Wow! Last night we sat down to eat at Heping Yiyuan, a favorite spot of WildChina’s guests for an elegant tea ceremony or lunch. Typically the eggplant that we make at home or get out at a Chinese restaurant– while deliciously flavoured–is a tad on the mushy side.

This eggplant was entirely different.

Slightly crisp on the outside and tender on the inside, it had the perfect amount of salt and sweet. I only wish that the picture could convey how lovely this dish was! For those you based in China or have traveled to China, you already know that the oft forgotten eggplant in North America is magically transformed in China into a delicious dish– even our pickiest clients– the seven year old boy who professed only to like rice in China quickly devoured this dish.

During your visit– or if you are a Beijing local– take a stroll through Ritan Park and pop in for a meal. WildChina is also offering a culinary tour throughout China, where you will be able to learn more about Chinese cuisine.

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Hungry? Take a look at China for Foodies for an unbeatable culinary experience!

Question?

Written by Mark Graham of South China Morning Post, the following article shares tasty traditions around China over winter solstice, which is generally celebrated in Hong Kong as a public holiday. From Chinese herbal soup to Eight-treasures sticky rice, here’s quick overview of the hearty treats often eaten on this cold day…

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In northern China, where lakes and canals are already frozen over, and minus 10-degree Celsius night-time temperatures are the norm for months to come, warming winter foods are taken very seriously.

Around China tonight, plates will be piled high as people mark the winter solstice.

The celebratory theme is the same across the nation, but the form varies by region. In the warmer southerly climes, the focus is on chicken, pork and fish, whereas in the north, it’s more about lamb stews, double-boiled soups and hearty dumplings.

In Cantonese tradition, people present a whole chicken to worship the gods and their ancestors, prior to cutting off the head.

That will not be an option this year, as the government started a chicken cull and three-week ban on the sale of fresh chicken yesterday.

A whole strip of pork belly is also presented before cooking.

Although nowadays winter solstice plays second fiddle to Lunar New Year, also known as Spring Festival, it was a major event in years gone by, when the nation took a day off for celebrations. It is thought to have its roots in the Han dynasty (206BC-AD220), when emperors and commoners offered sacrifices to their ancestors and the gods.

In the newly affluent China, the middle classes can afford the luxury of marking the date in the warmth of a hotel, ordering food that was well beyond the budget of the previous generation.

The Grand Hyatt in Beijing has a series of dishes prepared by chef Goh Wooi Cheat.

The temperature in the capital rarely rises above zero in winter and regularly drops to minus 15 degrees Celsius, leading to a big demand for hearty dishes.

“Winter solstice is the shortest day in the year and one of the coldest, so people drink soups with Chinese herbs,” says Goh, head chef at the Noble Court restaurant. “One of the favourites is double-boiled cordyceps soup with fish maw, sea whelk, white lotus seed and dried scallops. We chose this combination of ingredients to stimulate the immune system and improve kidney and lung functions.”

Goh hails from Singapore, where the tradition is to eat sweet dumplings at winter solstice. Dumplings, sticky rice and red bean desserts are popular in the southern parts of China.

Dumplings are another traditional winter solstice fare

Zhang Mei, who runs the adventure travel company WildChina, has celebrated winter solstice in different parts of the country, including her native Yunnan province in the southwest.

“We eat anything that is made of sticky rice. Eight-treasures rice is a favourite. It is considered heavy, in the sense that it is filling and usually hard to digest, but in winter people need to store more energy to combat against the cold, so heavy food is fine,” she says.

“It is also traditional to visit the graves of ancestors. It was a custom to burn paper clothes and money as a way of saying we are bringing you winter clothes into the other world, but now burning is not allowed, so we simply present paper clothes. Now people tend to be more flexible with the date.”

In days gone by, the slaughtering of a goat or lamb would have been part of winter solstice. Nowadays, city dwellers order from a restaurant menu particularly hearty stews and grills, or prepare chicken and dumplings .

Unlike southerners, northerners have no problem with the strong taste and pungent smell of lamb. One of the most popular snacks in Beijing at any time of year is chuaner, chunks of lamb, chicken or beef grilled over charcoal.

Goh is an enthusiastic fan of the meat claiming it is nutritious, tasty and healthy.

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Photo by Wang Dan

This note was written by Devin Corrigan, a WildChina tour leader & travel consultant who recently traveled to Mount Haba on an educational trip. Previously, he blogged about the fascinating lore associated with the mountain and the lively and diverse atmosphere he found in Haba village.

