Fuddland

The food here is, on the whole, delicious: sticky sweet and sour pork; spicy chicken with peanuts; pickled cabbage and pork; sweet and sour aubergine with sesame seeds and green chillis; dumplings galore — I could go on. The only trouble is, almost every dish that isn’t dumpling- or soup-based has the prefix “deep fried”, and it gets a little much for the system to process. I’m doing my best to eat plenty of fresh fruit whilst I’m at home to flush my system, but I have yet to cook a meal in my flat simply because it’s so cheap to eat out [and our cooking facilities consist of two gas hobs, a microwave and a rice cooker/steamer — no one has an oven, even the fresh cookies at the market are fried].

There is one particular local restaurant where a few foreigners regularly dine, and I have already been adopted into the extended “foreign family” by the owners, whom we all call Māma and Bàba, being allowed to sit at Bàba’s table and join him for a tea/beer/horrible spirit — whatever he’s drinking — whilst he tries to pronounce “David” without the v sounding like a w. But last night I cracked and decided that, after only ten days here, I needed some Western-style food for a change, so a fellow British teacher and I sought out the local fast-food restaurant and ordered a large pizza.

It was the greasiest pizza I’ve ever had, and to be honest the idea of eating it was much better than the actual consumption, so I don’t think I’ll be going back there in a hurry. Instead, tomorrow I’m determined to buy some fresh vegetables from the market and cook myself a meal of steamed vegetables and plain rice — no sauce, and definitely no grease. I can’t wait.

#1

the manly smell | 2006 / 03 / 01 – 16:28

Lucky boy - I can’t think of anything better than being forced to eat Chinese food every day, deep fried or not, but then it does take hard work and discipline to keep my stomach this size.

I seem to have missed the bit where you explained why you’ve moved to China - any chance of a quick recap for an ignoramus like me?

#2

David | 2006 / 03 / 01 – 20:09

Re #1: Just to contradict everything I’ve said, tonight we went to a Japanese restaurant [strange as that may sound] where the food was just as oily as everywhere else, and it was delicious — I had the fried noodles with vegetables.

I’ve not really explained yet why I moved here — partly because I’m sort of figuring that out for myself first. ;) Watch this space!

#3

felicity | 2006 / 03 / 02 – 02:19

i can feel the bloating feeling from here!! are the constant “deep fried” goodies the local equivalent of “going out for a kebab”?

#4

David | 2006 / 03 / 03 – 13:47

Re #3: How would I know? I’ve never had a kebab [at least, not the elephant leg variety]. :P

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