be willing to say ol a pudding that it is “awfully good”—but there they let the matter rest. Now H a pudding is good it is good for some definite reasons, and about these problems the Englishman does not outlier himself. .

Now the first condition of learning bow to eat is to talk about it and exchange opinions on it. Only in a society like the French and the Chinese wherein people of culture and refinement inquire after their cooks’ health, instead of talking about the weather, can the art of “cuisine” be developed- No food is really enjoyed unless it is keenly anticipated, discussed, eaten and then commented upon. Scholars should not be afraid to write \essays on culinary art as the Chinese scholars do. Long before we have any special food, we think about it, rotate it in our minds, anticipate it as a secret pleasure to be shared with soma of our closest friends, and write notes about it on our invitation letters tike the following: ‘‘My nephew has just brought some special vinegar from Chinkiang and a real Nanking salted duck from Laoyuchai Long before the autumn moon rises, a real scholar, like Li Liweng as he himself confesses, would plan and save money for the crabs, decide upon a historical place where he could have the crab dinner with his friends under the mid-autumn moon or in a wilderness of chrysanthemums, negotiate with some of his friends to bring wine from Governor 'faun Fang’s cellar, and meditate upon it as th© English-medi-tate upon their champion sweepstake number. We Chinese are unashamed of our eating. We have “Su Tungp’o pork” and “Kiang beancurd.” In England a Wordsworth steak or Galsworthy nutlet would be unimaginable. Wordsworth sang about “simple living and mgii thinking”, but he failed to note that good lood, especially fresh-cut bamboo shoots and mushrooms, count among the real joys of simple rural life.

Two principles distinguish Chinese cooking from European cooking. One is that we eat food for its texture, the elastic or crisp effect it has on aur teeth, as well as for fragrance, flavour and colour. A great part ot tile popularity oi bamboo shoots'is due to tne tine resistance the young shoots give to our teeth. But more important is the tact that the bamboo sprout lends flavour to meat (especially pork) cooked wi .. it and, on the other Hand, it receives the llavour oi the pork itself. This is our second principle, that oi mixing flavours, upon winch the whol. culinary art of China depends. No one, lor instance, knows How cabbage tastes until he has lasted it when properly cooked with cmciien, and the chicken flavour has gone .nto the cabbage ami inc can •mge flavour lias gone into the chicken.

Hum this principle ol mixture, an) uiimuei .jI tiufc and delicate flavourings can l>u produced \v nen Chinese see, in a foreign dinner, vegetables like spinach or carrots cooked separately and then served in tile same pfate with pork or roast goose they smile me Uarli.Us The Chinese are bad ’angelists, but they have a ricn store oi lumens aim wonderful recipes to teach the West, when the West, is deary andxhumbk enough to learn them. It is unlikely that this will be soon, for we have no gunboats, and even if we had we would never care to go up the Thames or the Mississipi and shoot the English of the Americans into Heaven against their will. Nevertheless, any nation that does not know how to eat and enjoy living as we do is uncouth and uncivilised in our eyes. For in China the art of living is second instinct and a religion; and the spiritual values have not been separated from the material values, but rather help —as in our wholehearted concentration on food- in a keem-i enjoyment of ide as it falls to our lot