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During the first leg of the trek to the summit of Mount Haba, my guide, Xiao He, and I stopped for lunch in a quiet clearing in the pine forest we were passing through. I knew he had brought some food for both of us, but I had a large chicken sandwich packed in my bag in case I needed more fuel for the day.

Local guide Xiao He pauses to greet Naxi villagers just before the lunch break

As we made ourselves comfortable on the ground, Xiao He took out two plastic bags and handed me one. Inside, two massive pieces of fried flatbread that I recognized as baba were folded together, still warm. Baba, a wheat-based staple of the northern Yunnan diet, takes many forms; I’ve had it with tons of sugar cooked inside, and a pork version is popular as well. This baba was plain and lightly fried, giving it a slight crunch. A thin layer of delicious, rich oil on the surface left a pleasant aftertaste I couldn’t quite put my finger on.

He watched me eat for a few seconds and then said, “It’s walnut oil. We have plenty of walnuts! We make the oil from them and put it on the baba.”

“Ziji de,” he said with a grin. Our own.

This flatbread, known as baba, is a staple of the local diet

He tossed me two hard-boiled eggs. “These are the best eggs you can eat. They are from the chickens in my village. A lot of the eggs you get in cities nowadays are no good for you – these ones are fresh, with no additives.”

He was right. The eggs were mouth-watering, with soft, dark yolks and a taste that can only be described as it had been: fresh. The seemingly endless supply of walnut baba complemented the eggs nicely, and, needless to say, the sandwich stayed put.

A disk of compressed Pu-erh tea for sale at a tea market in Yunnan

It’s not often that one encounters a tourist souvenir that lowers cholesterol, promotes weight loss and protects against cancer, vascular disease, cognitive degeneration and aging – not to mention providing important nutrients like amino acids.

But tea is believed to have these virtues and recent research shows that certain types of Pu-erh tea from China’s Yunnan province have particularly potent levels of beneficial chemical compounds.

WildChina visits Pu-erh production areas in Yunnan on its trip ‘The Ancient Tea & Horse Caravan Road: An Expedition with Jeff Fuchs.’ Learning about the fascinating history of the ancient trade routes along which Pu-erh tea once traveled by horseback to Tibet is a highlight of many clients’ trips.

Another highlight is trekking in Yunnan through tea agro-forests and wild tea gardens where members of exotic ethnic minorities like the Bulang, Lahu and Akha have tended organic tea gardens for generations in the general area from which tea is believed to have first emerged.

In fact, it is believed to be these small-scale, natural growing practices which impart the best Pu-erh tea with heightened health benefits. Most tea in the world these days is produced in sprawling plantations, planted in neat rows in direct sunlight and often treated with chemical fertilizers, pesticides and other agricultural chemicals.

Not so with the finest Yunnan Pu-erh tea. To start with, it is not all produced from a genetically uniform crop. As we learned recently from the excellent book Tea Horse Road, Pu-erh is produced from a dozen wild cousins and hundreds of landraces of the Camellia sinensis plant – each particularly adapted to the climate of the particular hillside, or even grove, where it has traditionally been grown.

And instead of being grown in a tea monoculture, these trees (many reach an age of a few hundred years and a height of 50 or more feet) grow shaded from harsh sunlight in a natural ecosystem with hundreds of other plant, animal and insect species.

Thriving in their natural environment, agro-forest and tea garden trees produce higher levels of the beneficial compounds that first drew humans to start drinking tea, likely as a medical elixir, some three thousand or more years ago.

A study published last year in the Journal of Ethnopharmacology¹ compared Pu-erh from both terrace plantations and ecologically friendly agro-forests, measuring levels of tea catechins, flavonoid compounds that are thought to be beneficial to human health and are present to varying degrees in most non-herbal tea. The authors found that tea from the agro-forests had average catechin levels several times higher than the plantation tea.

So if you find yourself in southern Yunnan, relaxing after a day of trekking through ancient tea gardens and sipping on a cup of Pu-erh, you can feel good about the fact that a hike isn’t the only good thing you’re doing for your health that day. And don’t forget that a compressed cake packs great for the trip home.

