Chinese cuisine has an incredibly long history of development and diversity. Each Dynasty contributed to the evolution of food preparation, until the art of culinary excellence
peaked during the Qing Dynasty (1644 - 1911). Intertwined with the love of food, is the basic philosophy of harmony, balance and duality of existence. Essentially, this can be translated into the blending of contrasts, or Yin and Yang.
Contrasts in taste and texture, colour and cooking method, hot and cold, plain and spicy all contribute to a balanced meal - a triumph of philosophical theory. To gather more insight into this cuisine - one that strives for the perfection of all senses - I referred to some of my long forgotten Chinese recipe books, covered in dust amongst all the modern day "celebrity chef "cookbooks in my library. It did make me re-think the significance of sweet and sour, fried versus steamed and the contrasting flavours of ginger and spring onions, the foundation of most stirfries.
Brisbane has it's own Chinatown. This is a significant landmark and recognisable precinct for Chinese cultural activities. The street names are all signed in Chinese and the roads are flanked by Chinese supermarkets, yum cha palaces and traditional herbalists. There are 69,343 Chinese living in Brisbane ( 866,205 in Australia....excluding all the international students studying on temporary visas), and today mainland China is the largest source of migrants to Australia, overtaking the United Kingdom.
We decided not to go to downtown Chinatown, but rather visit a popular Chinese restaurant on Grey Street in South Brisbane. I am glad we had a reservation, as it was packed, and the queue outside was about forty deep. The kitchen is a central glass cube, through which one can witness the numerous chefs hand-tearing noodles, steaming the dim sims and displaying their impressive knife skills.
There are many ways of saying bon appetite in Chinese. Take your pick: Zhu Nihao Wei! Ge Bao! Ging Man Yong! or Sihk Faahn!
Unlike any of the previous weeks, I approached China with unprecedented philosophical expectation.
And sadly, I was hugely disappointed. Not even the intervention of the Blue Dragon, the Red Phoenix, the White Tiger of the Dark Turtle could bring back the Friday night Feng Shui.
It could have been a case of overpromising and under- delivering, or that we were just too tired after a very busy week, or (most likely) that Martina's depressing facts about the air pollution, water degradation and waste generation simply dampened our spirits. But my meal was more yang than yin, which led to a night of interrupted sleep, as I frequently reached for the glass of water on my bedside table. Where my soup was too salty, Keith's stirfry was too bland. Boetie enjoyed his crispy duck, Nielen and Phil both had Sweet and Sour Pork, and Martina is still questioning her vegetatrian choice. The service was over efficient, and I ( a slow, measured eater) ended up being the only one with food in front of me, as the others' plates were cleared away the moment the chopsticks hit the table. Speaking of chopsticks (another depressing fact): 45 billion pairs of wooden chopsticks are produced in China annually. This equates to the loss of 25 million fully grown trees every year. Chopsticks were only introduced as an eating utensil during the Ming Dynasty, when it was the imperial fashion to have food prepared in bite-size portions. It is also rumoured that Confucius, in his wisdom, declared that there should never be a knife on a dining table.
True to "Friday Night Out" tradition the trivia is always a highlight: Boetie enlightened us on the interpretation of the Chinese flag and the national animal (the giant panda); Nielen pointed out that one in every 5 people on the planet is Chinese; Keith (again with visual device in hand) scrolled back 4000 years on a histomap, and Phil had the most entertaining fact about all Chinese jumping simultaneously and causing a tsunami to devastate the west coast of America, but later confessed that he made it up! He redeemed himself by quoting from his databank of Chinese Wisdoms.
Hopefully we can regain the balance between yin and yang next week, as we take a trip to Belgium!
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