Winter foods.

What comes to your mind when you connect the dots between ‘food’ and ‘Beijing’? Peking duck. Now anything more? Then you may flashback to news reports of food quality issues in China which is more than merely the way food is handled. It goes all the way to the very core of food- is it real? From passing off pork as beef by dipping them in chemicals to manufacturing fake, rubbery eggs, how can one be sure that what you are eating is what you THINK you are eating? Well there is no way to know really. I go by my gut feel and after two years in China, I haven’t *touchwood* suffered from a bout of food poisoning as yet (though I’ve had fake eggs served to me at the school canteen once).

Don’t strike all the street food vendors off your list just yet, because as my favourite fried-potato-in-chilli-powder street hawker said, “We are parents who have children at home, and who are just trying to make a living. We won’t sell you anything we don’t want them to eat. We want you to come back, because we survive on your business.” But well, it is also true that I buy from her because 1) she is friendly and a regular sight outside the east gate and 2) there hasn’t been much any scandals about fake potatoes (probably because they are cheap and hence not economically sensible to try to reproduce chemically).  I stay away from the hawkers selling hotplate meat and probably will not go back to eating that in the near future thanks to the alarming frequency of reports about some hawkers selling rat’s or cat’s meat disguised as chicken skewers AND the use of drain oil (地沟油).

If you wondering what kind of ‘fakes’ China has, below is a graphic representation of the tip of the iceberg which I made for a presentation on a discussion about ‘Made in China’ when I was a freshman.

Now if you haven’t stopped reading out of sheer horror, here’s a more accurate picture of what I eat on an everyday basis. In fact I was inspired to write this because I was eating at the stall earlier and took a really nice picture which I thought ought to be seen by more people than just me.

One of my autumn/winter favourite eating place in school: 麻辣烫 (loosely translates to ‘spicy dip’, more accurately ‘numbingly spicy dip’). Tadaaaaaaaa!

What you have is all sorts of things on skewers (or satay sticks, as Singaporeans more commonly refer to it as), dipped in either the spicy or non-spicy soup base. Yes, there is a non-spicy soup base because a lot of people can’t tahan the numbing spiciness which lingers. I usually have one or two skewers from the spicy one then it is non-spicy all the way.

You can also ask for noodles面 /vermicelli 粉丝 , which will be cooked on the spot, during which you can hang around eating other stuff. It is pretty much a DIY meal- take what you want and eat it, and if they are out of it, just ask the auntie for it. Eat till you are full, and yeah, you eat standing around the two pots.

Cost of one item (skewer or noodles etc): 1 RMB (0.20 SGD) [*Note: Before you yell that it is cheap, you should know that last winter, it was only 0.80 RMB per item. There was a 25% price hike.]

I usually have 6-8 skewers plus a noodle or vermicelli. When it gets too cold in winter (think minus ten degrees or so), how many skewers I eat will depend on how fast my fingers freeze up after they leave the comfort of my very thick gloves. It is time to stop once the fingertips go from being numb to having a throbbing, slightly painfulsensation. My favourite items are sliced lotus roots 藕片, pork dumplings 饺子, spinach 菠菜, baby cabbage 娃娃菜and fish toufu 鱼豆腐. Heap them with a lot of sesame sauce 麻酱, it is simply TWO THUMBS UP.

Then after having a very satisfying 8 RMB meal, I bought myself a 冰糖葫芦 (sugar coated hawthorns 山楂). Though personally, because I don’t like the hawthorn fruit all that much, I got sugar coated grapes instead. The stall is open from September till April every year. The best time to eat it is during the strawberry season (mid-winter) because what makes a better pick-me-up than giant strawberries on a skewer coated with sugar?

Cost: Varies with what’s on the skewer. The hawthorn one costs about 3RMB, then other fruits can range from 4-9 RMB. There are also variations of the hawthorn skewer, usually with walnut 核桃, yam 山药 or red bean paste 红豆沙.

Well,that's all for now. If you ever come to Beijing, or to Northern China, these have to go on your to-do list! :D Now I’ve got to get back to researching Anglo-German naval rivalry in the 19^th century.