Unit 9

Chinese Food

"Few things in life are as positive as food, or are taken as intimately and completely by the individual. One can listen to music, but the sound may enter in one ear and go out through the other; one may listen to a lecture or. conversation, and day-dream about many other things; one may attend to matters of business, and one's heart or interest may be altogether elsewhere... In the matter of food and eating however one can hardly remain completely indifferent to what one is doing for long. How can one remain entirely indifferent to something which is going to enter one's body and become part of oneself How can one remain indifferent to something which will determine one's physical strength and ultimately one's spiritual and moral fibre and well-being"

--Kenneth Lo

This is an easy question for a Chinese to ask, but a Westerner might find it difficult to answer. Many people in the West are gourmets and others are gluttons, but scattered among them also is a large number of people who are apparently pretty indifferent to what goes into their stomachs, and do not regard food as having any ultimate moral effect on them. How, they might ask, could eating a hamburger or drinking Coca Cola contribute anything to making you a saint or a sinner For them, food is quite simply a fuel.

Kenneth Lo, however, expresses a point of view that is profoundly different and typically Chinese, deriving from thousands of years of tradition. The London restaurateur Fu Tong, for example, quotes no less an authority than Confucius (the ancient Sage known in Chinese as K'ung-Fu-Tzu) with regard to the primal importance of food. Food, said the sage, is the first happiness. Fu Tong adds: "Food to my countrymen is one of the ecstasies of life, to be thought about in advance; to be smothered with loving care throughout its preparation; and to have time lavished on it in the final pleasure of eating."

Lo observes that when Westerners go to a restaurant they ask for a good table, which means a good position from which to see and be seen. They are usually there to be entertained socially -- and also, incidentally, to eat. When the Chinese go to a restaurant, however, they ask for a small room with plain walls where they cannot be seen except by the members of their own party, where jackets can come off and they can proceed with the serious business which brought them there. The Chinese intentions "are both honourable and whole-hearted: to eat with a capital E."

Despite such a marked difference in attitudes towards what one consumes, there is no doubt that people in the West have come to regard the cuisine of China as something special. In fact, one can assert with some justice that Chinese food is, nowadays, the only truly international food. It is ubiquitous. Restaurants bedecked with dragons and delicate landscapes -- serving Such exotic as Dim Sin Gai (sweet and sour chicken), and Shao Shing soup, Chiao-Tzu and Kuo-Tioh (northern style), and Ging Ai Kwar (steamed aubergines) -- have sprung up everywhere from Hong Kong to Honolulu to Hoboken to Huddersfield.

How did this come about Certainly, a kind of Chinese food was exported to North America when many thousands of Chinese went there in the 19th century to work on such things as the . railways. They settled on or near the west coast, where the famous or infamous "chop suey joints" grew up, with their rather inferior brand of Chinese cooking. The standard of the restaurants improved steadily in the United States, but Lo considers that the crucial factor in spreading this kind of food throughout the Western world was population pressure in the British colony of Hong Kong, especially after 1950, which sent families out all over the world to seek their fortunes in the opening of restaurants. He adds,, however, that this could not have happened if the world had not been interested in what the Hong Kong Chinese had to cook and sell. He detects an increased interest in sensuality in the Western world: "Colour, texture, movement, food, drink, and rock music all these have become much more part and parcel of the average person's life than they have ever been. It is this increased sensuality and the desire for greater freedom from age-bound habits in the West, combined with the inherent sensual concept of Chinese food, always quick to satisfy the taste buds, that is at the root of the sudden and phenomenal spread of Chinese food throughout the length and breadth of the Western World."

There is no doubt that the traditional high-quality Chinese meal is a serious matter, fastidiously prepared and fastidiously enjoyed. Indeed, the bringing together and initial cutting up and organising of the materials is about 90% of the actual preparation, the cooking itself being only about 10%. This 10% is not, however a simple matter. There are many possibilities to choose from; Kenneth Lo, for example, lists forty methods available for the heating of food, from chu or the art of boiling to such others as ts 'ang, a kind of stir-frying and braising, t'a, deep-frying in batter, and wei, burying food in hot solids such as charcoal, heated stones, sand, salt and lime.

The preparation is detailed, and the enjoyment must therefore match it. Thus a proper Chinese meal can last for hours and proceed almost like a religious ceremony. It is a shared experience for the participants, not a lonely chore, with its procession of planned and carefully contrived dishes, some elements designed to blend, others to contrast. Meat and fish, solids and soups, sweet and sour sauces, crisp and smooth textures, fresh and dried vegetables -- all these and more challenge the palate with their appropriate charms.

In a Chinese meal that has not been altered to conform to Western ideas of eating, everything is presented as a kind of buffet, the guest eating a little of this. a little of that. Individual portions as such are not provided. A properly planned dinner will include at least one fowl, one fish and one meat dish, and their presentation with appropriate vegetables is not just a matter of taste but also a question of harmonious colours. The eye must be pleased as well as the palate; if not, then a certain essentially Chinese element is missing, an element that links this cuisine with that most typical and yet elusive concept Tao.

Emily Hahn, an American who has lived and worked in China, 'has a great appreciation both of Chinese cooking and the "way" that leads to morality and harmony. She insists that "there is moral excellence in good cooking", and adds that to the Chinese, traditionally, all life. all action and all knowledge are one. They may be chopped up and given parts with labels, such as "Cooking". "Health", "Character" and the like. but none is in reality separate from the other. The smooth harmonies and piquant contrasts in Chinese food are more than just the products of recipes and personal enterprise. They are an expression of basic assumptions about life itself.