1: See: Ahmed, et al “Pu-erh tea tasting in Yunnan, China: Correlation of drinkers’ perceptions to phytochemistry“, Journal of Ethnopharmacology 132 (2010) 176–185

Last week, WildChina had the opportunity to host Anissa Helou, the “internationally known food writer,
art collector, journalist, broadcaster, and one of the leading experts on the cuisines of the Mediterranean and the Middle East.”  She came to get a taste of what Chinese cuisine had to offer, and here is a portion from her blog…

a penis emporium – part 2 

“So, here are my tasting notes from my penis eating adventure. As I have already said, it was not a gastronomic experience but a fun and a very interesting one all the same. We ate in a private room and had our own dedicated waitress who, as you can see from the slightly hazy picture above, was very pretty. I wondered how she coped with male customers during and at the end of meals as they get more drunk and convinced of their increased strength — to become strong is the main reason for eating penis; strong is also the name or logo of the restaurant — but it wasn’t a question I felt I could ask despite being with two lovely Chinese friends who helped me find the restaurant and once there, decide what to order, translate, etc.

“The place is relatively expensive and however much I wanted to try the many different penises on offer, I did not want to spend a fortune. So, we settled on half a hot pot (one of the few you could order in halves) with lamb, stud ox, monkey and deer penis.

“And this is how our order came, with a bright red erect jelly penis in the middle! By the way, the long white bits at the front of the picture are spinal cord.

“Our waitress poached the bits of penis in a good turtle soup, kept bubbling on an induction hot plate, before serving them to us to dip in any one of three different sauces: a slightly lemony soy one, a sesame paste one and I can’t remember the third one. Perhaps because I didn’t like it.

“We started with the alpha male lamb penis. The texture was gelatinous with hardly any resistance. Some pieces were softer than others and had a slightly nicer mouth feel although I can’t say I was seduced.

“Then we had stud ox penis. I liked those pieces a little better. They offered a little more resistance and had a more interesting texture. Still, it was more like eating gristle than like eating a luxurious part of an animal.

“After that we had a slight respite and were served spinal cord which I love — I used to always order it in Lebanese restaurants in London until the BSE crisis put a stop to it being on the menu. They were nice, soft and velvety with the skin a little chewy, offering a good contrast to the melting inside. And luckily our delightful waitress did not overcook them.”

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Photos by Anissa Helou. To read the rest of Anissa’s blog, please click here.

The following piece is an excerpt from Templar Teas‘ reports around the world.  The author Jeff Fuchs is a writer, photographer, and expert of the Ancient Tea & Horse Caravan Road.

Beijing and its heaving dense world of sprawling space is losing much of what the previous generation calls the ‘culture of vital fluid’ – the culture of ‘tea’. Fewer and fewer tea shops – once abundant in the alleys and upon the great roads – are to be found which makes uncovering them something for me like discovering a gift. By a sad extension of this, the uncovering of good tea itself also becomes fleeting.

In the smallest recesses one can find the odd ‘cha dien’, tea stores that still cater to locals – less glitz but more substance, as the old saying goes. Barely lit at times, one enters an informal sanctum of tea in all of its desiccated forms. Apart from the huge tea market of Ma Lian Dao in the southwest of the city which is an entire urban landscape dedicated to selling tea, it is the small traditional tea houses that truly represent a passing moment in time.

One such shop in the massive Chaoyang district near the ever-expanding Liang Ma Qiao road in northeastern Beijing, needs luck or a friendly finger pointing the way to find it. Barely three meters wide and perhaps five deep the walls are lined with canisters, cakes, urns, bricks and errant tealeaves – a comfortable anarchy of tea resides here that warms the being with sips to come. There are no hints or aromas here – it is nothing less than being consumed with tea’s wafting fragrances. It is in these tiny temples of tea that one feels close to tea in its primal and very Asian form: it is something that occupies, fascinates and feeds. In its silence it reminds that tea is also treated as an almost honored friend. Unfortunately for most travelers in the unrelenting need for convenience, it is the tourist shops that trumpet teas that are little more than cosmetic masterpieces, with little substance that will get the attention.

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Photo by Tea Templar.  To read the full post, click here.

As noted earlier, China is already the world’s number-three destination for international travel. Many travelers nowadays have already made one or two trips to China, but more often than not, they’re visiting the coast, possibly venturing inward to check out the Terracotta Army in Xi’an.

But China is more than just a handful of sites in the country’s east. In fact, China’s west has just as much – if not more – to offer travelers who are looking for unforgettable experiences.

