“There are a lot of things in China that are hard to relate to,” Jen Lin-Liu says. “I don’t understand Chinese opera,” She jokes; but food is easy for Liu to understand.

The young founder of Beijing’s Black Sesame Kitchen, and author of Serve the People: A Stir-Fried Journey Through China, Jen Lin-Liu believes food can help her relate to Chinese culture, as well as better understand her Chinese roots. Though her family is originally Cantonese, Liu grew up in America with a mother who wasn’t a big fan of cooking.  “It’s a generational thing,” Liu says. Though previous generations of women felt pressure to cook for their families, most women today can choose. “I like to cook because I’m not forced to cook,” Liu says.

Liu’s Chinese-American colleague, Candice Lee, has similar memories. “When I asked my mom how to cook Ma po dou fu, (Mapo tofu),” Candice recalls, “she said to go to the store and buy a box!” Both Liu and Candice agree that Chinese don’t consider cooking an art form; for many Chinese, food is merely sustenance.

At her previous job, as a journalist for Newsweek in Shanghai, Liu was required to report on a wide range of stories. “Reporters in China have to cover everything” Liu wanted a focus. In 2005, Liu started taking cooking lessons; soon after she started rethinking her career. It turns out Chinese food was just the focus Liu was looking for.

But going into the food business has been surprising for both women. “I’ve always been interested in food,” Candice says. “But I didn’t know it would become a career!”

Liu thinks Chinese food is improving. Beijing is an international hub, and according to her good ingredients are easier to find than they used to be. “I used to be really picky,” Liu says. She remembers being intolerant of certain Chinese foods like la jiao (peppers). But that doesn’t seem to be the case anymore. Though remote regions have a more difficult time getting access to quality ingredients, that hasn’t stopped Liu from doing extensive foodie research. She recently got back from three months on the road. Starting in China, moving through central Asia and ending in Iran, Liu learned a lot about various regional cuisine, as well as culture. She plans to pick up her tour again in the spring, sampling even more regional foods.

Mm, I can’t wait to taste that next dish…

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Taylor is a member of WildChina’s operations team.  She works in our Beijing office and can be contacted at taylor.smith@wildchina.com. Photo from China Daily.

Growing up, my parents owned a hole-in-the-wall Chinese restaurant in a small town in northern Tennessee.  Every day for the sixteen and a half years that this restaurant was open, I watched my dad cook delicious food while I sold, served, and ate it after school and on the weekends. However, I was “that kid” who, despite being surrounded by the family business her whole life, never picked up a spatula or a wok to learn how to cook…

This holiday season, however, I have finally been bitten by the family cooking bug!

Every other week at WildChina’s Beijing office, we have a company lunch.  The menu usually consists of yummy, homemade jiaozi (dumplings), but this week, we had a special treat – HOT POT.

As grabbed a bowl of creamy peanut sauce, fresh cilantro, and lajiang (red pepper chili sauce), I realized how easy it would be to whip up this tasty treat myself.

All you need is:

1 hot plate

1 metal pot w/ lid

Chicken broth

Ginger and Spices  (like salt and pepper, or for you adventurous and creative types, some mixture of chili or curry powder)

Veggies

Thinly sliced meat (such as lamb or beef)

Sauce, as mentioned above: peanut sauce (available in packages), fresh cilantro, red pepper chili sauce

Directions:

Wait for the chicken broth and spices to boil, throw in your meat and veggies and allow it to cook fully (usually just a couple minutes), and dig in. This is the perfect meal for a large group of people to keep warm with and enjoy together – and it’s healthy to boot.

The simplicity of it all has inspired me to become an experimental chef (stop laughing mom and dad) and has alleviated my worries about what to make for the holiday dinner party I’ll soon be hosting.

Happy cooking!

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Nancy is a member of WildChina’s marketing team.  She works in WildChina’s Beijing office and can be contacted at nancy.tan@wildchina.com.

I’ve been to China a couple times for extended periods, and have recently settled myself down in DC (well, Silver Spring, MD) in an apartment by myself (miss you mom and dad!). Having lived in metropolises in both countries – DC and Philly in the US and Beijing and Shanghai in China – there is definitely one thing I notice above all that the US is lacking: street food.

