No, American Chinese food is not real Chinese food. There is no such thing as Hunan Beef (served Stateside boneless and with broccoli). I traveled all over China, and never saw a single egg roll. Yet, Chinese food is fantastic, and my four years in Hengyang convinced me that Hunan food is indeed the best of all. Eating was one of my favorite pastimes, and without any exact calculations, I think the dishes below are what I ate the most often, on a typical day, at a typical restaurant. These are some of the foods I expect I'll always miss the most. Read on for what I consider the Ten Most Iconic Dishes of My China Life.
兰州拉面 Lan Zhou La Mian - Pulled noodles. I loved la mian from my first meal out in Changsha. In my Hengyang apartment complex, there was a little hole in the wall run by an adorable family. The signature food of the Chinese Muslim minority from Gansu Province, these noodles are made by hand from a large lump of dough twisted in the air into the appropriate shape - they can be thick or thin, long or flat, even sliced into strips or squares. They are then dropped into a pot of boiling water and herbs, before being quickly whisked out. All manner of toppings can adorn them, combining sauces, vegetables, and meats (except, notably, pork). When I traveled to Lanzhou, I was so excited to try these noodles at the source, but I found the spicy Hunan alteration appealed more to my taste.
饺子 Jiao Zi - Dumplings. Dumplings are a typical food for Chinese New Year celebrations, because they resemble the form of ancient money and thus bring good fortune, but they are just as common outside of Spring Festival. Meat fillings can include pork, beef, or lamb (but no chicken!), and vegetable fillings are usually mushrooms, onions, or cabbage. Dumplings come boiled, steamed, or fried. My favorite boiled ones were at 东北饺子 Dong Bei Jiao Zi, Olivia's mom's restaurant in Hengyang, that I dipped in a mixture of soy sauce, garlic, and hot pepper oil. For breakfast, I often ate the steamed dumplings at 沙县小吃 Sha Xian Xiao Chi, a popular chain, which always had bottles of 花生酱 hua sheng jiang, peanut sauce, and the famed 老干妈 lao gan ma, old grandmother sauce, on the table. Both Carl and Kim tried to teach me how to make dumplings, to no avail, and Olivia's mom's restaurant even held a private class for the International Department, but Lily was the pro.
米粉 Mi fen - Rice noodles. It took me a while to get there, but my favorite breakfasts of all time came from the shadiest sidewalk shop by my apartment, open-air with a cart inside. Affectionately dubbed "san-kuai noodles" for their next-to-nothing price, these are rice noodles of two styles - ban fen, thick noodles served dry or tang fen, thin noodles served in a soup - covered with oyster sauce, spicy oil, cooking wine, and spring onion slivers. The customer's choice of meats and vegetables can be added for a small price, including the local specialty, fish - 鱼粉, yu fen. (If you want just the fish head, 鱼头粉 yu tou fen, that's more expensive.) The best part of the noodle experience, however, is the condiment bar, at which one can add a slew of toppings to the noodles for free. My favorite additions were preserved green beans, seaweed slivers, and the stir-fried green peppers the grandma would bring me from the kitchen if the bowl was out. How sweet!
Greens. There are a lot of leafy greens in Chinese food, and most of them have names that translate to something like "the leaves from such-and-such mountain" or "the stems under the willow tree." Notable exceptions are 空心菜 kong xin cai, meaning "open heart vegetable" for its hollow stem, and 小白菜 xiao bai cai, what we call "bok choy." 白菜 bai cai itself is Napa cabbage. Greens abound, although they are usually swimming in a sea of oil and garlic (which is tasty). They are a cheap and healthy addition to any round-table dinner.
汤 Tang - Soup. Every Chinese round-table dinner is supposed to include soup, so it's a good thing there are so many varieties. There is standard chicken soup, of course, better than any I've had Stateside except Nani's. However, one can also drink chicken and dates soup, old duck soup, winter melon and clam soup, mushroom soup, white fungus and gogi berry soup, and my namesake, 海带汤 hai dai tang, seaweed soup. With the exception of white fungus and gogi berry soup, which is often served cold at the end of a massage, soups are served piping hot. They tend to be brothy. They can be salty or sweet; they can be served before a meal as an appetizer or at the end to aid in digestion. Like tea, there is often a medicinal purpose. They really help to warm you up in winter though.
火锅 Huo guo - Hot pot. Hot pot is found all over China, with regional variations. It's like Chinese fondue. A simmering broth is brought to the table (spicy, not, or divided half-and-half, in a yin and yang shape), and people choose a spread of raw meats and veggies to cook in it little by little. Lamb and dog are typical in the winter, as they are warming foods. Mushrooms are one of my favorite additions. Greens are always popular. Even rice sticks are an option. Hot pot is a little like art, as anything is possible, good and bad (Melody and I learned that the hard way). It's better than fondue.
鱼 Yu - Fish. Whole River fish, that is, served intact or cleaved in two. Picking a fish apart with chopsticks takes some getting used to, as does the elegant spitting out of bones, but the fish is stunning. Two of the most common preparations are 糖醋鱼 tang cu yu, sweet and sour fish, and 清蒸鱼 qing zheng yu, steamed fish, which is often drenched in ginger and soy sauce or peppers and garlic. Carp is the generic fish, which, with its flaky, mild flesh, is perfect for absorbing the sauce in which it is bathed. Yum.
猪 Zhu - Pork. Pig everything, really - in Chinese, the word "meat" (肉 rou) means "pork" unless otherwise specified. 回锅肉 hui guo rou, twice-cooked pork, and 红烧肉 hong shao rou, braised pork, are two of the most common preparations, but all parts of the pig are used, cooked an infinity of ways (though sweet-and-sour pork is generally confined to a tiny corner of the northeast). The latter, Chairman Mao's favorite dish, is essentially cubes of pork fat, glazed in caramelized sugar and rice wine. Pork fat is even used in "vegetarian" dishes, with and without tofu.
茄子和四季豆 Qie zi he si ji dou - Eggplant and green beans. Chinese eggplant is not like Italian eggplant. It's thinner and longer, and has a lighter flavor, in my opinion. It can be served a variety of ways - braised with crumpled egg yolks on top, ground up with century eggs and green peppers, sliced and grilled on a barbecue, or with potatoes and peppers in 地三鲜 di san xian - but the first style that pops into my mind is stir-fried with green beans. Sometimes the beans are left long, and sometimes they are cut into riciculously small chunks, but sitting in a slightly dark sauce atop a bed of rice, they are amazing. What a delicious way to get your veggies.
All of this is, of course, in addition to rice. In southern China, rice rules. 蛋炒饭 dan chao fan, egg fried rice, is an easy-to-find midnight snack, but it isn't nearly as common as steamed white rice, which seems to be everywhere, all the time, and utterly unescapable. Sigh. I could go on about the wonderful cauliflower and pork fat in garlic, peppers, and ginger, or the 西红柿炒鸡蛋 xi hong shi chao ji dan, tomato fried with egg, dish that is always a safety net for foreigners, but then this post would never end. There are whole other posts dedicated to duck and surprising foods for this reason. Suffice it to say, Chinese food, and Hunan food in particular, is a beacon of light in my gastronomic adventures.
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