If you’re planning a China trip this year, we encourage you to look beyond the traditional travel destinations to China’s wild west. Here are some of our picks for places to visit in China’s west in 2011:

Yunnan: Land of diversity

Few places in the world pack as much variety into one area as the province of Yunnan, which offers a mind-boggling variety of landscapes ranging from jungle lowlands in the south to Tibetan highlands in the northwest.

Yunnan’s ubiquitous mountains have historically isolated groups of people from one another, which is one of the main reasons that the province has China’s highest number of ethnic groups. With 26 ethnic groups including Han, Tibetan, Dai, Bai, Yi, Hani, Hui, Mongol, Naxi, Lisu, Yao, Lahu and countless subgroups, Yunnan is a rainbow of different ethnic traditions, clothing and cuisine.

The mountain towns of Dali, Lijiang and Shangri-la are home to unique cultures whose lives are still steeped in ancient traditions. Down south in Xishuangbanna, tropical weather, tea plantations, spicy food and the lazy Mekong River await.

Guizhou: Still undiscovered

Guizhou Province may not attract as many visitors as its neighbors Sichuan, Yunnan and Guangxi, but it certainly deserves consideration when making plans to travel to western China. Beautiful mountain scenery and a distinctive spicy and sour cuisine are some of the highlights of a trip to Guizhou. But as in many other parts of China, the big draw for us is the people.

The Miao, Gejia, Dong and Yao villages in Guizhou’s mountains are home to some of Asia’s most unique cultures and friendliest, most welcoming communities. Many of our clients rank our Guizhou village immersions among their top China travel experiences.

Sichuan: More than pandas

Sichuan is one of China’s most distinctive provinces, known for its spicy food, stunning mountain scenery, beautiful women and China’s ‘national treasure’ – the giant panda.

Sichuan’s capital Chengdu is a modern metropolis set on the west end of the fertile Sichuan Basin, a region that kingdoms battled for in ancient times. Chengdu is considered the capital of Sichuan cuisine, one of the most famous and flavorful of China’s culinary traditions.

The historical importance of Buddhism to Sichuan is evident in Chengdu at the Wenshu Monastery, located in the city’s center. Not far from Chengdu lie the Buddhist holy mountain of Emei Shan and the world’s largest seated Buddha at Leshan.

Sichuan has fantastic natural beauty as well, with the mountain forests and fantastic aquamarine lakes of Jiuzhaigou in the north and gorgeous mountain scenery at Minya Gongga in the province’s west.

Xinjiang: Silk Road echoes

Xinjiang is simply massive. It comprises roughly one-sixth of China’s total territory and boasts some of the country’s most stunning mountains and deserts.

At the crossroads of Asia, Xinjiang has been home to many different ethnic groups, from the caucasoid peoples whose mummies date back to more than 3,800 years ago to the Turkic Uighurs who moved into the region from present-day Mongolia 1,100 years ago to today’s growing Han population.

Islam is the dominant religion in Xinjiang, where extremism is rare and moderation is the norm. Due to its location on the old Silk Road, Xinjiang has also been influenced by Buddhism.

For visitors to Xinjiang, the local cuisine is often one of most pleasant surprises. Featuring rich stews, tasty breads, a large variety of noodles from flat and wide to easily spoonable diced noodles and even salads, Xinjiang cuisine is a delicious world away from typical Chinese fare.

Sichuan cuisine is one of the most famous of China’s regional cuisines, but it’s difficult to get authentic Sichuan food outside of China unless you know how to make it yourself. For most Westerners, that’s a tall order if you don’t have a good Sichuan cookbook, which, if you do was likely written by Fuchsia Dunlop.

The first foreigner to study at the Sichuan Culinary Institute in Chengdu, Dunlop is the author of Sichuan Cookery, released in the US as Land of Plenty, one of the most thorough introductions to Sichuan cooking around and the subject of countless raves from book critics around the world. The London-based Dunlop has also published a Hunan cookbook and a book of memoirs of eating in China.

In addition to her writing, Dunlop is a consultant for the Bar Shu Group, which operates two of London’s most highly regarded Chinese restaurants. We spoke with Dunlop about her relationship with Sichuan cuisine:

What was it that attracted you to Sichuan food as opposed to other prominent Chinese cuisines?