中餐

“生活中很少有什么东西象食物这样真切实在，或者说那么彻底的为个人接纳吸收。一个人可能在听音乐，但是音乐可以从一只耳朵进从另一只耳朵出；一个人可以在听讲座时胡思乱想；一个人可以在料理生意上的事务而他的心思和兴趣另有所属…….。而在吃饭就餐时，一个人几乎不可能长时间的对自己正在做的事完全无动于衷。一个人怎么能对即将进入身体并成为身体一部分的东西保持绝对的无动于衷呢一个人怎么能对即将决定自己体力以及最终决定自己的精神和道德品质以及幸福安康的东西无动于衷呢

——肯尼斯·洛

这是一个中国人常问的问题，而西方人却很难作答。在西方，很多人都是美食家，还有其他一些是暴饮暴食者，而混杂于这两者中间的还有一种对吃进肚子的食物漠不关心的。这些人也许会问，吃一个汉堡，喝点可口可乐就会变成圣人或罪人对于他们来说，食物就是一种能量。

肯尼斯·洛认却表达了一种截然不同的，典型的中国化的观点。这种观点源于从几千年中国文化。例如，一家伦敦餐馆的董福就引用了如同孔夫子（中国人陈这位古代圣人为孔夫子）的权威人士的话。圣者言，食乃是人生最大的幸福。董福还说：“食物对中国人来说是生活中的一大乐事，需要预先准备，需要精心烹饪，还要肯花时间去享受吃得乐趣。”

洛发现西方人进餐馆时都会要个不错的桌位，也就是自己可以看到他人，他人也可以看到你的好位子。他们去那里通常只是一种社交娱乐，同进附带着吃些什么。但中国人却不一样，他会选一个除了聚会成员谁都看不到的地方，这样他们可以很随便的脱掉外套，可以开始这件严肃的事情--吃饭，那才是他们来这的目的。中国人的意图“是高尚的，是全心全意的， 即吃饭是头等大事。”

尽管对于吃什么的态度很不一样，但勿庸疑置疑的是，西方人已经开始承认中国饮食的与众不同。实际上，他们可以很公正地断言，中餐是当今世界唯一真正意义上的国际饮食，它无处不在。从香港到火奴鲁鲁，从呼伯肯到韩兹弗尔德，随处看见刻有龙腾的图案和精致风景画的中式餐厅，经营者各种异国风味的糖醋鸡、绍兴汤、烧酒、锅贴（北方味）、和清蒸茄子等。

这是怎么回事呢十九世纪成千上万的工人去美国去做诸如修建铁路之事时，食物也随之传到了北美。他们在美国西海岸或靠近西海岸的地方定居，在那里知名的、不知名的“杂烩店”开始风靡起来，经营的都是些低档次的中国菜。在美国，这些餐馆的档次在稳步提高。但洛认为促使中餐在西方世界流行起来的关键因素在于英国殖民地——香港的巨大人口压力。特别是20世纪50年代以后，许多家庭都想到世界各地开餐管赚钱。他还说，如果世界对香港华人的烹饪和经营不感兴趣的话，也不可能发生这样的事情。他发现西方人越来越重视感观上的享受：色泽、质地、运动、食物，饮料以及摇滚乐，这些都成为大部分人生活中的重要组成部分。由于西方人这种与日俱增的感官享乐主义，与打破旧习获取更多自由的渴望，在加上中国饮食所固有的感知理念，很容易满足人的味觉，才使得中国饮食在全世界各地发展得如此迅速。

毫无疑问，一顿高质量的中餐是一件严肃的事情，制作考究，品位上乘。事实上，原材料的粗加工，拼摆，以及搭配约占实际准备过程的90%，而烹饪本身只占10%。但就那10%的过程也非易事，有各种方法可供选择。例如，洛就列举了40种食物烹饪的方法，从煮到煮沸的艺术到其它的方法如酱，一种炒加炖的方法；炸，（把食物放在）在牛油里在炸；还有煨，把食物埋在火热的固体如木炭、石头、沙子、盐或石灰下的煨熟。

准备工作十分详细，而美餐的享用自然也应与之匹配。因此吃一顿真正的中餐可能要好几个小时，其过程就像一次宗教仪式。它需要从那与这共同分享，而非各自份额任务，因为有一系列经认真策划、精心设计的菜肴，其中一些成分是用于调味，另一些则用于衬托。肉类、鱼类、炒菜、汤菜、酸汤甜汁、吹生生滑溜溜之物，鲜菜、干菜---所有这些以及其他，他们各局特色都在调我们的胃口。

在一次为首西方饮食思潮影响的中餐中，所有食品摆在餐桌上，犹如一种自助餐。宾客们可吃点这个，吃点那个。担任份饭是不会提供的。搭配合理的一餐至少应该包括一道鸡，一道鱼，和一道肉，而他们与适当的蔬菜搭配摆出也并非仅是味道的问题，也是要色泽搭配问题，味觉要满足，视觉也是如此。否则，一种本质上中国特色的东西，也就是是中华美食与那典型而林人难以琢磨的道家观念相联系的因素也就消失了。

艾米莉·汉，一个曾在中国生活和工作过的美国人，她十分欣赏中国烹饪和体现的道德与和谐的方式。她认为好的烹饪反映一种美德，而且她还认为，在中国人们的传统生活中，每个人的行为与知识都能达到一种合谐。他们虽可以被切割开来，分成部分，贴上标签，如“饮食”、“健康”及“特色”等等，但是实际上，没有一种能与其相分离。中国饮食中这种水**融和令人垂涎的相互衬映并不只是烹饪食物和个人生意的产物。它们是对生活本身的一种诠释。