Admittedly, DC does have many restaurants where you can go in the evening for a quick and relatively cheap bite to eat, and the diversity of these establishments seems unlikely to be matched (do I want falafel, a burrito, a burger and fries?), but the US can’t match China for the abundance and low cost of street food.

When in the big cities of Beijing and Shanghai – and even in “smaller” cities such as Qingdao and Guiyang – it feels like every street you turn down has a chuar stand (various meat and veggie kebabs grilled to order) ready to serve you cheap, deliciously seasoned food. When in China, my philosophy is to try as much as possible (and to tell my friends about it when I get back to the States) to see what’s good and what to avoid next time. I’ve sampled a variety of things that Westerners are not accustomed to – frog, turtle, chicken hearts, the stomachs and intestines of various animals, etc. – and have been able to expand my palate and experience things I never would have thought about eating when I was a kid.

The charm of these stands comes from men (typically) tending their grills, as well as the diverse clientele of the chuar stands. It seems like every kind of person visits these stands – Westerners, students, posh 20-somethings, the middle-aged and elderly, men and women; no one is immune to the allure of a good stick of lamb or potato. I have always had positive experiences getting street food, and I feel it’s an important thing to experience when venturing out into Chinese streets in the evening.

Again, I don’t want to get down on the DC food scene – there are many awesome restaurants around (and even a man that sells fruit on the street near my apartment). It might be nice, however, to see people on the sidewalks in the evening selling a cheap, delicious dinner or midnight snack, enriching DC’s nightlife with the delicious aroma of their peppery, smoky, irresistible offerings.

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Pat Ouellette is a member of WildChina’s marketing and client services teams. Pat works in our U.S. office and can be contacted at pat.ouellette@wildchina.com. Photo Source: Flickr.

Tangyuan, or balls made from sticky rice flour are a popular food to celebrate the winter solstice.

As we look forward to a gradual lengthening of daylight and the eventual arrival of summer, WildChina wishes a happy winter solstice to our friends around the world.

The shortest day of 2010 was considered to be December 21 in the West, but this year’s observation falls on December 22 in China.

The Chinese festival marking the day is called Dongzhi—literally, “the arrival of winter”—and has traditionally been a time for families to gather together for meals and to honor their ancestors.

Therefore, visitors to northern parts of China during Dongzhi may end up joining a local family for a meal of hearty boiled dumplings. If they are in the southern part of the country, they will more likely eat balls of sticky rice that are called tangyuan and are served in a sweet or savory broth.

In both areas one might run into bowls of slightly sweet and mildly alcoholic fermented sticky rice named jiuniang.

These warming, carbohydrate-rich traditional Dongzhi foods make sense not just because of chilliness and lack of sunlight, but also because many Chinese people will spend at least part of the day outside making offerings or visiting the tombs of their ancestors.

As during other festival times, it is common to see locals burning fake paper money on the street, which is symbolically intended for use by the deceased in the afterlife.

Many urban families also venture from the city out to the countryside to visit the graves of their ancestors for some tidying and to burn incense and perhaps leave some small portions of food.

Thought it may be the shortest day of the year and chilly in many parts of the country, there are still plenty of great places to visit in China during the holiday season. In fact, this is one of the best times to visit warmer southern areas whose low latitude bestows them with longer daylight.

The expected high temperature today in Jinghong, capital of the Xishuangbanna region of Yunnan, a popular WildChina destination, is 80 degrees Fahrenheit (27 degrees Celcius). Happy Dongzhi and we hope to see you soon.

Image credit: 5Q Blog

Seldom seen in the west, the numbing/tingling flavor of the Sichuan pepper is a hallmark of Sichuan cuisine.

When returning from a trip to China one doesn’t carry only the memory of the sights and sounds of a far-off land: a journey here is also an immersion in a world of exotic flavors and aromas.

Authentic Chinese food is as varied across the country as the cuisines of Europe. And from the sweet flavors of Shanghainese food to the spicy and numbing fare of Sichuan, the best of each region represents a careful marriage of flavors and textures–often executed with lightning speed and perfect control on the unforgiving surface of a 400-degree wok.

Eating Chinese food in China is one of the greatest pleasures of a trip to the “Middle Kingdom.” And as interest increases around the world in Chinese food culture and the health benefits offered by diets high in vegetables and low in processed sugars, we thought we would offer WildChina clients the opportunity to do more than just take home the memory of the flavors of traditional Chinese food.