Fuchsia Dunlop: It wasn’t a well-thought-out decision, as I hadn’t spent much time in China and didn’t know anything about its regional cuisines. But I visited Chengdu on holiday and fell in love with the city and its food almost immediately. That’s why I chose Sichuan University when I applied for my British Council scholarship. And when I got there the food was so amazing that I wanted to learn how to cook it.

During your time at the Sichuan Culinary Institute, what was more difficult: learning to cook authentic Sichuan food or learning the Sichuan dialect?

Fuchsia Dunlop: I suppose the dialect, and also learning the specialised written vocabulary of the Chinese kitchen, were the greatest challenges. Otherwise, the teaching was excellent and I enjoyed the cooking so much it didn’t seem hard.

What are the major challenges in introducing authentic Sichuan cuisine to London palates?

Fuchsia Dunlop: I don’t think there are any major barriers: I’ve always thought Londoners would love Sichuanese food, not only because it’s incredibly delicious, but also because the bold, spicy flavours of Thai and Indian cooking are so popular. And in my experience of cooking for friends and consulting for the Bar Shu restaurant in London, the flavours of Sichuan are completely accessible. The challenges lie mostly in getting hold of good seasonings, explaining new ingredients, and choosing your menus wisely – I wouldn’t offer stir-fried rabbit heads to Sichuan food novices, for example, and I’m always very gentle in introducing people to their first taste of Sichuan pepper!

Sichuan cuisine aside, which other regional cuisines in China do you consider to be among the best?

Fuchsia Dunlop: There is so much to choose from… I adore Cantonese dim sum, the delicate flavours of eastern China, northern noodles and dumplings, home cooking almost anywhere. But as an entire cuisine, I think Sichuan is still my favourite.

In more than 15 years of eating in China, are there any regional cuisines that you feel you still have a lot to learn about?

Fuchsia Dunlop: Frankly, I still feel like a beginner! I could spend the rest of my life researching Chinese regional cuisines and there would still be more to learn. China is so huge, and its culinary culture so diverse. That’s what makes it so interesting.

What would you consider to be a perfectly balanced Sichuan-style dinner?

Fuchsia Dunlop: It would have to fulfil the promise of bai cai bai wei, ‘a hundred dishes, a hundred different flavours’, which is to say that it would be deliciously varied, with many contrasting tastes, textures, aromas and colours. It would have to include fish-fragrant aubergines, of course – my all-time favourite dish – and a refreshing, light soup at the end.

In recent years you’ve showed increasing concern about the consumption of environmentally damaging dishes such as shark fin soup and endangered species – do you think Chinese eaters are becoming more conscious of the environmental impact of their eating choices?

Fuchsia Dunlop: In my experience people are more concerned with the health impact of eating polluted ingredients than with the effects of their diets on the planet and biodiversity. But I expect this to change as they become more aware of the issues. Some younger people already seem to be becoming more environmentally aware.

Fuchsia Dunlop image: Andi Sapey

This interview originally ran on GoChengdoo and is reprinted with permission. If you would like to travel China with your taste buds, check out our China for Foodies trip.

A few days ago, my colleague introduced Jen Lin-Liu as a chef, writer, and owner of the a restaurant in Beijing, Black Sesame Kitchen.  Tonight, I had the opportunity to go to BSK for dinner with a few friends…

The location is excellent- Just a few meters from the hip and trendy Nanluoguxiang, the restaurant is set in the home of a traditional hutong, which had been built in the early 13^th century.  Walking in, we used our cell phones as lights and had to be careful not to trip on the uneven pavement of the old courtyard.  Inside, the restaurant consists of two relatively small but cozy rooms.  One is a lounge of sorts (I imagine they use it for larger groups), and the other serves as a dining room and the kitchen.

I was with a party of about a dozen, and my friends and I sat literally a foot away from the kitchen.  The chefs cooked facing us as we ate and could described their techniques as each dish was prepared.

Being at the far end of the table, I walked up to get a closer look.

The chef – Chairman Wang, or Wang Laoshi as I called her, was this incredibly friendly older lady: short, wispy white hair peaked out from her tall, white chef’s hat and the smile wrinkles etched onto her face seemed to show her years of passionate work.

I asked her about specific ingredients she used, how she started cooking, and whether or not travels around China have influenced her cooking…her answers surprised me.

“I started cooking at age 8. My parents and brother all worked, I was home, we had to eat, so I had to cook,” she said.

“Were you a good cook, even then?”

She laughs, “I had to be! If I cooked bad food, everyone would yell at me!”

