Chinese Food ABCs

Chinese food is the most popular food in the world. Since China has long been a mysterious eastern country, its food has been mysterious to foreigners. Do you know the ABCs about Chinese food? Lets’ have a test now.

1. Question: How many food-related Chinese inventions do you know?

Answer:
Period Invention
2000 BC Noodles (made from millet)
1500 BC Fish Farming (carp in ponds)
1100 BC Strong Ale (e.g. rice wine)
600 BC The Iron Plough, Roe Cultivation & Intensive Hoeing
400 BC Cast Iron
200 BC The Rotary Winnowing Fan, The Modern Seed Drill, Steel Production from Cast Iron
300 AD The Fishing Reel, Porcelain, Biological Pest Control, Deficiency Diseases
700 AD Brandy and Whisky

Source The Genius of China Food in China

2. Question: Why are the Chinese not big milk drinkers”
Answer: Dairy foods have never been much a part of the Han Chinese diet. Ninety percent of the Chinese population is thought to be lactose intolerant.
Source: eating china. com http://www.eatingchina.com/index.htm

3. Question: Are Chinese really rice eaters?
Answer: An enormous amount of rice is grown and consumed in China, but to characterize Chinese as rice eaters, or call China a "rice-based" society, as the Asia Rice Foundation does, (an organization that should know better), is quite misleading.
It is true that rice is China's most important grain crop, but wheat consumption is nearly as high. On average Chinese eat 250 grams of raw rice a day - that's about four heaped bowls when cooked. Wheat – made into dumplioos, noodles and bread – follows closely at 230 grams.
To generalize, it is reasonable to think of southern Chinese as rice eaters, and northern Chinese as wheat eaters.
Figures are for China & Taiwan (1996), not including Hong Kong. Source: The International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis
4. Question: How Chinese Use Chopsticks?

Answer:
• Chinese often use chopsticks like a spoon. The rice bowl is held up to the mouth and the rice is shoveled in. Not very elegant but it works, letting you eat quickly without spilling food. Same thing goes for noodles, but not for soup!
• When it comes to eating fish whole, the way Chinese prefer, nothing beats a nimble pair of chopsticks for prying small bits of flesh away from those annoying fish bones. Chopsticks are equally adept at plucking the fish's eye from its socket should you choose to indulge (which, according to Chinese medicine is very strengthening for your own.
• Chopsticks, especially purpose-built extra-long ones are an important cooking utensil.
Source: eating china. com http://www.eatingchina.com/index.htm

5. Question: Who first brought tea to Europe?
Answer: Though traders must have long carried tales of tea and even tea samples from China and Japan to Europe, a Portuguese Jesuit missionary, Jasper de Cruz was the first person to document his experiences of making and drinking the stuff. That was in 1560. But it was the Dutch who introduced the beverage commercially to Europe. The Dutch East India Company at the time was busy trying to dominate the spice trade of what was to later become the Dutch East Indies, present-day Indonesia. Unlike the Portuguese they had never successfully established direct trade relations with China, instead relying on transshipment out of Java. There the Dutch would have regularly come into contact ships from Fujian or Guangdong carrying tea and it was from Java around 1610 that the first tea was shipped to Holland. The tea initially imported into Europe was green tea. It was expensive and marketed largely as a health drink, but by the mid Eighteenth Century tea was cheap and plentiful enough for the populations of Russia and England to be addicted to it. Much later the Dutch grew tea in Indonesia and that country remains a significant producer today.
Source: eating china. Com http://www.eatingchina.com/index.htm

6. Question: What is cassia?
Answer: Famous for its scenery, Guilin is one of south China’s leading tourist destinations. Translate gui-lin to English and you get cassia forest. The dried bark of the cassia tree (Cinnamomum cassia) which grows in abundance in the Guilin area, is one of the ingredients of five spice powder. Cassia is related to and similar to the better known cinnamon, a native of Sri Lanka. An alternative name for cassia, Bastard Cinnamon provides a clue that, outside of China at least, it is considered inferior to cinnamon, the flavour being more pungent, not as sweet and delicate, and slightly bitter. Cassia bark is also used in traditional Chinese medicine
Source: eating china. com http://www.eatingchina.com/index.htm



With China an ancient country, Chinese food has its long history and own style. There are a lot of related facts and stories about Chinese food. And the above questions can only cover a very small part of Chinese food system. So, how many questions can you answer? How much do you know about Chinese food?