Thanksgiving is one of the few times in the year when Americans can celebrate family and tradition over a hearty, home-cooked meal. So what happens when you’re traveling in China, far away from home, during the holiday?

(Source: www.bargainblessings.com)

Even in Beijing, visitors can come quite close to the real Thanksgiving experience. After polling a few colleagues and reflecting on personal holiday experiences in China, I’ve come up with a list of a few options for visitors looking for an (almost) authentic Thanksgiving experience in China.

If you are looking for a large Thanksgiving spread… colleague Taylor recommends buffet-style feasts such as The Raffles Hotel Beijing. With a fine array of turkey, stuffing, and other holiday favorites, and the distinct setting of a top luxury hotel, the scene is set for a classic Thanksgiving meal.

She says, “Though stepping into the marble floored lobby at Raffles Beijing Hotel for Thanksgiving Dinner was far from the packed house of family and friends I’m used to, the excitement of Thanksgiving crushed the formalities and shyness that come with meeting new people. Surrounded by a group of Americans starved for family and tradition as much as we were starved for Turkey, I had a great time making new friends over delicious food.”

If you are traveling with a family and children… colleague Nellie suggests the Westin, either in Liangmaqiao or on Financial Street. With a delectable spread for the parents, and a spacious play area for the children, the Westin does family dinner right with options for all ages.

If you would like a meal specially prepared for you… I cast my vote for Culinary Capers, a Beijing-based catering company located in the capital’s 798 art district. I can attest from my own Thanksgiving dinner at Switch!, their new restaurant in the UCCA gallery, that the food is incredibly fresh, delicious, and provides the classics with a unique twist. If you stay somewhere such as the China World serviced apartments, Culinary Capers can deliver your ideal Thanksgiving meal right to your door.

Have you had a memorable Thanksgiving experience in Beijing, or in other Chinese cities? Let us know at info[at]wildchina[dot]com.



Hiking in tea tree forests, watching rare local festivals, and meeting locals of the fabled Ancient Tea Horse Road: our press trip participants have been on the road in Guizhou and Yunnan for 9 days in a whirlwind of adventure.

(Photo: Kathy Dragon)

Wish you were here? The next best thing is following our journey. Here’s how:

– Read the WildChina blog for first-hand accounts of the trip

– Follow us on Twitter @WildChina to read to-the-minute tales from our adventure

– Check out our Guizhou and Yunnan Flickr albums with photos from the road

If you are interested in a future press trip, please send us an email to info [at] wildchina [dot] com with the subject line “Press Trips.”

One of our favorite things about getting off the beaten path in China is that no matter how well you think you may understand the country, there’s always a surprise waiting to prove you wrong.

This was illustrated when we visited the small village of Nongyang, several miles outside of Menghai, in southern Yunnan. We were in search of suancha, a fermented tea that is eaten rather than drunk.

Nongyang is primarily inhabited by the Bulang ethnic group, who along with the Hani and Dai are considered one of the main stewards of some of the region’s finest tea plantations.

Often referred to as ‘pickled tea’, suancha is probably better translated as ‘sour tea’. The ever-hospitable Bulang serve suancha at weddings and celebrations. As our hosts in Nongyang noted, if you don’t have suancha, you can’t get married.

The production of suancha is surprisingly complex. First the tea is cooked for around 10 minutes, after which it is drained, then packed into a section of bamboo, which is then sealed with red clay.

The bamboo tube is buried for six months to two years, and is frequently watered while underground to aid the fermentation process.

We were lucky enough to visit our hosts on a day when they were digging up a bamboo tube of suancha that had been buried for more than a year. The flavor was a sour but clean variation on the classic green tea experience.

When eating suancha, Bulang people either eat it straight or they may mix in salt, garlic and chili and serve with rice. We ate several pinches of suancha straight from the bowl and found it to stimulate our hunger. Taking our cue from our stomachs, we headed back to Menghai for a local feast.

On WildChina journeys in Tibet and Tibetan areas of Qinghai, Yunnan and Sichuan provinces, many of our clients experience foods and beverages made from yak meat and yak milk for the first time in their lives.

