HAVE YOU EATEN YET?

It’s been a great run, but it’s time to go back to the US. Now I’m eating my way through Florida.
Suggestion or advice, dfgmooney@gmail.com

No, this is not a picture of a fancy toilet. PP Station serves coffee and tea drinks and the sugary, substance-less cake eaten here. While the name is funny, its location is no laughing matter. It supplanted one of my favorite local restaurants that served a tradition fishermen’s stew, a rice porridge in which the chef cooked the fresh fish or shellfish customers chose from the tubs out front. There are two more places just like PP Station within a three block radius, but good luck finding fishermen’s stew.

Even though the food of Shantou is arguably its best feature, sometime I want a change from fresh seafood, healthful soups and Chaoshan snacks. Any restaurant that offers a new taste sensation lures me in. Last Friday some students and I journeyed by bus to Little Park for rice steamed in coconut and bamboo.

While coconut rice hails from Hainan Island, bamboo rice journeyed here from Yunnan Province. Although the restaurant workers were local, they claimed to have leaned the secrets of these dishes from authentic natives of those far regions.

All I know is the creamy coconut rice is addictive and packed with mushroom, corn, partridge eggs and strips of coconut meat. The bamboo rice was good too, but compared with coconut rice, its drier flavor held no allure for me.

When local student invited me to try duck and guo tiao at a restaurant in the Old City, I readily agreed. Pray grew up here and knows the most authentic local joints, restaurants that looks like nothing special, but serve amazing food. This one—it’s doesn’t have a name like many small restaurant here—serves duck from Jieyang, on of the four main Chaoshan cities.

These free-range ducks are fed on rice hulls and boiled in broth. Meaty and incredibly tender, a juicy layer of fat is nestled under their soft skin.

Along with the duck we ate guo tiao–fried rice noodles. The noodles are shaved off a square chunk of dough and stir-fried with bamboo shoots, the pandas’ favorite. If a panda tried this dish, he’d insist on noodles with his shoots.

Since Chinese believe in nose to tail eating (or beak to tail), we also gobbled down congealed blood chunks sprinkled with toasted garlic. In spite of the unappetizing English name, we finished all the slippery, savory pieces.

I wanted an order of duck but alas, they were all out. The restaurant only cooks enough for each meal.

Pray and restaurant proprietress

If you have trouble loading the podcasts, some of them are now avaiable on You Tube.

http://youtube.com/results?search_query=shantou%20university&search_category=26

Sometimes, a girl needs to get out of Shantou. When the urge for Western civilization strikes, our usual getaway is Hong Kong. This trip, a member invited us to lunch at the Foreign Correspondents Club. Not just for journalists, clubbers include media types, businessmen and diplomats. Pictures of and by famous photo journalists cover the walls.

As befits its building– 1913 stucco, Colonial-style– the menu pays homage to British colonial rule with dishes from the UK, India and China. For the cholesterol conscious, you can order your fry up with egg whites only, along with your bacon, bangers and hash browns.

I didn’t spot any world-weary foreign correspondents downing gin to forget one too many wars. But I did see several children sipping Shirley Temples. With newspapers slashing budgets and staff, actual international reporters may also become a part of the building’s past.

Most Chinese desserts don’t suit Western palates. Red bean paste, anyone? How about tomatoes on your cake? We do have a few options. Wal-Mart sells Dove chocolate and Danish butter cookies. But sometimes I want something light, cool and fruity. And in the hot, humid days of Guangdong, nothing refreshes like a homemade fruit popsicle. After experimenting with boxed juice mixed with fruit—not that flavorful; and fruit concentrate—too sweet; I discovered sour oranges. Juiced and mixed with sugar, they deliver an intense orange flavor.

What the Chinese use sour oranges for, I’ve got no clue. Definitely not for popsicles. Frozen foods are considered harmful to the body’s balance. And people in this province reject tart citrus. No lemons or limes. Where ever people are frying up the American/Chinese favorite, lemon chicken, it’s definitely not in Shantou. Most likely sour oranges are used in Chinese traditional medicine. As Chinese mothers tell their children, “bitter taste medicine is good for you!” I’ll take mine with a spoonfull of sugar.

Today “Have You Eaten Yet” is the featured blog on this food website. As we say in China, Xie, Xie, Ni, y’all.

http://www.foodsiteoftheday.com/

A student memoir about growing up with her grandmother included grandma harvesting mustard greens dappled with urine. We went back and forth–Did the mustard greens just smell like urine?—until I understood she meant real urine. Human waste is still commonly used as fertilizer on small Chinese farms. No wonder the Chinese are horrified by salad!
An ELC teacher visited a student’s village over May Day holiday. No one had indoor plumbing. The night soil was collected from the one public toilet every day and used in the fields. Wikipedia claims, “This system is now obsolete in virtually all provinces in China.” My students, most of who come from villages, beg to differ. As for me, I’ll be cooking all my vegetables.