Tag Archives: travel

Cuisine along China’s Grand Canal

A couple of years back, a good friend, or more precisely her publisher, suggested that she and I collaborate on a book about the cuisines of China’s Grand Canal. The Grand Canal is exactly what the name describes. It is indeed a canal and at just over 1800 kilometers long, makes a pretty solid caseContinue reading “Cuisine along China’s Grand Canal”

Celery and crab roe

—a love letter to umami Chinese food has exactly five flavors. That’s not just my opinion, it’s a formulation that appears in at least 2,500 years of Chinese food writing. The five flavors—sweet, salty, sour, spicy and bitter—are the essential, indivisible components of cuisine. Actually that 2,500 years is just the point that the fiveContinue reading “Celery and crab roe”

Chinese beef balls 牛肉丸

Ah the humble beef ball.  Subject of countless dirty jokes, smutty nicknames, and at least one trashy Hong Kong movie that makes liberal use of both. More than their lesser-known pork cousins, beef balls command a cache that makes them culturally iconic. That’s in part because they are scarce, at least the good ones.  ProperContinue reading “Chinese beef balls 牛肉丸”