Reactions vary to such fare as sour yak milk cheese, salty yak butter tea and fried yak jerky, but are generally positive. Regardless of  your palate’s reaction to yak products, it is not difficult to see why such hearty foods are suited to the region’s high-altitude conditions, where few other animals can thrive.

The yak plays a vital role for many Tibetan communities living high in the Himalayas because growing seasons are too short for most crops and the weather too harsh for many other domestic animals. Shaggy yaks graze on alpine grasses throughout the warmer times of the year to prepare for the region’s long, cold winters.

Though we enjoy classic yak dishes we were also pleasantly surprised last year when we learned about an ethnic Tibetan family in northern Yunnan that is putting yak milk to innovative use and boosting local herders’ incomes in the process by making Western-style artisan cheeses and butter with yak milk.

Qizhu Qilin and Wang Zhenying founded the Meixiang Cheese Company in 2003 in Langdu Village, Yunnan, which lies tucked amid remote 4,000-meter peaks near the Sichuan border, a three-hour drive north of the Shangri-La old town.

The village’s economy has historically been mostly subsistence-based, and centered around yak herding. Villagers did venture out of the mountains to sell local styles of butter and cheese at market, but they weren’t able to fetch very good prices.

“The herders lived a life of great hardship,” says Zhuoma Yangzong, the founding couples’ daughter and director of marketing for Meixiang, which brought on a technical advisor from Wisconsin to train employees in the science of cheesemaking.

“The Geza rural area, in which Langdu is located, has more yaks than anywhere else in Yunnan—about 14,000 in total,” she said. “The idea of our company was to use yak milk—which has better nutritional value than cow milk and comes from yaks that are grazed the traditional way on pristine 4,000 meter plateaus—to bring greater economic benefits to the local herders and raise their standard of living.”

Geza, Yunnan

Today the company produces yak butter and a line of cheeses and sells them in specialty stores in Shangri-la, Dali, Shanghai, Beijing, Hong Kong and Taiwan. Meixiang buys the milk directly from local herders and make the cheese at a production facility in Langdu Village. The cheese is free of preservatives, artificial flavoring, hormones and antibiotics. It is processed with salt and aged in local red tree bark for two months.

We tried the company’s Geza Gold brand of cheese and were very impressed. The hard and salty cheese is very aromatic, with a flavor reminiscent of Italian Asiago—and a slight but not unwelcome hint of, um, yakiness. The cheese’s complex flavor is good  by itself but also goes well with apples, pears or grapes… or your favorite red wine.

As environmental sustainability and social responsibility are two of WildChina’s core principles, we admire Meixiang’s vision to create environmentally sustainable business practices aimed at raising income for local people.

Is China becoming a ‘Fast Food Nation’?

Just two decades ago, most people in China ate relatively low-fat meals and regularly rode their bicycles to get around. Obesity was extremely rare.

Fast forward to today: more and more people eat greasy street food or fast food such as KFC and McDonald’s and fewer have the time or energy to get some exercise. The result: China now has 19 million clinically obese citizens, with that number growing by 30 to 50 percent each year, according to a recent PBS report (http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/2010/06/reporters-notebook-obesity-rising-in-china.html).

Photo: Xinhua / Sadat

A group of food-conscious individuals is hoping to promote the idea of healthier eating habits this weekend in Beijing, with Slow Food Saturday at The Schoolhouse at Mutianyu.

The Schoolhouse at Mutianyu, one of our preferred hotels in Beijing and a winner of our Best of China Awards 2010, has been a local pioneer in championing Slow Food for its clients and local community residents. As a sustainable tourism enterprise that offers dining, lodging, and meeting solutions in unique settings just an hour from downtown Beijing, the boutique hotel has redeployed existing buildings to new uses, created local jobs, supported other local businesses, grown their own vegetables and fruits while procuring other foods locally and made almost everything fresh and homemade on their premises.

This Saturday, September 4, in conjunction with the Slow Food Beijing Convivium, The Schoolhouse will put on a day of food, cooking, biking and more in the neighboring Great Wall International Cultural Villages of Mutianyu, Beigou, Xinying, and Tianxianyu to celebrate cooking, sustainable practices, and local communities. For a full schedule and activities, visit their website (http://www.slowfoodsaturday.org).