May 2008
In recent years the media has been praising the Middle Kingdom for opening to the west and stimulating the global economy but China has actually been going global for centuries. This process has impacted upon all levels of Chinese society and it has also influenced the outside world. No one but a few specialists have noted this procedure because the evidence remains both obvious and opaque, before our very noses and yet invisible.
After 1978 China began opening to the western world. Yet every nation is in many ways closed in the sense of being culturally unique, existing as a nation on a sacred homeland. China was definitely closed, having adopted a formal attitude of both hesitation and refusal toward anything foreign. After the Ming Dynasty ended, the country gradually and firmly blocked its door to foreign influences - yet many foods from the South and West entered China . These products arrived, not via Westerners and their warships, but voluntarily carried in by enterprising and well-traveled Chinese.
Some people brought foods into China at risk to their own lives. For example, during the middle of the Ming Dynasty Lin Huaizhi, a famous physician in Wuchuan, practiced medicine in Vietnam. He was greatly respected so the king of Vietnam gave him sweet potatoes as a special gift to eat. Lin secretly wanted to bring one back to China; he asked for an uncooked sweet potato. Then the doctor pretended to eat it raw but kept a chunk to smuggle out of the country as Vietnam forbid the export of this prized vegetable. Lin was caught with his raw morsel at the border but the guard had pity on him because the physician had cured his illness. Thus he successfully smuggled the vegetable into China. Since that time, in the autumn and winter this ubiquitous vegetable is sold everywhere as a baked, piping hot street snack.
Corn, an American vegetable, also entered China during the Ming Dynasty. This plant was not common; chefs regarded it as a rare and treasured delicacy. Today it is also sold as a hot snack on street corners. In restaurants corn is often served as a salad with pine nuts or cooked with egg whites into a kind of sweet, chewy pie.
Sorghum, which originated in Africa, also entered China during the Ming Dynasty. For centuries pregnant Chinese women have consumed this high-iron substance with eggs to ensure health for themselves and their children. Many Chinese now eat it as a dessert, boil it in jam and/or combine it with cereals for a healthy breakfast.
Everybody in China eats tofu and soybeans indeed did originate in China. Today the health conscious Western world is gobbling up this made-in-China food product once reserved for animals in the west. Millions of acres, notably in Latin America, are dedicated to raising this crop. Mung beans, another popular legume, came from India during the Northern Song Dynasty. For hundreds of years the Chinese have cooked with other beans, for example, black, green and flagolet beans. All of them came from the west at various times.
White potatoes also came from the West. North China, like Ireland and Africa, consumes these easy to grow starches as a carbohydrate staple in lieu of rice; in other regions it is used a vegetable. Legend says that pirates during the Ming Dynasty brought in the potato. Initially this crop was raised in the south, in Fujian and Zhejiang Provinces but it grows better in the colder climates in northern China.
After the Han Dynasty, vegetable oils: sesame, canola, peanut, soybean, and sunflower, slowly replaced animal fats in cooking. Sesame entered China during the Western Han Dynasty; other oil-bearing crops did not arrive until after the Southern and Northern Dynasties. China's vast array of regional foods has been greatly influenced by a large selection of oils used as cooking bases. Western chefs have now adapted Chinese seasonings: spices, oils and flavor patterns, incorporating them into western dishes and creating novel dishes.
The all important flavor, sugar, first appeared during the Tang Dynasty (617 -907). During the Warring States Period (475 – 221 B.C.), sugar cane was common; Emperor Taizong of the Tang Dynasty is now credited in bringing his people granulated sugar and the process is said to have been developed in Yangzhou. Chinese chefs have always appreciated the color and flavor sugar offers; it is often used in soups, sauces, in sautéed and fried dishes. The modern use of sugar by Western chefs has been greatly influenced by oriental methods.
Because sugar is water-soluble, it became an important flavoring used to make food sweet and delicious. It is used in making soup and in cooking all kinds of dishes. Today honey and malt, long ago utilized for sweetening and flavoring, are now are used to thicken Chinese soups and sauces.
Sichuan, Hunan and Hebei are famous for their spicy dishes. Hot peppers are eaten in massive amounts throughout many parts of China, with peppers called "meat for the poor" because they blend well with rice. Moreover, hot peppers keep people warm in cold weather and are said to stimulate the appetite. Yet this vegetable traveled to China from South America via Southeast Asia around the end of the Ming Dynasty in the 15th century. Contemporary southwestern cuisine has nothing over Chinese and Asian cuisine regarding the use of hot peppers; both specialties use different ways to dry, cure and cook with these spicy condiments.
Spinach, a delicate vegetable, came early to China from old Persia, now modern Iran. Again, the culinary emperor Emperor Taizong of the Tang Dynasty promoted this plant. Most chefs called it the Persian red – root vegetable. Cheap and abundant, Chinese people currently flash boil this tender green to retain its nutritional value and marinate it with sesame oil, serving it as a "liang cai" or appetizer.
Carrots came to north China via Europe and are one of the few vegetables enjoyed raw. The Chinese consider the carrot a kind of red radish and use it in many dishes, often with another very popular vegetable, eggplant. This food plant actually originated in India and migrated to China along with Buddhism during the Southern and Northern Dynasties. Gradually eggplant traveled to Japan with Buddhism and, like the philosophy, evolved into a unique hybrid.
Conversely, Song, or what Westerners know as Chinese cabbage, has migrated around the world. This vegetable is a staple in northern regions. Bamboo shoots, mushrooms and winter melons, are other native Chinese plants now common in western groceries while western cabbage, tomato, broccoli and cauliflower have also become ordinary staples in Chinese cooking in the last fifty year migration period.
These migrating vegetables clearly display the inevitable process of globalization between nations throughout history. China, although closed to most Western influences, did not refuse the advent of foreign foodstuffs. Today the Chinese seek to borrow, copy and learn from foreign sources. This scenario presents Western countries the unique opportunity to learn from China and create a positive interchange very much like the exchange of vegetables and cookery methods.
Written By: Valerie Sartor
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