Today during Chinese class we read a dialogue about ways to learn about Chinese way of life, which is really relevant to what this dialogue is all about. In one of the text from the book, there is a conversation between two people, and one of them is talking about his trips to China. He wants to know more about Chinese way of life, but during his first trip to China, he didn't get the opportunity to do so because he just visited many tourist areas, and he felt that was not the way to learn about Chinese culture. I truly believe that the best way to experience a country's culture is to get immersed in the culture; to get surrounded by the locals. This way you will get the most out of it and it would be much better than just sitting in a class and reading about the culture and history of the country.
Throughout this trip we have had so many opportunities to learn about the Chinese life in so many different aspects. Just today we went to Nanjing Vocation School of Tourism and Nutrition to learn about Chinese cuisine and test our skills. The main principle of this school is to help the student build a platform to help with their careers in the future. The school offers three concentrations: cuisine, tourism, and sales (marketing), in which the students can choose to focus. During our visit to the school, we focused on Red-Board Cooking (Hong'An红案), which is the Chinese main dishes. We will also have a taste of White-Board Cooking (Bai'An白案), which is cooking the staple food, both rice and flour, next week.
Today we got to learn about three main dishes: xīhóngshì chǎo dàn (fried eggs with tomatoes西红柿炒蛋), gǔlǎo ròu (sweet and sour pork, 古老肉), and Yángzhōu cǎofàn (fried rice扬州炒饭). Each of us paired up with a student from the school to help us prepare the xīhóngshì and gǔlǎo ròu. I was impressed on how much training the student have to go through. For example, in order to cook with the heavy wok, each student has to be able to flip the content inside the wok, which for practice is filled with 2-3 cups of sand, 500 times for boys and 300 times for girls, non-stop.
To anyone following our blog, try out the gǔlǎo ròu at home.
Sweet and sour pork with pineapples recipe:
*Note: No exact quantity is given. Chinese cuisine is more about feeling and obviously experience.
1. Cut the pork in to 8 cm cubes, add some salt and rice wine to marinate the pork. Then cover it with tapioca flour.
2. Cut the pineapple into chunks.
3. Deep fry the pork for a few minutes and drain well.
4. In a wok heat some oil. Add ketchup, sugar, white vinegar and a pinch of salt. Thicken the sauce with some corn flour paste, sprinkle it with some oil, and then add the pork and pineapple to stir-fry thoroughly.
Enjoy!
-Kiara P.
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