Our conversation then drifted from food to her life growing up in Beijing…She recalls how tumultuous the country was – how hard her parents worked to support her and her brother, how hard she studied in school for better opportunities.

She describes, “I was a senior in high school, all ready to graduate at age 19, but my classmates and I were forced to the nongcun or the countryside of Shanxi during the Cultural Revolution.” She said that however confusing that period was, she didn’t really question it – she and her classmates just moved because they had to, moved to do farm work because everyone else did.

(At this point, I am in the kitchen, grabbing the plates, and helping to serve the food so that I can hear her whole story as she stirs.)

“We lived in two sets of housing – one for men and one for women.  I shared a room with two others.  I toiled every day: Woke up, labored in the fields, came home when it turned dark, cooked, slept and did it again the next day. After two years, I was lucky enough to be the only one selected from our group to a different job at an electricity company. I had to work there for another five years and finally came home to Beijing in 1969.”

Wide-eyed me: “What a story! You were so fortunate to be the only one chosen to leave!”

“No, just hard-working, I think,” she modestly replies.

Who knew that a casual dinner would come with such insight into Chinese history…

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Nancy is a member of the marketing team in WildChina’s Beijing office.  Contact her at nancy.tan@wildchina.com. Photo from Black Sesame Kitchen.

While most of China is frozen or at least quite cold, there are still some parts of the country’s south that are enjoying shorts and t-shirt weather during the winter months. One of those is Xishuangbanna, a tropical region in southern Yunnan province that borders Myanmar and Laos. In addition to being a great place to skip out on winter cold, it also boasts some of China’s most delicious food.

Xishuangbanna is the traditional home of the Dai people, who are related to Thais. It takes its name from the Dai name for the place – Sipsongpanna – with ‘sipsong’ meaning ’12′ and ‘panna’ meaning ‘thousand rice paddies’. The resulting name, ’12,000 rice paddies’, acknowledges the region’s fertility and agricultural abundance.

Xishuangbanna’s wide selection of local fruits, vegetables, meats and grains is the source of one of the least-known but most-flavorful culinary traditions in China: Dai cuisine.

Chili peppers, cilantro and lime juice are where much of the flavor in Dai food comes from, but lemongrass, fermented soybeans and a cornucopia of herbs you won’t find anywhere are also used to create unforgettable taste sensations.

Dai cuisine is predominantly spicy and sour. It is similar in some ways to Thai cuisine south of the border, but it has its own distinctive identity and style. On a trip to the prefectural capital of Jinghong last week, we had a chance to revisit some of our favorite Dai dishes, here is a short list:

Ghost chicken (guiji)

Usually made with black-skinned chicken, this is a super-spicy and intensely fragrant chicken that has been roasted, chopped up and served cold. Definitely not for the faint of heart, but an amazing experience for anyone who lives for a good spice buzz.

Stir-fried wild boar (chaoyezhurou)

Leaner than most pork you’ll encounter elsewhere in China and with a pleasant smoky flavor, stir-fried wild boar is a popular dish with locals. The meat is usually stir-fried with spring onions and chili peppers. Simple, but delicious.

Cold vegetables with spicy dipping sauce (nanmi)

In Xishuangbanna there is a unique fruit called the tree tomato (yangfanqie) that looks like an elongated orange tomato and grows on trees. The Dai roast it with garlic, mash it up with loads of fresh chili pepper, lime juice, cilantro and salt. The end result is a spectacular Dai-style salsa that is perfect for dipping fresh local vegetables and herbs. Take it easy with this stuff, as the slow burn takes a while to catch up to your taste buds and can overwhelm.

Pineapple rice (buoluofan)

Fresh pineapple chunks, peanuts, garlic, sesame seeds and sticky rice all served piping hot in a hollowed-out pineapple, Dai-style pineapple rice is just as good as its Thai cousin and often features something you won’t find elsewhere: purple rice. The purple rice adds variety to the dish’s texture as well as an earthier flavor than regular sticky rice, and is high in iron.

Granny’s potatoes (laonai yangyu) :

This is one of the most popular dishes for many foreign travelers visiting the region, possibly because it is so similar to Western-style mashed potatoes, or maybe just because it’s so delicious. Granny’s potatoes is called such because there is little need to chew, so even toothless old women can enjoy it. It’s still a treat for us who still have teeth, and can be made with either sour pickled vegetables or spicy peppers.